Bleep

Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai) & Ryuichi Sakamoto have been playing together for many years now - their first collaborative LP, Vrioon, dates from 2002. The duo’s new album Two acts as a celebration of Noto & Sakamoto’s artistic legacy - both of their previous work and also of the musical understanding that they have built up down the years.

The pair’s 2018 concert at the Sydney Opera House forms the basis of this record (not the whole thing, mind - their performance ran to two hours and had to be edited down). Across the performance they run through several cuts from their extensive back catalogue. These old cuts come retooled for a new context, and it’s enjoyable to contrast the changes in sound - ‘Trioon II’, for instance, morphs from bleeping ambience into a micro-house loop reminiscent of Jan Jelinek. Most exciting of all is their portentous, brooding take on their theme for The Revenant, here given all the moodiness of a Ben Frost piece.

Around half of the record is made up of work that was improvised on the day. The new pieces are generally obtuse electronic things that reference the likes of Oval, Mika Vainio and Karlheinz Stockhausen. They are also rather spare - rather than crowding their textures, Sakamoto & Noto allow certain sounds to linger, something which indicates two artists wholly confident in their creative relationship.

Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Two is part-new work, part-retrospective and wholly impressive.