Review from XLR8R

Is it a rule that abstract electronic labels must launching with limited-edition compilations? Japan's SAAG Records will be excused for following rules, because Anchor and Hiiro are filled with top-notch beats and melodies.

Some of the featured names, like Logreybeam and Octopus Inc. will be familiar from labels like Merck and Schematic, but plenty of unknowns from the Japan scene round things out. Hiiro is more beat-oriented, epitomized by Julien Neto's "Amenimo", which stretches grainy pads over whispers in Japanese and triplet taps, while Anchor favors beat-less soundscapes like Toshiaki Ooi's spacious, strange "Energy in Woods".

Review from DE:BUG

Die zweite Compilation des neuen Japanischen Labels ist etwas poppiger, bluhender als die erste, stellt die Beats weiter in den Vordergrund und kommt mit Leuten wie Kettel, Taisuke Masono, Yuzo Kato, Formatt, Ghislain Poirier stellenweise sehr sweet, dann wieder verzaubert romantisch, oder auch schon mal harsch verdreht daher, immer aber mit sehr viel Flow und einem Sinn dafur ungewohnliche Sounds durch den Raum clicken zu lassen. Von Kleinkindhaftem Charme bis hin zu Rasternoton ahnlichen pulsierenden Clicktracks ein Fest.

Review from Staal Plaat "VITAL WEEKLY" (#406)

This is the second release by Saag, a small label from Japan. It's their second compilation called Hiiro. The first very nice compilation Anchor was reviewed here before, see Vital 360.

What's on this Hiiro compilation? - 68 minutes of music, 14 tracks from 14 different artists, some more and some less known. I'd suggest checking the links-page at Saag's site for more info about the artists. The compilation opens with a great track from Modir (unknown to me), nice idm-tune with great voice samples. The second track is from Taisuke Matsuo. He's doing the same very efficient trick like in some tracks from his Observatory EP (see Vital 399). In his track here called Owlis, Taisuke takes one sequence and repeats it for some time until the potential is revealed. Maybe that's how Goem would sound if they made idm music? :-)

There are more obvious idm tunes on Hiiro, from Kettel (also known from labels like Kracfive and Neo Ouija), Sabi, Toshiaki Ooi, Akar, Opia and others... Toshiaki Ooi has a nice rhythmic track, very different from his tracks on the previous Anchor compilation and on (now not functioning) Desk Elephant net label, but also very appealing. In the meantime, Toshiaki participated to the Hydrogen Dukebox label, and now has made a great fairytale idm track for Hiiro. The contributions from Purusha & Urkuma and Ent are more mixed up and twisted. There are other tracks from Octopus Inc, Formatt, Ghislain Poirier, Yuzo Kako and Julien Neto. Formatt's track is a slightly different (almost the same) version of his Glazed track from the Connections EP (see Vital 393). Julien Neto is a perfect closer, and Ghislain Poirier is not ambient-dub at all. Ghislain's short track sounds more like broken hip-hop/break-beat.

There are many stand-out tracks on this compilation that deserve close listening. Great release from Saag with magical music that can be compared with the music that comes from one of the leading labels for these kinds of musical expression: Neo Ouija. New Magic.

Review from Cyclic Defrost

IDM has been in crisis for a while, suffering from a directionless-ness that has come from a plateau-ing of technology, the stagnation point for a musical style whose lifespan was artificially extended by the spread of digital signal processing (DSP), soft synths, and glitch.

Hiiro is a very plain looking compilation of fractured IDM from Japanese label Saag and in these days of general over stock and over supply of electronic music I'm surprised to see such a plain cover. Inside there is a solid representation of some of the Japanese scene as well as ring-ins from elsewhere ?

Octopus Inc, Kettel and Ghislain Poirier. Full of those icy mid-90s IDM synths and fractured static beats reminiscent of some of the early releases on Schematic, Hiiro suffers at times from its derivativeness. The standouts are all Japanese - Taisuke Matsuo's pure Schematic-style splinters and delicate melodic flecks; Yuzo Kako's pure sci-fi synth and tone pulses; Purusha & Urkama's skipping gloom; Akar's crumpled lumbering beat and crumbling industrial glitch.

Review from Sutemos

Although the religion of Japanese culture is lulling nouradays (as i predicted this situation in my Made In Japan article (transalation is on the way)) but this kind of art (let's call it this way) is still attracting attention and remaining interesting. Although there aren't many Japenese parts in this compilation, but the most important one still remains the Japenese label SAAG Records. It was founded by artists who calls himself Sabi. His track is the one of the most beautiful pieces of the compilation and it is called Hiiro.

A little bit of history at first. It is a second compilation release by SAAG (both are limited editions) and both of them have a bunch of guest (non-japanese) artists. The Anchor compilation (in a nice cardboard sleeve) was released last year and there were only few artists from the land of rising sun which were acompanied by Longreybeam (Yasume), Proswell, Ilkae (from Merck), Sense (with his absolutely unexpected Simple Jam track). However Hiiro is a little bit simplier and less exprimental so it is more acceptable (at least for me).

The start of Hiiro is made by a never heard before Modir who is deforming the femal vocal and sticking it on the pretty clear IDM layer. Next one is a very successful track of Taisuke Matsuo. Very professional and well-made synthetic product. Lots of one sheet variations play along the the four minutes long Owlis - that is interesting. Technical, fast, memorizable creation. Replay. Next one is Kettel who has released a fantastic ambient piece on U-Cover recently. He is in the stratosphere of oldschool which is lightly fastened to the limits of IDM. As I have mentioned before one of the strongest compositions of the compilation is performed by Sabi. Plastic Stains has surprised me a bit because I didn't think that Sabi was the one who enjoyed synthetically angled rhythms. Ambient spaces (which he loves a lot) are gone here because they are tranformed into a beautiful background with a sweet, shaded rhythm. Sabi is very good at this point. Yuzo Kako has created a stuff that is smoewhere between Richard Devine and Sense. Japanese guy Akar serves us one of the most mystic tracks of the compilation. It is a really well researched and quality vision of abstractedness. Very Good! Toshiaki Ooi - a pleasant, sensitive and very vivacious track. Everything is soooo simple and carefree. Comfortable. You can hear two tracks of Opia and Julien Neto in the end - those are very light and fresh. Damn I just love this kind of style...

Let's get to the bad things. As I have mentioned before this compilation is less experimental than Anchor but there are some faulty episodes (or, if to be more exact, the episodes that do not fit the whole content) left. An abstract track of Ent called Hi! Altought the sample are very quality and interesting but they do not fit the content of Hiiro at all. The same happens with a weaker tracks of Octopus Inc., Ghislain Poirier and Formatt - these four sequential tracks spild the fantastic mood (that was created before) a bit. This is the only thing that prevented this compilation from the highest grade.