mnml ssgs mx27: koss

SSGs is proud to present its latest podcaster, Sapporo’s Kuniyuki Takahashi, aka Kuniyuki, aka Koss. To the unfamiliar, Kuniyuki is a sound designer, musician and producer, most of whose works have appeared on the mule family of labels. He’s worked with (or been re-worked by) YMO’s Haruomi Hosono, Terre Thaemlitz, Theo Parrish, Heinrik Schwarz, Cobblestone Jazz, Tony Lionni, Chateau Flight, and a Mountain of One (among others). He’s also released three extraordinary albums in the past few years: with pianist Saiko Tsukamoto as Saikoss (somewhere between nsi’s play’s non-standards and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s solo piano work); with various collaborators as Kuniyuki for All These Things, which stretched effortlessly between ambient, jazz/house and techno; and, finally, as Koss. The 2006 Koss album Four Worlds Converge as One is, to me, easily one of the best ambient albums of the last few years. As with Kuniyuki’s other projects, the hallmarks are of a highly developed sense and sensibility, including an incredible ear for sonic detail and beauty and an intuitive sense of flow, backgrounded by a strongly ‘elemental’ aesthetic, where each element, left in its naturally expressive form, interacts (coolly, calmy, cosmically) with the others.

For this SSG set, Kuniyuki appears in his Koss guise, building and blending layers of looped elements into a gliding, grooving, elegant house assembly that floats like a butterfly, and kicks like a mule. It's a beauty, and it's here


.