Arts
This new mixtape comes from Kosei Fukuda, the Japanese producer and sound artist, who shares his time between Tokyo and Berlin and who has prepared a deep listening hybrid DJ mix. Fukuda camo to the scene in the late 2010s, attracting the attention of Berghain resident Tobias Freund. Fukuda's sound delves into minimalistic narratives and dark atmospheres, with a penchant for longer, conceptually inclined works which culminated in early 2020 in the two-vinyl collection of electro-acoustic improvisations compilation under the philosophical aegis of Enso featuring such acts as Recent Arts, Renick Bell or Rabih Beaini. Fukuda return returns with a full solo project, Reuten, his debut LP and his thirteenth release on the Reiten label – a platform he created to showcase his techno music and the more general, experimental aesthetic agenda of which the club music is but one face. Ruten is a Japanese concept whose closest Western counterpart is the ancient Greek notion of ‘panta rhei’. Referencing Heraclitus’ famous adage that ‘everything flows’ is not just the philosophical inspiration behind the album but also the succinct aesthetic manifesto of sorts. The two albums called Ruten – and Ruten + are meant to represent the principle of Ying & Yang, the two elemental forces and the eternal cycle of energy. As a whole, they signify a journey from the nascent being to the eventual dissolution of everything into nothing. Yet there’s still a deeper message at play: the omnipresence of patterns. Even the incessant flow of changes is patterned. The philosophers ask what it tells us about reality. The artists offer answers, each coded in the respective artistic language. In this work, Fukuda hints at the idea that a pattern is both an abstract structural quality and a concrete aesthetic value. The music is a complex sonic story about the interlocking meanings of pattern and flow, and it is a meditative exploration of the human experience of this entwinement.