Nikakoi: Requiem For Deranged Ro auf 2 CDs

It's been three years since Nika Machaidze released his Cyberpunk album (under his ERAST alias) on Laboratory Instinct; it's been six since his last outing as NIKAKOI, as whom he recorded two celebrated albums for WMF, Sestrichka and Shentimental, in 2002 and 2003. Now he returns, once again as NIKAKOI, to deliver an album that couldn't be more different from the contorted electro, breakbeat hyperjazz and post-modern pop of his previous releases. Stretched across two discs, sketched in brief or in tracks running to 17 and 18 minutes, "Requiem for Deranged Robot" is a collection of electro-acoustic compositions and ambient moodpieces of unusual beauty and immersive power. Drawing from influences like Erik Satie, Raymond Scott, Brian Eno and Pete Namlook, NIKAKOI's music is muted and slow moving, running piano and strings through batteries of effects, until the music feels like a dub of a dub of a dub, bruised and abraded; tiny electronic tendrils flick about the peripheries. The "Ghost Files" of disc two are meant as a kind of homage to the "ghost files" left deep in the memory of the deranged, disarranged robot-half toaster, half fighter. "Requiem for Deranged Robot" is a gorgeous, mysterious, generous and allembracing work. Take your time with it, and you'll be rewarded.