Repeat, "Pool"

Repeat albums are never bad and never great, though it seems like each one is just a shade away from one or the other. I'm not sure what could push these guys over the edge into greatness, but perhaps there is a tension that I expect in contemporary improvised music which is just not present here. What I'm percieving as a lack of tension might also be an ambivalence on the musicians' part about what exactly the group is about; are they trying to be pretty and melodic? an electronic improv band? ambient music? It's hard to tell. What might, in some other case, be an interesting break in genre comes across here as merely an underdeveloped idea.

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The duo, made up of Jason Kahn (a drummer who has fully embraced electronic processing) and Toshimaru Nakamura (a former guitarist who misleadingly describes his current instrument as "no-input mixing board"... misleading because he's playing the electronics which process the board's internal feedback as much as he's playing the mixing board itself), establish broad loops of bell-like tones and allow them to sway over and under each other for six-minute intervals. It's lovely, if somewhat uninspiring, and the seven tracks on "Pool" are essentially variations on one sonic idea. I find their latest album to be fine as background noise...while not as insipid as typical "ambient" music, it establishes a mood of tranquility ans statis more than it demands my active attention.

Nakamura, who established himself a few years ago as a guy whose sonic language resided mainly in the highest registers, has surprised me lately with his range, and his subdued playing here is no exception. There are no piercing sine-tones on this album, only graceful liquid shimmer and the occasional smooth crash of struck metal. The rhythms are more subtle and fluid on "Pool" than on Repeat's more overtly pretty "Select Dialect" CD from last year, which for me makes "Pool" a more intruiging listen. Still, I cannot find anything stronger to say about this album than: it's a lovely noise. Not great, not terrible, not a major statement nor terribly distinctive, but certainly enjoyable for an hour. I wonder, though, if it couldn't have been more than that.