Audiopile Review: Keplar is doing a phenomenal job of getting early-2000s glitch classics back into print. It was only a matter of time before the label turned its attention to Osaka’s Tujiko Noriko. And here’s a reissue of 2003’s ‘From Tokyo to Naiagara’. During the noughties, Tujiko was extremely productive, releasing solo albums and collaborations for various labels, most commonly Mego. She even found time to play a few extremely memorable shows here in Vancouver. At the time, her dreamily chaotic song-scapes got her lazily labelled as “the Japanese Bjork”. Really, Tujiko Noriko is closer in spirit to Annette Peacock or Tim Buckley. But her aesthetic was and is distinctly glitchy. This stuff is guaranteed to delight fans of Fennesz, Oval, or anything Keplar has reissued previously. Despite being partly a collaboration with sound artist Aki Onda, ‘From Tokyo to Naiagara’ is one of her most accessible albums. It’s a great place to start getting to know a unique and consistently brilliant singer, songwriter, and electronic music producer.

2003 album by Tujiko Noriko on vinyl for the first time, featuring new artwork. Edition of 500 copies with black poly-lined inners, and download featuring eight tracks. Keplar presents the first-ever vinyl edition of the 2003 album From Tokyo to Naiagara by Tujiko Noriko. This reissue with new artwork by Joji Koyama is an abridged version of the album as Tomlab label owner Tom Steinle and producer Aki Onda had originally intended to publish it alongside the original CD version. Written by the France-based Tujiko while she still lived in Japan, From Tokyo to Naiagara followed up on her two seminal Mego albums and marked a turning point in both the artist’s career and personal life. Tujiko worked primarily with a Yamaha synthesizer and an MPC sampler while also incorporating contributions by other musicians such as Onda, Riow Arai, and Sakana Hosomi into the pieces. Sometimes approaching an IDM and clicks’n’cuts-style production or working with trip-hop and hip-hop beats while using conventional song structures in the most unconventional of ways, the album showcases her multifaceted influences and skills as a singer and musician to full effect. Tujiko describes producing it in close collaboration with Onda, who would relocate to New York City shortly after, as “quite Tokyo and very local.” This music is looking back while moving forward. It is probably no surprise that its reissue too evokes tender memories of Onda and Steinle in Tujiko, while also reminding her of what lies ahead. Influenced in equal parts by the experience of strolling through previously unknown Tokyoite back alleys and thinking about the paths not (yet) taken, From Tokyo to Naiagara is precisely that: the perfect travel companion for a journey that leads its listeners from past to future.