Takagi Masakatsu Opus Pia

Meant as a companion piece to the Opus Pia DVD, Takagi Masakatsu’s Opus Pia CD fully realizes one of his core beliefs: tiny miracles in daily life. Only 23 years old, Takagi Masakatsu has already presented his sound and video work in art galleries and clubs throughout Japan, America, and Europe. with this Opus Pia CD, Takagi has taken sounds from his travels around the world (locations include Nepal, Cuba, America, France, Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, Thailand, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Japan). He has remixed the original audio from the Opus Pia DVD into three different tracks: “Opus Pia,” “Re Pia 1,” and “Re Pia 2.” Each piece is a meditation on sampled moments occurring throughout the world. Sounds of human experience interweave with Takagi’s piano and computer sounds to create a captivating dance that blurs the distinction between song and documentary. “Harmony”, an extended sound collage, is pure audio travelogue, taking the listener to the aforementioned places in just under twenty-eight minutes. Closing off the CD is “And Then…”, Takagi’s newest track with artist/girlfriend Shinako on vocals. As Takagi states: “This time, I used my oldest computer sounds, as I could recognize the vision of linking by computerized sounds and natural images in my last travels around the world.” Alternating between the harmonically sublime and the day to day, Opus Pia makes our world that much smaller.