ALVA NOTO - XERROX VOL.2 (RASTER-NOTON)

The second of what promises to be a continuing series by Carsten Nicolai, “Xerrox Vol.2” this time takes its ambient atmosphere from samples extracted by him during his time in the New World, drawing from sources as varied as Michael Nyman, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Stephen O’Malley to some errors encountered listening to a Continental Airlines in-flight entertainment program.

The precise, microscopic nature of Nicolai’s other material is in rich contrast to the Xerrox series, in which sound and time is stretched over a broad canvas, with small slivers of melody rising in and out of a penumbra of sound and static that undulates ever so slightly. If the almost atomised aspects of Nicolai’s attention to detail in his music isn’t shown in this more soulful approach with melodies here, then he demonstrates it with a sound that changes with an almost anaemic pace.

Tracks such as “Monophaser 1 &  2” and “Phaser Acat 1” are cinematic soundtracks that are as good as anything released before on Raster-Noton, and for the more sonically adventurous the static and malelovance of “Meta Phaser” shows Nicolai’s more ambiguous side. It’s a long album of somnambulance that never threatens to curb or violent change its direction, only hesitatingly during the delightful mood of “Sora”, which sadly comes to a premature end.

One is tempted to lavish praise on this album for the melodies alone, no doubt helped by his illustrious samplees (sic), but with abstract atmospheric albums ten a penny these days, I’m reticent in being fulsome. There’s an icy detachment with “Xerrox Vol.2” that I didn’t sense in the first of this series, and the austerity of his sound, whilst no doubt an important aesthetic in Nicolai’s art, does get a little tiresome at times. Fans of Xerrox Vol.1 will be happy, but I for one hope for something a bit more courageous in the future.

Toby Frith