Trembling Strain ~ Anthem to Raise the Dead [Belle Antique]

1. Funeral March — 8:19
2. In Dreams, We Are Together (Again I) — 9:06
3. Condlence Alarm — 1:13
4. Nothing Lasts Forever — 7:42
5. Fu-ka — 5:34
6. In Mourning in a Rain — 4:49
7. From the Window of a Pallid Tower — 4:17
8. What the Bird Told Me — 7:41
9. At Marsh — 5:40

Pneuma [Satoru Takazawa] ~ violin, santur, hand drums, log drum, music saw, percussion
Yulihito ~ vocal, cello, stick bell
Akira ~ vocal, stick bell, bamboo claves, synphonia
Shin Yamazaki ~ guitar, oud, koen, sharmai, recorder, alarm
Yuko Suzuki ~ Irish harp, African harp, chimes, vocal
Shinji Kuroki ~ biwa



'Trembling Strain is the project of musician Pneuma, whose real name according to sources I've read is Satoru Takazawa [apparently, he works in the field of psychiatry by day]. The aptly titled Anthem to Raise the Dead is a captivating work that springs from some deep, unconscious well, weaving within its 54 minutes a world of desolation and dread.

You've heard the old saying 'Less is more.' Nobody knows how to employ that adage as effectively in their arts as the Japanese. One immediately thinks in listening to this of the minimalist sound designs also characteristic of some Japanese horror films—not only the more recently successful Western imports such as The Grudge, but stretching back to older classics like Kwaidan—where percussive cracks, booms, and rattles are metered out to set the listener's hairs perennially on edge.

Yet at the same time throughout this work there is a rooted, ascetic spiritual element, and it wouldn't be too unreasonable to describe the band as an Asian kindred spirit to Popol Vuh. The band combines an array of stringed and percussion instruments [including the Japanese biwa] with vocal and organic sounds to produce elegant canvasses that seem to reach back throughout the centuries and to the departed lives that lived in them. This sense of spirituality gives the album a considerable degree of heart and dimension.

Tracks such as 'Funeral March' and 'From the Window of a Pallid Tower' are the pieces most in keeping with the title, and both make you feel immediately like you've been sealed inside some ancient Japanese crypt. The former piece opens with the heavy thud of a deep drum, then continues with the emergence of a sparse rhythm, the comfortless clang of chimes and wind noises, and zombie-gasps of the dead. The latter is an unsettling dirge with cello and doom-laden vocals, sounding like the Dead Can Dance having a nightmare. 'In Dreams We Are Together' follows the same expanded instrumental structure as 'Funeral March,' though is more melancholic in mood rather than sinister. It features a similar ritualistic beat, but replaces the various other percussions and ambience with a melodic stringed instrument and an androgynous, ghostly vocalist delivering a tormented aria to embrace the listener.

The band also includes several tracks that are amelodic and emphasize purely textural elements, yet are still very much in keeping with the mood of the album. For example, 'Condlence Alarm' [sic] from the title track suite is just that—a shrieking minute's worth of horns wailing to lament the dead. 'In Mourning in Rain' features what sounds like someone dumping a mass of pebbles onto a floor, together with shaker percussion and a female voice humming away tentatively.

On the entirely other end of the spectrum, 'What the Bird Told Me' is one of the most beautiful and accessible pieces on the album. It is also one of the few moments of repose, being a spotless interweaving of dulcimer, harp, and guitar amidst natural water sounds.

This may be a bit too spacious and thinly decorated for some, and if you like lots of notes and formal structure over atmosphere, this might not be for you. However, I find this to be a very potent album from a sadly under-mentioned band. How rare to get these albums, which from the start wholly abandon the surface to go in directly for something deeper, unspoken, and primitive.' ~ Joe McGlinchey

i really dug this band. i wish i still had more of their albums but they were lost in the whirlwind. this is their debut released in 1994, which remains a very potent & evocative expression. some ritual sounding schtuff