A disturbingly prophetic release, this album was sparked by Geir Jenssen's interest in the post-war Japanese economy, and especially the nuclear power plants that were built, often in geographically precarious positions. The album was completed in February of this year: one month prior to the tsunami that damaged the Fukushima power plant. Sonically it's a bit more conventional than what Touch has been doing as of late: there are actual beats and melodies on here, but with the unique Biosphere edge.
Jenssen has created a wide variety of electronic music during his nearly two-decade career, and N-Plants fits nicely into this discography.While the tracks use sequenced synth melodies and analog drum machine rhythms, it mostly takes its own route, using these conventional elements in unconventional ways."Jōyō", for example, is mostly sharp high end sounds paired with an erratic, heavily filtered rhythm that sounds nothing like music to dance to, even when the dense synth strings arrive.
"Ōi-1" patches together clicking, fragmented bass lines with short electronic pulses and blips into an idiosyncratic mix that stays even when the more traditional rhythms kick in.Tracks like "Shika-1" err more into "normal" territory, with its syrupy melodies and radio wave static augmenting an otherwise traditional ambient techno vibe, though bolstered by some great old school electro synth sounds.
The missteps are, to me, the moments in which Jenssen starts to follow more traditional blueprints of electronic music.The slow, steady beats and repetition of "Ikata-1" are nice, if forgettable in the grand scheme of things.Some of the sounds in "Genkai-1" are great on their own:deep bass rhythms and a synth line pulled right out of New Order’s "Hurt," but as a whole it just becomes a rather faceless down-tempo electronic track.
These are exceptions rather than the rule on N-Plants, however.There are more moments like the textural static and Kraftwerk like synth bleeps on "Monju-2" that come together brilliantly.The closing "Fujiko" ends the album on a high note, with its sparse structure and voice samples coming together into a calm, mellow close without being trite or cliché.
It was a bit surprising for me to hear this coming off of Touch, who have been much more abstract and oblique in their recent releases.N-Plants isn't a conventional techno album by any means, but in comparison to the recent releases from the likes of CM von Hausswolff and Phill Niblock, it feels much more traditional.There are a few bland moments but the overall sound is one that’s more compelling than many of Jenssen's peers in electronic music.
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