Album "Unphysical"
The album "Unphysical" was released in 9 April 2021 as The FURICO Music Team's (FMT) first album (except for extended plays) so that it can be distributed via about 30 streaming services by being reposted by SoundCloud. There is no tangible package released. (For more details on FMT, please have a look at the "About FMT" page.)
Despite the "first" album, the tracks are not necessarily FMT's earliest ones; the album contains eight tracks as follows:
(Each notes are linked)
8. Bali Bach
(A playlist "UNPHYSICAL Album" on YouTube is also available here.)
TM, the producer and one of two members of FMT, explains on the album:
"Unphysicality" as FMT's Identity
FMT repeatedly emphasise that "we want to hear it, but it's not anywhere, so we create it by ourselves", "Funky and funny in a serious way" could have been the theme of our first album, but if so we could not have chosen particular tracks because all our tracks show such notions, I think. For this album, we decided to select works that have stronger features of being "directly connected from our heads", which is very important to us. The theme of the collection is, thus, "Unphysicality" as FMT's identity.
While I was selecting the tracks, I found that FMT's arrangement is especially quirky in that the tracks are basically arranged while being composed and being mixed. That is related to the unphysicality of FMT's music. FMT do not make composition with any physical instrument and we do not have to arrange it afterwards from one instrument to many, like spreading butter. Similarly, as FMT do not play the instrument, we can mix and make arrangement simultaneously. In other words, the unphisicality makes production processes borderless.
I have heard some musicians saying something like "digital music can connect directly from the head" and the unphysicality is not FMT's unique concept. But we believe it can be further developed.
In my view, most of the head-connected musicians have made only the most primitive layers of music including phrases, tones and groove unphysical. Such layers were taken place electronically in the 1970s to 90s, which was precious moments in the music history but not much has evolved especially after the year 2000 or so. I suspect it must be deeply related to the historical background where the whole music industry has given up being artistic in these decades.
FMT try to make other, deeper layers unphysical. Atonal rather than tonal. Scale music and dyads instead of chordal music. Radical changes by unphysical composition and recording. Transformation in rhythms through polyrhythms, making existing instrument into chromatic percussion and unphysical groove. Structural experiments, and so forth.
These are too complicated to create within our heads. In my image it is just the primitive layer to "directly embody the phrase or arrangement that rang in the head", for example, we use notations as an extension of our heads. It's like an extended internal memory. There it goes back and forth (between the heads and the score).
It's often said that "FMT songs have so much information", but that's not a matter of the actual amount of information, it just sounds like that because the layers we have touched are different. We play music in dimensions different from the principles that we have been used to for several hundred years. In that sense, it's a qualitative difference, rather than quantitative.
In other words, "the unphysicality in the deeper layers" means replacing the almost implicit assumptions that underpin the physicality. For instance, tonality and chordal harmony was developed for the sake of our fingers or body with the advent of instruments like keyboards, and the musical methodology presupposes the physicality. Well, what if the unphysicality can be premised? That is one of the most critical viewpoints of FMT's endeavours, which is the theme of the album, "unphysicality as our identity."
How Unphysical are these 8 Tracks?
We have written the production notes on all those tracks. TM adds some more explanation for each of them:
Ondo Of Fortified Id
The track was released in August 2020, along with "Ondo Of Evaporated Ego" as "The Ondo Series." At the stage of my composition, this has the most direct connection to our heads. It's a very physical music style called Ondo, and I hope you to enjoy the gap.
This track well reflects my musical background or the influence from various artists on myself when I was young, but they are not all unphysical. Their music is, however, not necessarily based on the standard physicality and I touched a part that is not a primitive layer unphysically in this piece. It's atonal, scale-based (though unobvious), heavy use of dyads, polyrhythms, chromatically-percussive methods, restructuring the structure, etc. I put this first because it's packed with a lot of things like I wrote above in the track.
(For more details please see the Notes on Ondo Of Fortified Id.)
Saint-Germain-En-Laye
The track "Saint-Germain-En-Laye" was released in March 2019, focusing on "what Claude Debussy saw." In terms of direct connection from the head, I strongly remember when I created this motif. Although it is a piano phrase, it has no physical connection, meaning we did not play the piano on composing it at all.
It's, nevertheless, not just something as simple as "a phrase that comes to mind." Write on the score and go back and forth saying, "Then next should be this note or this harmony."
Debussy also changed a deeper layer: for instance, the principles of harmony, the idea of bars, irregularities, tonality, etc. While he did it physically, this track alters the same layer unphysically.
As for the gamelan and drums, if they played phisically, they would have to be played by two players and it would be extremely difficult for them to play such a elaborately designed rhythm.
(For more details please see the Notes on Saint-Germain-En-Laye.)
Recamouflage 3: Old School
"Recamouflage 3: Old School" was released in November 2019, and one of the three versions grouped for "Recamouflage."
I was going to bring in "Recamouflage 2: Identity" here, since it has the "identity." TI gave me a comment that Recamouflage 3 was more suitable because 3 abstracted 2, which abstracted 1 re-arranged from Mirjam Keijnemans's song. Absolutely true.
So, this track turned her physically-written song to be unphysical and symbolises unphysical arrangement. In other words, ordinary arrangement is unlikely to change the key, tonality and basic chords, whereas FMT reformed them to ambiguously-keyed, nearly atonal, complexly-structured-chords music. In Recamouflage 3 few elements remained from 1, where few were left from Mirjam's original song. It's very unphysical in that sense. Of course, we love her original track and singing, which we tried to exploit in 1. We are so grateful that Mirjam had much interests in such developments.
(For more details please see the Notes on Recamouflage 1/2/3.)
Hyper Chase For The Ruins
The tracks called "Hyper Chase For The Ruins" and "Cyber-Excavating The Ruins" might have been put together into the "Ruins" series or something. Just after releasing Hyper in December 2019, we made Cyber, both of which aim the unphysical construction of acoustic instruments (sounding very physical).
Locating these two tracks in the middle of this album was one of my central plans. As you may know, there used to be A- and B- sides in phonograph records and cassettes until CDs took their place. Hyper and Cyber would be separate between A- and B- sides. Even though digital streaming does not care about that, it symbolises a "story" being continued throughout the album.
Especially, the guitar is completely unphysical, because neither of us can play that well. We purely drew something like "I want to listen to this kind of guitar." It's probably not impossible (or merely unknown) to play it, but it's definitely not realistic.
However, the idea of making a computer play something unplayable was not particularly our aim. Instead, perhaps most guitarists' fingers or bodies are very unlikely to play that way. This piece was supposed to be played by a trio of piano and cello (or strings) as well as guitar, and all of them have such a feature. Each part plays in ways human players probably do not think of, but perhaps the guitar part does most. Moreover, the three instruments are intricately intertwined, which is quite difficult for different people to play. That is why I think it's an extremely unphysical track.
(For more details please see the Notes on Hyper Chase For The Ruins.)
Cyber-Excavating The Ruins
Similarly to the previous track "Hyper Chase For The Ruins", "Cyber-Excavating The Ruins" was to try to unphysicalise acoustic-instruments-centred music and was released in January 2020.
"To unphysicalise acoustic instruments" means in this case the orchestra. While in general orchestral composers tend to create central phrases or harmonies and then apply them to an orchestra, the very first thing that I did was to open a notation set for an orchestra (ie, a sheet having orchestral parts). I directly composed this on the orchestral notation. It should have been impossible for us without our notation software ("MuseScore"), which connotes the unphysicality. TI often says it's definitely meaningful that we use the notation; I totally agree.
As symbolized by the breakbeats, we also added to the orchestra many parts that even we cannot imagine how to sound if assuming a physical orchestra. TI called it "prosthesis orchestra", though it required us a lot of work during the arrangement <--> mixing stage. This is unphysicality itself as well, I would name it.
(For more details please see the Notes on Cyber-Excavating The Ruins.)
Nested Quartets
"Nested Quartets" was released in August 2019. I located this here in the sixth place almost first. Nowhere but here.
The reason is that we touched the deep "unphysicality" layer of the structure of the music, or I would say that the track is made up of the structural unphysicality only. That is why I wanted to put it in an important position (for me), not at the beginning, but not at the end. As a general rule of this particular track, it is made entirely of quartets.
However, the sets of the four parts in the quartets are diverse even within the track and nested as the title suggests, though it could be too hard to understand that just by listening to it. This method can hardly be applied unless unphysicality is a prerequisite. If we had made it physically, I guess it would have ended up with just chaos. Assuming unphysical, you can even change how to make it. This track symbolises that.
(For more details please see the Notes on Nested Quartets.)
Vista At Takeoff
"Vista At Takeoff" was released in June 2019, batched together with "Vista At Landing." This is about structural unphysicality as well. "Complex beauty with high-speed ambient" is the concept.
I thought this album would be well-balanced if Takeoff was incorporated. This track is also an important work for me, and it repeats the "mode (or scale) modulations" instead of modulations, which is a technique I have used frequently since then. There is an arpeggio-like sound that repeats rising in every bar presents the mode and it changes in part. If you change the key signature in the normal modulation, the mode and key will become completely different, but the mode modulations here change just some notes in the arpeggio up or down by a semitone.
This effect is very interesting; the atmosphere changes subtly or drastically. Although something similar occurs when it's normally modulated, in tonal music there are only two choices between major and minor (except for the key parameter). There are so various options for mode modulations in that there are countless modes.
Besides, although polyrhythm often appears in this track, the percussion is not always at the center of the rhythm. Since the arpeggio leads the rhythm, the percussion such as conga is rather used as a polyrhythmic deviation. I have never heard such music. As a matter of fact, I cannot assert it's impossible in live performance, but I do think it should be extremely difficult for sure. That does not really matter at all for unphysical music.
(For more details please see the Notes on Vista At Takeoff/Landing.)
Bali Bach
"Bali Bach" is the youngest track in this album, released in January 2021. It has the concept of the combination of the Balinese music and Johann Sebastian Bach. A physically impossible combination. I put this at the end as I hoped to pose a question to the genre-oriented music world.
I wanted the last two tracks to be emotional or sentimental; Vista At Takeoff and Bali Bach are tracks in which we tried to generate emotion or sentiment unphysically. When physical-based musicians intend to create emotion, they are highly likely to use "patterns". It's as if they said "If you use this code progression this way, you'll be moved." Takeoff and Bali Bach eliminated that altogether. Honestly, it was difficult, but I am hugely happy it worked.
Furthermore, although it's based on old music like the Balinese and Bach, we always want to treat it neutrally, whether it's "music that has come out this year" or "music born 1000 years ago." Locating Bali Bach last is such an intention of mine.
(For more details please see the Notes on Bali Bach.)
Thank you. We FMT hope you to enjoy it.
TM
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