It takes some hellish audacity to have a ‘best of’ collection out within seven years of your first album. ‘Plus Ultra’ is an updated ‘best of’, which takes such audacity to a whole new level. But that’s Serph for you, and perhaps there’s justification for a bit of egotism: his debut album, ‘Accidental Tourist’ was released in 2009, with only three years of experience playing the piano and composing. Its follow-up, ‘Vent’, sold over 20,000 copies, and his prodigious work-rate has seen the emergence of a further three albums. Yet for all of this, we know very little about Serph beyond the fact that it’s a solo project of a guy from Tokyo, and that he also records as Reliq and is one half of N-qia with female vocalist Nozomi.
‘Plus Ultra’ features material from 2015’s ‘Hyperion Suites’, selected and reworked by Serph, and augmented with a brace of new tracks, which we’re assured as ‘destined to be Serph classics’. He’s not lacking in confidence, that’s for sure. Or musical ability, for that matter: the piano-led pieces are laced with strings, strolling basslines, swinging grooves and boast accessible mellifluous melodies.
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There are clear Oriental influences, as well as contemporary electronica, as manifested in the danceable beats. But there’s something a little ostentatious and overtly muso about it all, particularly in the noodlesome whistly synth lines and self-consciously complex time signatures. While the way Serph pulls a wide range of sounds together is interesting, the end result is a bit muzak.
author: Christopher Nosnibor
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