Lokai
Transitions
By Eric Hill

"Roads," the opening track on Florian Kmet and Stefan Németh's second album as Lokai, unfolds like a creaking shipload of wineglasses riding gentle swells. The music created by the two guitarists and electronics artists is as much built as played. The glassy notes return as a bridge linking "Volver," a track that features a lovely, incomplete jigsaw of sounds, and "4 a.m.," a moody contemplation of resonance. On the Thrill Jockey site, Németh describes the rhythmic elements, created by sampling tapping on a guitar's body or found objects, as "scaffolding" to house the complex and difficult-to-reconcile sounds. These sounds, ranging from easy to place guitar notes to crystalline bell tones from more mysterious sources, were mostly generated and sampled from physical objects rather than relying on the generated electronics that marked their 2005 debut on Mosz. The textures of sound, crisp production and the beauty of peek-a-boo melodies recall work by both Tape and, of course, Németh's playing in Radian. Transitions rates highly on this comparative scale. (Thrill Jockey)
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