The follow-up to the 2003 release The Giant Squid, Final Insurance sees Koji Asano continue to explore his archives. This time he focuses on his formative years, from 1992-1994, a period during which he lived in Saitama, London, and Tokyo. He was 18 to 20 years old then and had yet to put out his debut album. The press release indicates that the 12 tracks presented here have been carefully selected among hundreds of similar exercises, studies, and works. In any case, the result delivers exactly what one could expect: music that already hints at some of the directions the composer would later take, but had yet to develop fully. Consequently, while The Giant Squid provided an excellent starting point in Asano's discography, Final Insurance's interest is strictly archival, making it relevant only to the completist. Asano's instrumental range is almost fully represented, from acoustic guitar to violin, piano, crude synthesizers, and computer. The music is already extremely daring and follows a highly personal path, either blending tons of influences from the Japanese, American, and European avant-gardes or ignoring them altogether. Of particular note is "25 Strings," featuring several acoustic and electric guitars in an abstract yet rather pastoral piece, accompanied by the sound of a coin being tossed on a table. The grating violins in "Sparrow" show an interest in discomforting sounds that would culminate in The Last Shade of Evening Falls a few years later. The acoustic piano ditty "Humidity" also points to a string of releases from the mid- to late '90s. This collection has its interesting moments for the composer's followers, but it contains nothing essential.
© François Couture /TiVo