12 Conversations 2LP

Piano keys hit against a bed of static: that's the friction at the center of 12 Conversations, recorded in November and December 2022 during the same creative period that produced 12, the solo piano album Ryuichi Sakamoto finished before his death in 2023. He and Carsten Nicolai, who records as Alva Noto, had collaborated since their 2002 record Vrioon, through the V.I.R.U.S. series and the score for The Revenant, before they shelved these takes at first, then reconsidered. What survived is Sakamoto's lines running straight into Nicolai's circuitry, nothing smoothed over.