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Reviews

The Adelaidean — Tokoro
(Projekt no#, 2025, DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-07-18

Tokoro Cover art

Australian sound sculptor Sean Williams (a.k.a. TheAdelaidean) is back with this new (effectively) two-disc set — though it’s only available as a download at this point, and will probably remain as such. As with his last album, Distant Objects in Soft Focus from 2024, this is a beautifully crafted set of floating ambient pieces, seemingly inspired by dreams of being in a world both familiar and alien. Tokoro is a Japanese word with a multitude of different meanings, a discussion of which is well beyond the scope of this review, although the liner notes on the Bandcamp page say this, which is as good as it gets in describing the overall feeling herein: “Tokoro guides the listener through the strangeness of belonging somewhere without fitting in and is as much about the artist’s preconceptions as it is about the real Japan that lies behind them.” To be clear, very little of what’s here on Tokoro sounds particularly Japanese — maybe some sound samples or field recordings that show up on occasion — but mostly this is about a feeling, as described using synths, loops, strings, bells, samples, and whatever else Williams had at this disposal in the studio, although I do hear some kind of Japanese keyboard instrument (some sort of organ) in places, which is just enough (along with the titles) to capture the imagination. The first half (or “Disc 1”) contains seven relatively short pieces like “Winter Belongs to the Karasu,” “Priests of the Forest,” “Komaba Dream,” and “Sunset over Meguro,” ranging from three to ten minutes, all leading up to the epic “Cherry Blossom Petals Falling - Forever - Shinjuku Billboard” that clocks in at an hour and six minutes. A listener can easily get immersed in any of these, but the latter, mainly due to its extra length, certainly has that capability. The second half (or “Disc 2”) is made up primarily of shorter edits and alternate mixes of six of the seven pieces from the first half, including “Cherry Blossom Petals Falling… (Koutako Mix).”  All taken, Tokoro stands with some of TheAdelaidean’s finest releases like Hyperaurea and Eternity Is. Fans of floating ambient sounds can’t go wrong here.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): The Adelaidean (Sean Williams)

More info
http://projektrecords.bandcamp.com/album/tokoro

 

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