Repressed Explosion: Kotaro Itou

Everything about Kotaro Itou screams “minimalism.” Assuming something so spare would bother to shout. His MySpace bears very little content, info about the guy barely exists and then we come to the music. Itou’s two newest releases Japan’s Moph Records are slight pieces of minimalist dance music. Yet while those first two points could drive a blogger nuts, the latter definitely ends up being a treat. “E5” guts a club beat down to only the most basic shakes and bloops, with only the occasional X-ray machine-live wave running beneath the song. Even when “E5” hits it’s peak, the only signs of further rowdiness come via a more pronounced beat and a couple more creepy glitches. The other track, “Parallelogram,” also veers towards that minimal construction favored by the Germans. So little means a whole lot here. Listen to samples (not even full songs, dude knows how to keep a theme) right over here.