No Input Mixing Board #8

A follow-up to his No-Input Mixing Board issued on Zero Gravity, this disc is, relatively speaking, an almost poppy extension of its predecessor. Once again, Nakamura is found at the controls of his empty mixing board, threading the output cables to its own input sockets, thus creating loops of controlled feedback and sine waves. Here, there's quite a bit more emphasis placed on the rhythmic elements he's able to educe and he uses them in a fairly regular manner, allowing the pieces to bear some thin relationship to dance and techno music. The "beats," however, are far more likely to be derived from glitches or sine throbs than percussive effects, thus continuing to cast an abstract shadow over the proceedings. Sometimes, as on "nimb no. 15," the rhythms are used to wonderful and sinister effect, summoning up dire, mechanized landscapes alive with bristling detail. At other moments, one feels that Nakamura may have sacrificed too much grit, perhaps to appeal to a less adventurous listenership, overly "normalizing" his experimental approach. Still, there's a coolness, a remote quality to most of the music that may prove extremely enticing to many listeners (while, to be sure, appearing too brusque to others). Leaving aside one's amazement at the sheer variety of sounds Nakamura is able to coax from his "barren" instrument of choice, one's reaction to this music will likely depend on expectations one way or another. Electro-acoustic improvisation purists may find it too accommodating, techno fans too austere. But met on its own unique terms, there's much to enjoy here. Recommended.