This page–not even a blog–is made with a different purpose from others in the website. Because of Trumn manager's mild SNS allergy and inclination to an antiquated lifestyle, at this point both Trumn and he have no membership in MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, nor Discogs, let alone Twitter. Instead of joining them, here he puts in the first person singular some personal miscellany including his other involvement in music and more trivial things. Feel free to contact Hideho Takemasa via email. Note that he doesn't hope to sell nor trade the listed discs. Also refrain from asking his opinion on each.

Still lots of discs in the que.

The mIssing discs have appeared safe and sound.

Some for sheer listening pleasure. Some for next DJ at a hotel tea lounge. Paul Bley's 'Open, To Love,' Eno's '... Bush Of Ghosts,' and Computer Soup's 'Toizarasi' have been missing in my apartment...

As far as I remember. Unreleased discs are omitted from the list as usual. Still lots of discs in the que.

For the past months a pile of things to do have kept me away from theatres. 'Man on Wire,' a film I wanted to see in a large screen, already left a theatre located near Shinjuku train station. So I'll have to wait for a DVD release. Another film I'll see is 'Synecdoche, New York' by Charlie Kaufman, which seems coming this autumn here in Japan.

As far as I remember.

This is one of the most heavily-rotated discs at home for the past 3-4 weeks. Catalogue number 004 of France-based SEM label is a 43-minute long piece by Saito Koji. Lucky of me to stumble upon this at Magic Book Records mailorder. It was only a few weeks after my first contact with his music through 'Endless End' CD that came five years ago from a Magic Book Records' division called Mokume. The 'Beautiful' album I bought must be one of the copies allocated to the musician and subsequently wholesaled to the mailorder, whose owner wrote he managed to stock as scant as five copies.

I can't help playing this again and again. "As if looking at an endless sunrise," so says the mailorder manager. I have no better way than quoting this to sum up my surprise in a short sentence. The multi-layered repetitive stricture (not simple loop-based) leaves me a feeling like much shorter time experience than actual duration. Minimal is not an appropriate term. The point here is simplicity.

Who is Saito Koji? I have already listened to one of his recordings prior to this. However, I don't think I know him. Derek Baily, Otomo Yoshihide, and Kaoru Abe pop up in his bio as early influences that triggered him, but those luminaries must be nothing more than his favourite records or impressive concerts happened to him many years ago. Their names never tell his current mindset about music he creates. The blur artist photo explains he is a person reluctant to be in public. No website. No note attached to his latest release. Only concise text available on the SEM website. Two Saito Koji albums in my hands. Yet there remains the question. Who is Saito Koji?

Accessible information pertaining to the musician is quite limited to fragmented pieces to those who don't know him in person like me. Initially assured was only that Saito Koji is a Fukushima resident born in 1978 and made some solo recordings on the formats of CD or CD-R. Weirdly no contacts of mine in Tokyo have mentioned his name aside from the Magic Book owner and Yui Onodera who released 'Rhizome' on Gears Of Sand before Saito's 'Guitar' from the Delaware, US-based imprint. Saito's first Magic Book CD album came in 2004 following the CD-R trilogy on the same label, which denotes that the musician has been active for five years or longer. Also weird that I couldn't find any trace of his live performance.

How does he keep a relationship with his music? Does he have pseudonyms or other projects? I don't know. Is there an experimental / improvised music scene or community he mingles with in Fukushima? Maybe not. Does he often perform live in front of a local audience? Seems unlikely. It might be interesting to imagine that he unintentionally has acquired an ideal environment in his room where he plays and records on a daily basis focusing on creating his own music that remains a private thing. His music, especially 'Beautiful,' somehow convinces me that. My arbitrary imagination about the musician reminds of Tokyo-based Aoyama Masashi a.k.a. AMAGUMO, Musicguitar who I believe can share avid listeners with Saito.

It is a delightful moment when I find an email interview with the musician conducted by Magic Book owner Uchida in June 2007. Saito Koji behind the interview is not so far from the imaginary figure pictured in my head. I'd have to draw some points here. He studied abroad for two years in the UK, where he first picked up a guitar his friend gave him inviting him to a band. After coming back to Japan Saito became alone but continued playing guitar by himself. He recalled the style at the time as something noisy with an amp set at the maximum level. His first demo submission to the Magic Book Records led the subsequent Saito Koji releases on the label. Also found is an ongoing collaborative project with Uchida. Most noteworthy part is that he mentioned, in response to the interviewer's question, that he created his music hoping it to be pop music.

To get back to 'Beautiful,' this celestial, reverb-drenched long track features electronic equipment to compose but there is no need to hesitate to call his overall approach low-tech. A small sampler and a hard-disc recorder might be used to build the track. Otherwise process-based sound manipulation in a computer makes another possibility but his technique employed here must be something very limited. Saito's instrumental palette of keyboard for the riff and guitar are weaved and end up to acquire an elusive simplicity of layered drone that bathes listeners in an ecstatic driftage. Although being made with a back-and-forth repetitive structure with limited elements, I don't like to label the term of minimal on the gem. I have revisited the Magic Book mailorder to put his 'Guitar' album in a shopping cart and it has arrived already. Some distinct gap seemingly lies between 'Beautiful' and other Saito Koji albums I heard. The reason seems inexplicable but might stemmed from a personal issue of the musician. I think I'll look forward to a possible happy occasion I meet him in person.

The format of the limited edition of 300 copies is CD-R but its printing quality confirms not something home-burnt but a factory-made product. Also noteworthy is the simple, meticulous packaging of clean polypropylene case and deftly-typographied sticker. SEM strikes an elegant balance between the simplicity here and that of Saito's music over there.

This is the first post. Listed below are what I listened to in the past few months. The list includes my first, recurring, and repetitive listening, however works yet to be announced and demos are not shown in the list. Messages for correction would be appreciated.