Stories in White is the 7th album from the Tokyo-based instrumental band, Anoice, released on the band’s own label, Ricco Label. This is the final chapter in a trilogy of records about the modern history of humans, following The Black Rain and Ghost in the Clocks. The album consists of beautiful and passionate neo-classical rock songs for piano, string quartet, and electronics.

This record is a journey.

Although, a journey that hesitates to define itself in certainties and exactitudes, and therefor, it’s a journey that changes on every listen.

I’ve been a consistent fan of Anoice, as well as their members’ solo and side projects, for some years, and I would say its almost second nature to these artists to strive to create the most cinematic, epic musical triumphs. Not necessarily the biggest or loudest music, or the heaviest or darkest, but at times this band really knows how to strike the rightest chords with the most tear-jerkingest arrangement.

They lean so properly into emotive diatonic ascensions and dramatic, nostalgic descents that when it all comes together and the band lets that drama just hang in the air a little bit, listeners like me, like you, can’t help but gasp a little bit as the imaginary narrative takes flight.

Imaginary narratives…

Wait, what? I used this term just now as if it were that commonly understood or used an expression so as to just blurt it out there. It is not. What is an imaginary narrative exactly? If you read a novel you’re experiencing a very deliberate, constructed narrative, even if it is loose or deconstructed. It’s there by design. Same thing with film. In music, however, likewise in contemporary dance and abstract or expressionist painting, things can definitely get a little bit more nebulous there.

Are you really going to tell me that a major chord progression always sounds happy and a minor progression always sounds sad? You get my drift? So much of music’s emotive power comes from its open-ended ability to speak different languages to everyone. Of course, lyrical music usually does come with a built-in narrative of sorts. Non-lyrical music may as well, but then again, I wouldn’t say that more complex music like jazz provides the space for the listener to pursue their own narrative motion. So, what then?

What does it mean to be artistically responsible for a narrative that’s entirely left to the ear of the individuals listening to one’s record? There’s a lot of curious gravity there.

Let’s give this a spin to find out.

This is story music. But who are the characters and what are their motivations? Can a narrative ever truly be imagined and invented privately by each of us? Or does the band’s actions and composition have something to do with leading us to an intended landscape of characters, plot, dramatic twists and turns, and of course, resolutions?

Let’s examine a test case, and see about what stories reveal themselves in real time, shall we?

Between “Note to Ourselves” and “Aria,” I see a 1970’s Rolls Royce pulling out of an opulent estate in slow motion. It’s filled by a driver, a mother, a young heiress and her childhood boyfriend. They roll through the hills smoothly in a car designed for luxury but the fog starts to roll in. This is a memory, and not a happy one. A red-tailed deer enters the road, its antlers just poking through the dense morning fog before the rest of the stag’s body comes into view. The car swerves, the random assortment of personal items scattered around the vehicle launch into mid air as it tumbles down an unseen cliff into a farmer’s pond off the side of the road. The driver unbuckles his seat as the heavy metal frame of the Rolls quickly sinks, and then that of the mother, the daughter manages to slip out of her seat belt and all three swim up to the surface. But the young boy struggles, loses his breath, panics and fumbles aimlessly in the entanglement of his seat belt ultimately succumbing to his fate trapped in a cage underwater.

Reconcile, acceptance, denial, guilt, backlash, banishment, feuding, and revenge, all eventually take place in and around the overtly wealthy orbit of this cursed family. They’re left to pick up the pieces of their lives together and alone. The story continues…

What do you hear?

And at some very distinct point in Stories in White, the music and energy takes a completely different turn stylistically. Right smack in the middle of the action, we’re lifted into the stars with two consecutive piano tracks. Blissful, airy, elevated. And then somewhat abruptly, “Kill Lies All” enters our airspace, guns blazing, a thump of distorted guitars, pummelling drums and bass akimbo. It knocks you out of your reverie.

Wake the f*#k up!

The violins and cellos fade themselves in at a pre-climactic moment to ride the tidal wave and we’re in a new record entirely all of a sudden. This is post-rock, tried and true, in all its thunderous glory. But don’t get too comfy, because just over 3 minutes in, it all washes away again, to let in a sunset of ambient synth textures just barely audible especially comparatively.

What a journey…

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge how lush and crisp this recording sounds. Beyond his duties as composer, power guitarist and band leader, electronic sound designer, and label director, Takahiro Kido also engineered this record alongside Kenichi Kai, and mixed and mastered it himself.

Talk about a Tak of all Trades! I’m sorry.

The wide stereo spectrum utilized in this recording helps push the narratives and dreamscapes forward that much more, as one is both figuratively and literally enveloped by the music at all times. It wraps around you, it blankets you, hugs you. This cinematic music drips liquid piano rain drops, peacefully, plaintively, at times, and at others a raucous deluge of thunder and moisture descends from the rock rhythm section storm cloud that Anoice is equally globally known for.

The album’s penultimate track, “The Rainmaker,” titled to perfection according to me for those exact metaphoric reasons, finds balance in both worlds. The raindrops and the storm clouds. And it all sounds immaculate. The mixing of every element here is just so delicate as to be able to provide the listener with highly detailed repeat listens endlessly, and I love that.

With such clarity in production here, it sounds in moments like we’re sat right under the piano, or perching on a vibrating violin string as the bow chisels across it, or that we’re lying on the carpet shivering as the amp’s cabinet pulses wave after wave.

Please check out Anoice’s beautiful new release, courtesy of Ricco Label, via the link below.

Listen and purchase here, please.