Review Summary: in Triple Time/in Couples
With the exception of 'Sayonara' and perhaps a couple other Romanisations, my understanding of Katsuhiko Maeda's language is non-existent, so I can't be certain if his notion of humour is limited in the fact that a good chunk of
Last Waltz adopts its count, while, inversely, the opener that bears its name ticks in 4/4. What I'm sure of is that he's not shy about his compositional ways, and, from what I hear, he's probably not in the mood to project his lighter side either. Throughout these ten tracks, Maeda introduces the axis of his compositions rapidly and then revolves around it, adding or removing distortion, clicks, computerised effects, sporadic strings & female voices--all in minor. Halfway through "Plain Soleil", he drops everything, spiralling into a passage of clean guitar that a middlebrow composer would have used as a starting block, not an intermission; it's like he tries to reminisce about Halcyon days, while all that noise & personnel moves clinically through hallways that smell of bleach, gaining on them. This is no place for the flowers he carefully placed beside her.
That approach might agitate those with a preference for the minimal or the slow build-up, but for all its brusque behaviour,
Last Waltz retains the aftertaste of a soundtrack which proves surprisingly tied in as a whole. It reminds me of flicks that throw the audience amid the action, implementing various elements of the canon in a non-linear fashion, going back and forth through the timeline, making sense once it's all over. Take for instance "Radioactive Spell Wave": it shouldn't have worked out. I mean, he adopts so many different motifs within the first couple of minutes; the way that he vigorously fits it all together--removing, reintroducing, transforming and blending them--during the remaining eight comes as a stunner. If there were an audio-graph available to depict his waves, one examining it would be thoroughly surprised that it has anything to do with humans carrying out a steady pulse: with cardio-graphs, with charts belonging to loved ones, with his muse.
Like I said, I don't speak Japanese in order to make something (other than a single 'goodbye') out of "in Silence/in Siren", but I think... I feel that "The Girl" is dying, and this is an account of his time with her. He details the dances they had danced, the flowers he had offered, the moment of the realisation that it was all going to end, and the more flowers he brought her while they fought against it. As for the end itself, it brings to mind a music-box featuring a rotating couple, dancing around atop its cylinders, ticking away. Maeda might deter the ones that can't stomach such narratives, those who'll dub his automatons clunky or melodramatic, or those who never had the pleasure to experience the steps of something as basic as the Waltz; while the closer fades out, and the monitor beside her blinks its rhythm--I don't think they care.
