And She Emerged From The Sea Fully Formed

The guitarist Rie a.ka. Suzaku is one of the rare rock artists who, like the goddess Aphrodite in Greek mythology, sprang to life in a mature state. The cover of Rie’s album Kingdom of the Sun actually calls to mind the myth of the goddess, with Rie half-submerged in a green-blue sea, joyfully flipping her wet rainbow-colored hair skyward as she wields her Jackson guitar. This image of Rie is reminiscent of a painting by George Cruikshank, “The Birth of Aphrodite,” in which the goddess raises her arms to the sky in the sheer joy of being alive, rainbow merging with sea foam in an abstract sun-washed setting. It is perfect for Rie, because her music is suffused with joy.

Fly Away

Rie’s first EP, Messiah (2010) is indeed a mature work. All of the elements that have defined her artistic world are there – the heavy riffs, the soaring lyricism, the virtuoso guitar work. For a debut effort, it is remarkably self-assured. The songs on Messiah often begin with keys or synthesizer to establish a mood. Then, double-tracked guitars churn at an industrial rate. Drums begin to pound relentlessly. Powerful vocals lead through verses into stunningly exhilarating choruses. Ultimately – always – Rie’s remarkable solos take flight into the clouds and beyond.

It is thrilling stuff. But in listening to her extensive body of work from Messiah through to the newest album, Top Runner, it is difficult to pick out any evolution from the simple to the complex, from crude beginnings to later mastery. Rie seems to have figured it out from the start, while continuing new explore new modes of expression all along the way.

If Rie’s output is consistent in its musical qualities and essential vision, she herself isn’t quite so easy to peg as an artist. She isn’t simply a metal guitarist. She may in fact be a prog-rock guitarist. Or she may be a modern jazz guitarist. What is clear is that she is a bit of a polymath, constructing her own unique world from bits and pieces of whatever music she hears in her head. One can easily picture Rie in her home recording studio laying down riffs, melodies and chord progressions, then later picking out pieces of those isolated bits of inspiration to construct an exotic cathedral of sound.

Asuka

A random example of her ability to build a cohesive work from disparate basic elements is “Asuka,” the opening track of the album Noah’s Ark. Beginning with atmospheric electronics, a subtle piano arpeggio appears, followed by the vocalist Dia singing a slow version of the chorus. Drums kick in. Rie’s frantic guitar follows. Things crash to a halt, the verse appears, gradually increasing in speed. A slower piano theme takes over before the train starts to pick up speed again. Double kick drums begin to fire on all cylinders. Crunching power chords push the momentum forward.

When the listener expects the next entry to be a hyper-speed guitar solo, they instead get an effect-laden bass line. Everything briefly crashes to a halt once again. The next thing you know, the band is going full tilt boogie. Finally, the guitar solo kicks in with Rie blazing away. By this point, the listener is used to surprises. It is therefore no surprise when the band re-enters with the hyper-speed chorus. It all ends on a long-fading major key chord.

“Asuka” is a seven-minute song, so Rie has the space to change tempos multiple times and introduce various instrumental building blocks. But you can find as many fascinating individual elements in a three-and-a-half minute song like the instrumental “Time Paradox.” This song has almost everything, including a crunching opening riff, an inspirational “chorus” section, a Spanish-tinged classical guitar interlude, a piano interlude, and a fire-breathing solo. You get the point.

Seven Seas

And just because her artistic vision has seemed consistent from the beginning, that doesn’t mean Rie is content to repeat herself. Her three instrumental albums, Kingdom of the Sun, Seven Seas and Top Runner, make use of a much broader palette of sounds than the earlier works. Her soundscapes on these albums easily morph into seascapes or moonscapes in the listener’s mind. In “Dolphin Dance,” from Seven Seas, the fast-paced opening riff leads into the bright main theme. Later, this riff recurs to serve as a transition, giving the sensation of a boat (or the dolphin) changing bearing and tacking to a different course.

On the vocal works, she seeks out a variety of musicians to work with. She has primarily collaborated with women vocalists, all of whom have lungs as powerful as the humbuckers on Rie’s Jackson guitars. For example, the iconic Ibuki, whose voice is the definition of conviction, is heard on songs such as “End of the Darkness” and “Messiah” from Messiah and “Escape” from Dreaming Eyes, all driving rockers.

Another frequent collaborator is Dia, whose ecstatic delivery of the chorus on “Oblivion” from Dreaming Eyes creates a mood of euphoria. Rie makes equally inspired choices for her instrumental collaborators. “Universe,” from Noah’s Ark, features the ambient violin of Jill from the bands Rose Noire and Unlucky Morpheus. The new album Top Runner features outstanding work from bass players Mitsuru Sutoh, Shingo Tanaka, and Mayumu Hidaka. It also includes a contribution by saxophonist WaKaNa and stellar drumming from teenage prodigy Kanade Sato.

Mirage

There are plenty of flashy guitarists in the world. There are far fewer who have such an inexhaustible mine of memorable melodies. And Rie does indeed have a gift for melodic invention. She excels at using large intervals of the musical scale to create interest. She often varies the melody the second or third time around to keep the listener guessing. The gorgeous instrumental “Mirage” from the Mother Earth EP is an example of Rie’s ability take a singable melody and turn it into a complex set of theme and variations.

Rie also has the guitar skills and speed to leap up an octave for a note, then fly back down the scale when you least expect it. But she’s not just fast. Rie’s use of legato is extraordinary. She adds subtle slurs and bends to melodic themes almost effortlessly. An example is the song “Night Sky Flower” from Seven Seas, in which the legato is nicely offset by a recurring staccato section.

Sunflower

In 2017, Rie briefly fronted the power metal band RiViNi, featuring drummer ViVi, bassist Ami, and vocalist Nicky. Resistance, RiViNi’s sole release, is the biggest outlier in Rie’s work. The songs abound with catchy hooks and straightforward structure. Songs such as “Genso Platonic” and “I Wish” immediately call to mind Asia, the prog pop masters of the 1980’s. The songs on Resistance are supercharged by Rie’s hooks, in the same way that Asia’s instantly memorable AOR hits were driven by Steve Howe’s guitar.

But even in RiViNi, Rie couldn’t resist throwing curves, as in the song “Sunflower.” The solo starts hesitatingly, with a few false starts in which Rie seems to be feeling her way. Eventually, the solo erupts into a series of descending quadruplets before returning back to the hesitating theme. All of this takes place in about twenty seconds. Rie’s solo meshes perfectly with Vivi’s drum groove, in which she periodically leaves out the accenting snare hit. This kind of musical interplay between the two musicians is an example of the detail with which Rie approaches her craft.

RiViNi may have been Rie’s unsuccessful bid to attract a larger audience. But if the project was ultimately short-lived, it was nevertheless exciting. To hear Rie inject her flame-throwing and always unpredictable solos into RiViNi’s songs is well worth the experiment.

Top Runner

Top Runner, Rie’s most recent album, is punchier than her earlier instrumental albums. It is also a bit more stripped down, without the double-tracked guitars of the hard rock vocal albums. She adds elements of jazz and funk and gives the bassists room to solo. There’s a hint of traditional Japanese music as well. Most importantly, Rie’s gift for melodic invention remains intact. So do other hallmarks of her style – the subtlest of bends, the speediest of scalar runs, the smoothest of legato.

“Urban Highway,” the opening track Top Runner, churns through a dizzying number of distinctive melodic themes in its 4 minutes and 25 seconds. But there is a playfulness in her approach to her thematic material. Listen to the wild filigrees she occasionally throws into the middle of the main theme of the song “Top Runner.” This shows off, not just her scary good chops, but her willingness to take chances and her ability to surprise. But it is not simply of question of melody versus rhythm. Rie is both a sensitive composer and an ass-kicking riff monster.

Sonic City

In addition to composing and playing guitar, Rie is responsible on all of her releases for sound production, keyboards, programming and the occasional bass. Plenty of guitar wizards rely on others who have those skills. Some of those guitarists fall victim to a producer who waters down the guitarist’s often beautiful work with the producer’s own insipid vision. Rie doesn’t fall into that trap. Rie is in total control, the calm in the eye of a sonic hurricane. As a result, her impressionistic world is surprisingly coherent, despite the fact that she is a constantly explorative artist.

Towards The Horizon

One also gets the distinct sense that there is more to Rie’s agenda than simply making ravishing music. With song titles such as “Fly Away,” “End Of The Darkness,” and “Towards The Horizon,” there is a metaphysical quality to Rie’s music. It is as if she sees the world as it could be, and she has made it her mission is to write music that guides the listener to the promised land. There’s a sense of hopefulness in Rie’s music that is distinctively hers. The synonyms for the word “joyful” in a thesaurus – jubilant, rapturous, enraptured – give a good sense of the emotions that Rie evokes with her music.

From first work to last, Rie sounds like Rie. Her music is filled with moments of sublime beauty. It is filled with moments of blazing intensity. Above all, Rie’s music is both enthralling and inspirational, the mark of a truly great artist.