Buzzin Electronic Music

Lokai – Transition – album review

Lokai: Transition

I recently spoke to a colleague who told me about a minimalist play she had been to see, which included a period of action where an actor made herself sick onstage.  The question that naturally arose was as to the validity of such artistic licence, and where the line can be drawn between innovation for originality’s sake and innovation for the sake of artistic expression.

As undoubtedly open-minded music fans are to innovation, there is a line between what can be found interesting and what can be found listenable. I won’t – I couldn’t – try and draw that subjective line, but it is the question that continually strikes me the more minimalist and conceptual the recordings I am confronted with become.

And it is similarly the question when listening to Lokai’s second album Transition. What is undoubtedly an exploratory, descriptive, inventive piece of music is not an initially trying listen, but one that is exclusively enjoyable when approached from a critical, close listen, through headphones, in a dark room or whatever works for you.

The duo of Florian Kmet and Stefan Nemeth, having now moved into a rehearsal space of their own in an airy, light room in an old part of Vienna, are certainly conscious of the conceptual, artistic direction of their work, emphasising this more than the listening experience. Lokai describe the layering and structural building of the tracks on Transition as “a scaffold, [within] which … other, more complex structures, are suspended”, and then equally as “a panoramic view”.

The idea of a harmonious whole, formed from many, not immediately apparent intricacies is certainly reflected in their composition technique and the nine tracks of Transition. Equally, the recording process, unlimited by deadlines or by the need to move linearly from composition to production to mastering provided them with the opportunity to indulge in such detail.

Pulsing rhythms, best characterised by both ‘Roads’ and ‘Roads (Reprise)’, come from found sources such as the body of an acoustic guitar or the clinking of the heating system and form a metallic structure over which are draped soft, elusive and slow-building melodies.  Another album highlight, ‘Volver’, is cold and isolated, whilst suggesting harmony and contentedness.

More minimalistic are ‘Glimmer’ and ‘Bruit’, the names providing a decent indicator of their content, but these are perhaps not the parts of Transition that withstand separation from the context of the album. For whilst Lokai may find it hard to truly cross the barrier into the immediately gripping, it is without doubt a beautiful, descriptive work which wonderfully suits the form of the album which will reward close listeners with moments of truly brilliant detailed pieces of music and a whole album with the same rewards of studying the panorama of a landscape.