Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto: Insen
Raster-Noton

Some listeners tacitly expect an artist's sound to change from one album to the next, but is that a fair expectation? After enjoying a magnificent meal, we return to the restaurant a week later hoping to duplicate the experience, so why shouldn't we wish the same when listening to music? The obvious difference is that the original meal vanishes upon ingestion, its sole residual trace an exquisite memory; an album, on the other hand, we may return to over and over, suggesting that redundantly repeating the original accomplishes little. In short, if there's no discernible difference between a given release and its sequel, why bother with a follow-up? Complicating this further, we paradoxically want a sequel to be simultaneously different from yet also a repeat of its precursor.

Needless to say, such thoughts arise when listening to Insen, the follow-up to 2003's Vrioon and the second collaboration between Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai) and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Superficially, the two releases sound alike—sparse sprinkles of ruminative, impressionistic piano tones drifting over clinical pulsations of lapping clicks, insistent bass tones, and hiccupping flutter—yet there are differences, if subtle ones. In general, if Vrioon's settings occasionally present a mere juxtaposition of piano and electronic realms, Insen often collapses the gap by merging them indissolubly; specifically, Noto purposefully blurs the separation using post-production treatments. When fields of gentle skips merge with piano chords in “Logic Moon,” for example, he transforms the glitchy lappings into percussive waves that bleed directly off of the piano, melding the two in a hazy fog. He similarly applies phasing effects to the piano in “Moon” so that its notes surge with a subtle crescendo. The separation collapses entirely in the quiet coda “Avaol” when the piano, having fully lost its acoustic properties, fuses indistinguishably with the electronics.

Less critical details about Insen are worth noting as a matter of interest. Though perhaps a coincidence, the opening trio of piano chords in “Aurora” matches the opening of the “Adagietto” from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, while faint background chatter of birds can be heard in “Berlin,” an effect that gives the music a natural ambiance that differs from the pervasive hermetic aura. In general, the warmth of the piano acts as a welcome counter to the cool chill of the electronics throughout the album's elegant settings of acoustic and electronic sounds. Close listening reveals Insen to be both a natural complement to Vrioon as well as a subtle departure from it.

August 2005