Bruno Takeda is a Tokyo-based artist of Brazilian and Japanese descent. Up until now he’s been focused on performance, but he recently released an EP via Bandcamp.  While a skilled percussionist, his primary instruments are guitar, pedals and effects. The package features 5 tracks of laidback electro-acoustics.

Dive To Die sets strumming and picking to a broken samba beat. Playful programming sending sequences backwards and squeezing in the odd bleep. Fossil teams a patient, unhurried tick-tock-ing rhythm with lapping tide-like textures and muted, melodic feedback drones. Hypnotic cowbell and tabla touches eventually carrying the track, and listeners’ troubles off into the distance. Floating, Floating, generated almost exclusively on guitar, boasts a reverb warmth to rival vintage valve gear. Takeda also treating his slowly evolving, interlocking loops with gentle gating. This is all the sort chilled stuff you might expect to find, for example, on labels such as Chris Coco’s DSPPR. 

The standouts, however, are Hydrogen and its accompanying dub. Here, the careful collaging recalls Cafe De Flore-era Dr Rockit. The cannily crafted counterpoint moving to a spritely, sunshine-filled shuffle. While organic in origin, delicate drops of delay helping to introduce a level of intricacy folks might commonly associate with classic Japanese electronica. A complexity woven out of seeming simplicity by revered names such as Rei Harakami and Susumu Yokota. The dub then toughens the beat, and beefs up the bass. Little skanking licks creating a light lovers rock lilt. 

Bruno Takeda’s Dive To Die can be ordered directly from Asama Records.