Summvs - Alva Noto & Ryuchi Sakamoto (2011)
Besides blathering on about my own favorite music, I consume a ton of content about other people’s favorite music. This week, I’m taking some advice. This one was recommended from this California record shop owner’s Top 5 Records via the Hot Biscuits vinyl collector’s channel
German composer Alva Noto did a series of collabs with the late master of Japanese electronic music, Ryuchi Sakamoto.
This is the final installment of this series, although the two worked together again on the soundtrack to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant.
It would be hard to nail down what either of these creators is “about” in any formal sense. Both have created glitchy experiments and beat-driven electronic music, but neither is a stranger to the nearly formless pure ambient work you get here.
The tracks often build from near nothing early to nicely layered soundscapes after a few minutes.
They’ll start with a basic melodic figure or even just a wash of sound and then move from there.
By This River is an excellent example, layering nervous electronic click tracks on top of perfectly calm piano.
While it is a bit easy to get set adrift, it’s a beautiful piece of work that both washes over you and rewards you as you listen more closely.
