Anoice - Stories in White

A Closer Listen

Anoice‘s The Black Rain was one of the first albums we ever reviewed, way back in the winter of 2012.  It went on to be named as one of our Best Albums of the Decade.  A sequel, Ghost in the Clocks, arrived seven years later.  Finally, after another half-decade, Stories in White completes the trilogy.

The albums are unified by Yoko Shinto’s cover art.  The protagonist, who was weeping on the first cover and standing on the second, has again collapsed, her landscape less promising, as if a round of prospects had fallen through.  Her arc seems to mirror that of humanity in a downward spiral.  Only five years ago, Chris Redfearn-Murray wrote of the ending of Ghost, “people rebuild and nations heal.”  How swiftly the pendulum swings to the other side.

Anoice’s music has never been just about Japan.  While The Black Rain might have been interpreted as a reaction to the Fukushima disaster, and by extension Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the connection was never cemented.  Instead, Anoice’s music lends itself to more general interpretations, the new album dedicated “for all those who lost their freedom.”  This being said, one can find messages in the album’s first two videos, beginning with “aria,” directed by Matthew S. Krivolapov and based on his film Tohu Wa-Bohu. This elegant piece, written for piano and strings, drips with sorrow.  A woman walks through the forest, her dress unraveling; she lurches through a sodden marsh on her knees before lying down on a river bank, an image analogous to Yoko Shinto’s cover.  Absent from the video, but present in the film, is an image of the woman caught in a massive white web.  The video ends as the music falls silent, but the album version continues with pensive percussion, a denouement or deepening of the distress.

The images for the oddly titled “Kill Lies All” (one expects “Kill All Lies”) are even more obvious, the track much harsher, with surging guitars, pounding percussion and vocal iterations that imitate the countdown of Ghost.  A series of subjects covers their eyes, ears and mouths:  see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  Their backdrops begin with high-rises and end in desolation.  As the images tumble, one sees a flooded street, a crumbling infrastructure.  Then the faces themselves begin to morph; the fingers vibrate.  At first one is not sure what one is seeing, but by the end the flesh is clearly flowing.  The final image is that of a child.  Again, the video ends before the song; the ambient chaser is like an aftermath, the near-silence that follows the results of inaction.

“Tohu Wa-Bohu” is said to be about “pain and compassion, liberation and catharsis.”  Anoice offers the same with their music.  The three albums beg to be played consecutively, both in concert and at home.  The flow is remarkable, with repeated motifs emerging when one connects the pieces.  Each contains an early flutter of static, like messages begging to break through; each experiments with a gulf of sudden silence.  Military snares are never far from the mix.  The first wave of emotion is borne by the first installment; the sun begins to come out on the second, but Stories in White ends in an “eclipse.”  Penultimate piece “the rain maker” hearkens back to Black Rain, eliminating the hope of Ghost, which began with “after the rain” and ended with “the light.”  The radio waves of “note to ourselves” throw the listener back in time, to a period of fear and turmoil when people huddled around their speakers for news.  Unlike Ghost, Stories in White is solidly, unapologetically post-rock, as evidenced in tracks such as “resonance,” “kill lies all” and “the rain maker,” although the orchestral elements are just as strong.  It’s as if the piano and strings were meant to serenade a sweeter time, and the guitars were forced to return to deal with the problems of the current age.

The quiet pieces serve as respites, especially “night before the rain” and “brain fog,” which patter about like jobless, improvised afternoons.  The latter offers the sound of footsteps and a possible explanation – not an excuse – for our current condition.  In-between lies “lament,” an orchestral expression of mourning; behind them lies the twelve-minute centerpiece, “the rain maker.”  And here they are again: the drones and sirens and military drums, signaling a new round of disaster, as unease leans inexorably into chaos, an operatic voice singing over the tumult and rising seas. What have we done? Anoice seems to ask, or even worse, what have we done again?

The album’s only hope is found in implication.  Should one choose, one might hear tricycle wheels in the closing track, turning slowly before the rain arrives.  By ending the set in an “eclipse,” Anoice reminds listeners that people once thought an eclipse was the end of the world, when it was only a momentary darkness.  Let’s hope this parable applies to humanity as well.  (Richard Allen)