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Asphalt/Concrete is the sound of Osaka, or more specifically, that of Masayuki Imanishi‘s Osaka. The artist records the sounds of “ordinary everyday life,” emphasizing that “all sounds were captured within my immediate vicinity.” Fortunately, Imanishi has a particularly rich sonic neighborhood, or simply the right ears to hear it.
The opening sounds are akin to breath, although they are not breath; one might call this the breath of a city. From this point, the sonic field expands rapidly, from rushing waters to bicycle wheels to squawking birds, all with an undercurrent of commerce in the form of an undulating drone. The human element frequently disappears, a light astonishment given the population of 2.7 million. Traffic passes without words, as if it is a mechanical arm or leg. Squadrons of birds descend in a maelstrom of rain that vanishes as quickly as it appears. Saddling up to this section is another that packed with industry: machines and their workers, a reminder of the clash between nature and technology. Somehow Imanishi makes it all seem harmonious. Children play while water gurgles nearby, a juxtaposition that may or may not be real, a reminder that many things are always happening at once, but that our ears are typically attuned to only one environment at a time.
The recording locations provide clues to help unlock the sounds: Matsuyamachi (a 1km shopping strip), Ogimachi Park (not to be confused with Ogimachi Village), typically filled with children, the elderly and people on work breaks, Osaka Station, Tama River. These disparate locations form a walking path: for the recording artist, a life. Every once in a while a street musician plays, but for the most part the city is the music. Whenever the city’s “breath” returns, one regards it as a living organism. Do all cities sound like this? Might one hear the same respiration, experience the same circulation, around one’s own locale? Wherever one lives, the invitation remains the same: listen. (Richard Allen)
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