de la chronique :
Tensions et dissonances surgissent des bavures sonores. Au bord de rythmes critiques les flows vont et viennent, articulation de mots noyée dans un feedback blanc. Des sons de la dernière trompette survivent une poésie portée par l'impact puissant de lames de fond et de caisse claire éclatante dessinant en discontinue les contours d'un Hip-Hop transcendantale.
LANDFORM de FUJAKO sortie sur l'imminent mutant hip-hop label WORDSOUND (dirigé par Spectre) est un disque à ne pas louper. HHY et Ripit conduisent masses et paysages sonores avec une tel résolution que l'aboutissement en est ce qu'on appelle un pure skud ! No joke, just listen It!!!
Darby Mullins darbychronics.blogspot.com
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Multi-instrumentistes passionnés et avides d'expérimentations, Ripit et HHY marquent avec Fujako une nouvelle étape dans leur aventure sonore. Aux antipodes du projet breakcore/noise qui liait à l'origine les deux compagnons, Landform explore la fragilité et l'éphémère, alliant avec aisance sonorités dub et hip-hop. Composé au coeur du Portugal, dans les montagnes solitaires de Serra de S. Marcàrio, Landform est empreint d'une atmosphère froide et ténébreuse. Tels des plasticiens trouvant dans la nature matière et inspiration, Fujako a puisé dans les paysages désolés et hostiles de ces contrées une source d'énergie et de création. De cet album émergent des mélodies lentes et torturées qui laissent planer une pesanteur mystérieuse et envoûtante. Porté dans les premiers titres par des flow MC méthodiques et puissants, Landform dérive ensuite peu à peu vers des sessions instrumentales, laissant s'immiscer influences abstrakt, blues, doom et Nô. S'appuyant sur les basses lourdes et saturées, chères aux Solar Skeletons, Landform hypnotise tout en développant un univers profond et fragile. Par cet album riche et travaillé, Ripit et HHY signent un opus des plus intriguants et touchants qui, telle une invitation au voyage, pousse à la rêverie.
Hélène Berthe
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Now this is underground. On the subterranean-as-muck WordSound label (past players: fleeting Jungle Brothers member Torture (recording as Sensational), Prince Paul, and members of New Kingdom), it may be approaching the summer season but this dub and echo saturated outing sounds like its two producer protagonists haven’t seen even a fleeting shard of sunlight in years. Warped and twisted beats threaten to mutilate your speakers, distorted and fractured vocals flit in and out of the mix (including a cameo from one-time Fun-Da-Mental man Scalper), and just for misanthropic kicks the whole shebang’s coated in an extra layer of grime and grit a la RZA’s experimental chamber on ‘Sub Crazy’. Challenging, intriguing, and guaranteed to scare the pants off small children.
Tom Nook HHC DIGITAL
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Fujako is the angst-ridden offspring of two producers - one Portuguese, one French - digging a vein of experimental hip hop laden with primal urges and savage beats. The collaboration's first opus, "Landform" (released digitally), heaps tailings high as mountains, a suitable backdrop to the refined, yet gritty, illbient ore these two have squeezed from the bowels of the earth. "Landform" is weighted with bass forged by sweat and stone, bolstered with acoustic instruments fired in devilish furnaces and articulated by voices raw from the fumes. To enter the rumbling soundscapes enclosed within this album is to journey to the desolate ends of uncharted territories, to test madness with incessant tapping and blaring foghorns, perhaps to return and perhaps not.
There is an intentionally rugged quality to Fujako's sound, an unfinished and entirely natural bent resulting from recording with mostly acoustic instruments. It suits the weathered spaces of "Landform" well, if one believes there is still a place for lo-fi sonic alchemist aesthetics in a world of all-too-often slick production and audio tricks. The release takes a defensive stance in this respect, becomes insular and imperforate, guiding the listener down a forbidding trail of rough beats and shuddering bass, windswept ghosts and lost drones, unsympathetic to the last. Vocals are enunciated, angry, refined and soulful, executed both in English and French.
Together, producers Jonathan Uliel Saldanha (a.k.a. HHY) and Nyko Esterle (a.k.a. Ripit), having purportedly sequestered themselves in a mountain studio in Portugal, engendered an unforgettable exegesis of post-hip hop norms (if such exist) and pushed the envelope for this genre with startling ferocity. Grinding bass stabs and twanging strings in minor keys seem to be their trademark, textured with sounds as understated as wooden wind chime blocks knocking together, scraping stones, or the fleeting crack of shattering glass. At times off-kilter, embracing a lazy sort of percussive chaos ("Ahjar Phantom"), at others ruminative, etching a mournful patina over bottomless bass ("Queda De Regoufe"), or over-the-top abrasive, reminding one that sheltering in a grotto during an earthquake may not be the best idea ("Preparation" and "Sulphur Goat"). With only seven tracks and one (dark ambient) remix to round things off, "Landform" is certainly a manageable dose for those curious; it won't disappoint.
-- Dutton Hauhart [8/10]
http://www.connexionbizarre.net
