Whenever I’ve listened to this I’ve enjoyed it. There’s something wonderfully delicate about Sakamoto’s ethereal piano flourishes and Alva Noto’s sparse rhythms. This is an album to be listened to at night, even more so than previous releases by these two. In this album, though, Sakamoto’s piano is pushed more to the front, and I think as a result I find I can’t really remember much of the music once I've stopped listening - none of it really stands out. The duo’s masterpiece, ‘Insen’, was most breathtaking and hypnotic at the points where the two musicians collided, when Alva Noto would take the piano and break it down into microscopic pieces. Here the piano is cleaner and consequently less memorable. Still, it is worth repeated listens and I’m perhaps doing it a disservice by comparing it too much with Insen.
7.5/10
For fans of: Alva Noto, Atom TM, SND
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