The most fluid team-ups often yield the best results, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakomoto make a great case. Sakomoto’s work both with Yellow Magic Orchestra and on his own laid the foundation for many artists to come, and it could be claimed that Alva Noto’s acclaimed minimal techno and ambient work built off his innovations. That these two would someday work together makes some cosmic sense, their music already seemed to be in conversation.
While now known for award-winning soundtracks like 2015’s The Revenant, their journey together began in 2002 with the release of Vrioon, a spellbinding collection of modern classical that saw brilliant minds from different eras break new ground. The first in what was dubbed the Virus Series (the first letter of each of its five records’ titles put together spell out the word “virus”) by the two composers, Viroon can be viewed reflexively both as a overture for much inspired work as well as a strong statement in its own right. There is a fragile balance throughout, disparate influences and tactics playing off each other in a way that creates some sort of new music in its wake. It’s almost like the sounds of their prior individual triumphs come together in pursuit of something else entirely. Tender and sparse trickles of glacial piano rub against glitch-y bursts of electronic percussion and white hot noise, both taking on more depth tracks like the ten-minute centrepiece ‘Noon’ and its preceding ‘Duoon’. Comparatively, the haunting stillness of Viroon’s closing ‘Trioon’ duo recall satellites speaking to each other across the stars.
Remastered for the first time and housed with rarities and unreleased compositions in a newly designed sleeve that features the original album art by Alva Noto himself, this and the rest of the Virus Series’ fine recordings are being given the deluxe reissue treatment they deserve.
