In 2020, producer Yasushi Ide released his first new recording in close to a decade, Cosmic Suite. Cosmic Suite 2 - New Beginning (released earlier this year) is its sequel. As you'd expect, it is similar in style and approach to its predecessor, but it is easily more conscientious in its construction this time. The first Cosmic Suite consisted of two exploratory tracks, each almost twenty minutes in length and with very few constraints in terms of direction or structure. Cosmic Suite 2 is the exact opposite, 16 tracks, each with its own distinct personality, intent, and focus. Through all of its guided incursions into dub, jazz and afrobeat, the tracks exhibit a consistent experimental fragility to them, like they are straining against thin boundaries, that if broken, would cause the entire piece to fall to ruin. They remind me of early hip hop and club mixes in that respect, where hardware limitations and other materials constraints forced the disc jockey to be precise and smart in their work- a situation where failure to find creative solutions meant a failure to produce anything listenable. There are some cool features here that update the classic appeal of these tracks, like the triplets Josue Thomas spits over the dreamy, French-busking-esque opener "Mirror," but the more telling moments of the album in terms of its source material is the Afrika Bambaataa feature on "I'm Thinking, I'm Spacing" where Afrika unleashes his mighty spirit in a wild, subconscious guided glow expressed through lyrics that are extremely funny, agitating and pointed, often in the same verse. When you tally the strengths of Cosmic Suite 2 up at the end, you have a pretty compelling party record on your hands- but one that reminds of the odd environment of innovation and freedom that modern dance music evolved out of, and which hints at the fact that the forward-thinking ethos of our past could once again rise and become a luminary compass for our future.
