Takahiro Kido - Insomnia

A Closer Listen

What if insomnia were a great black black ball of smoke, drifting above thoroughfares, slowly unfurling into ovoid shapes before spreading its tentacles across the land?  What if it were to descend upon the general populace, creeping insidiously lower and lower until it cloaked local buildings and was inhaled by those below?  What if it became virtually indistinguishable from the night?  Yuki Murata’s video for Takahiro Kido‘s title track may be seen as a metaphor, but the subject might be extended to depression, apathy, or even the state of the world today.  The music follows suit: foreboding, patient, enveloping.  On this track, Kido is joined by other members of Anoice, who will reappear throughout the set.  Insomnia contains tracks with the full band and tracks with string quartet, but Kido’s piano is the central instrument, seeking to reflect not only insomnia in general, but a state of dis-ease and disconnect.  The monochrome puzzle that comes in the physical box is a further manifestation.

As “northern waltz” starts, the impression of melancholy is palpable.  Typically, insomniac are worried about one thing or another, from specific events to general anxiety to the simple difficulty of getting to sleep, compounded by worry about the next day should one not get enough sleep.  The theme matches well with Anode’s Stories in White, which completed a long-gestating trilogy.  Kido has himself gone nine years between solo albums, Insomnia being his eighth.  When he speaks of the “clock hands and bells” of the Czech Republic, where the last album was recorded and where the artist suffered the malady, one appreciates the connection with time; as these sounds find their way into the mix, one marvels at the way in which an annoyance can become incorporated into a soundscape.  “refrain” is filled with such chimes, now operating as a lullaby, melodic and pure.  In “children in the reverie,” they hold center stage as the earlier menace and melancholy give way to peace.  Has the insomniac finally been able to sleep, or made peace with the world?

By “gravity,” the night seems to have descended again, mirroring the point in the “insomnia” video when the darkness falls to earth.  The piano notes are girded by dramatic strings and a momentary, clicking pause in the second minute.  One imagines this gravity as the weight of the world, bearing down.  “light sleep” (better than no sleep) sparkles with guitar and shimmers like the rising sun, while “nocturne,” the album’s most intimate piece, bathes the piano in reverberant hum.  The bells toll again in “the liquidator,” this time pealing like those of a church, time closing in on the sleeper.  In the final moments, one can hear a clock.  The album closes with the quiet “mirage,” causing one to wonder, was it all a dream?  Or to paraphrase the ancient koan, was the insomniac dreaming that they could not sleep?  Grateful that the condition eventually passed, Kiro penned this gorgeous album, which may be too immediately engaging to induce sleep, but will provide a fine companion for those who are awake.  (Richard Allen)