June Chikuma – Les Archives – LP+7″

Freedom To Spend

“Les Archives” is composed, arranged, and produced by the elusive Japanese artist June Chikuma. While Freedom To Spend’s reinvented edition bares little visual evidence of its origins in the composer’s name, title, or sleeve design, the album, a whooping gonzo of synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and a mysterious string quartet, remains as vibrant now as it did when released on Toru Hatano’s Picture Label as Divertimento in 1986. In fact, the music of “Les Archives” now glows with a different purpose; one that revises the past while maintaining, and finally elevating, its hidden influence.

Chikuma’s neon-vibrant aesthetic would be at home soundtracking films like After Hours or Teknolust. However, “Les Archives” is the score for a movie of mistaken identity – clones redressed in a guise of the artist’s re-coding. The legitimate artifact deceives history. There is no original, but this copy is singular and complete.

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