Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto live

Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Insen

Finally available again. When Carsten Nicolai and Ryuichi Sakamoto got together to record 2003's highly acclaimed "Vrioon", it probably hadn't occurred to them that they were single-handedly re-positioning minimal piano music at the head of the electronic food chain. Sure, Richard D James introduced his army of devotees to the works of Satie on his sprawling "Drukqs", but "Vrioon" managed to intigrate the discipline into something altogether new and unfamiliar. Coupled with the fact that it was impossibly hard to obtain in good quantity in this country and that it was released by the boundry-pushing design team at Raster Noton, "Vrioon" was cited as a classic more or less as soon as it hit the shelves, eventually championed by The Wire as the best electronic release in their coveted year-end poll. To imagine that a follow-up might match the transparent loveliness of the original, not to mention transcend its soul-searching beauty, would, at best, seem unlikely. And yet as soon as you hear the opening, lonely notes of the incredible "Aurora" you realize that the pair have once again realised an ambition to embed complex discpilines into a sound that's so unbearably archetypal and moving you can't imagine anyone even approaching it's masterful grasp of all things sublime. "Insen" finds Carsten Nicolai treating Ryuichi Sakamoto's cascading piano compositions with a surgeon's hand, embelishing notes and melody with a tapestry of digital emissions and breakages that seem to envelop the whole album with a reflective neon glow, becoming a vessel for all the emotions and memories each and every listener to this amazing work will no doubt find hard to control. "Insen" is not only a worthy sequel but a re-imagined companion piece to "Vrioon", an album that simply cannot fail to become one of your most cherished posessions as soon as it's unwrapped.

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Le Mans - San Martin music video

Le Mans Music Video - La cancion de todo

Le Mans - Entresemana

Thanks to a perky bass line and happening bongos, the seductive rhythms of Le Mans conjures up visions of cocktails, pool-side sun and more cocktails.

San Sebastian, Spain's Le Mans prove that most difficult of pop-music assertions: that something catchy that makes you groove can also be completely and utterly vital. Sunny Mediterranean jazz / cocktail pop.

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Le Mans - Le Mans

Los primeros pasos de LE MANS se basan en unas influencias insólitas para un grupo de pop español de aquella época (MARINE GIRLS, FELT y los grupos de Cherry Red, el sonido Motown), con un sonido que marcaría profundamente a toda una generación de bandas españolas. Canciones tan sencillas que, al escucharlas hoy, uno se pregunta cómo es que nadie antes había dado con una fórmula tan certera y efectiva. Pero lo cierto es que en 1994, canciones como “Astronautas” o “Jersey inglés” no eran moneda de uso frecuente.
El disco se abre con el encanto bailable y el homenaje a Sly Stone de “Un rayo de sol”. Le siguen momentos más plácidos y relajados, cien por cien LE MANS, como “Jersey inglés” (con sus guiños a ORANGE JUICE), “Juan” o “Al bulevar”. También es destacable “H.E.L.L.O”, que cuenta con la colaboración vocal de Borja (LA BUENA VIDA) y que se desmarca del resto del disco por sus tímidas bases electrónicas y samplers.


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