the change is drastic and the results beautiful. recorded two years after repeat’s debut cd, «select dialect» takes the listener into a completely different world of sounds. toshimaru nakamura has dropped the guitar treated with electronics to concentrate solely on his «no-input mixing board.» the direct consequence of this aesthetic move is found in an evolution toward lowercase sound. jason kahn still approaches his drums with a mixture of post-rock rhythms and abstract gestures inspired by free improv players like roger turner and guenter mueller. but he also uses more electronics, sampling and looping strange beats. more austere, «select dialect» is nonetheless a fascinating album, bristling with innovative ideas. beautifully recorded by bob drake, the album shifts between very abstract electronic pieces and surprising pop-ish tunes. in the process, repeat lost part of its «joie de vivre» (for instance, the ten tracks on this cd are without titles, while the previous one contained oblique gems like «eating raw fish is cooking in your mouth» -- the music still remains livelier than, say otomo yoshihides i.s.o. project. whether the duo take themselves more seriously or not is hardly relevant. what matters is the fact that the music has become more gripping, but also more composed and mature. recommended.
>francois couture, all-music guide, 11.2002

this cd presents toshimaru nakamaru on mixing board feedback and percussionist jason kahn collaborating in perfect balance. the music this duo produces is a stark and delicate fog of bass rumbles, high-pitched feedback whistles, and sizzling electric crackles with lots of space in-between sounds. little pockets of noise emerge out of the near-silent ambience. kahn's percussion is played with the lightest touch, and with considerable restraint. the resulting atmosphere is subdued, almost sleepy, even when patterns merge into something quite rhythmic, as on the third piece, which features a distant but persistent thump throughout the tracks duration. track 5 is nearly melodic in a raster music/oval sense, as the feedback seems to be trying to coalesce into a delicate little melody. track 9, at 7 minutes the longest piece on here, adds an almost too-regular latin-esque rhythm that dominates the first half, then fades as slow waves of feedback dominate the "beat". there is beauty and power here as the minimal resources add up to a music that is rich in mood and texture, spare but not stark, wistful but not desolate.
>angbase #6

on repeat's most recent select dialect cd (cut), neutered percolations search for toeholds as they ascend cliffs toward absolute oxygen deprivation. elastic pika bubbles swell and deflate, creating a terrain like a diagonal pachinko machine heated by sulfur. the first elevator in europe arrives in the marble-floored lobby of a palatial hotel as toastmasters from every banquet ever held saunter out of the past to drink once again to the health of ostriches with steel drum skulls.
>seymour glass, banana fish

select dialect is repeat's third release, and the rapport between the players is obvious. in ten short tracks (only one of which approaches the eight-minute mark), kahn and nakamura fuse percussion and electronics until these elements become largely indistinguishable from each other. the ideas employed by repeat are kept simple, dealt with, despatched, and in comparison to the nakamura/sachiko disc the role of rhythm is considerably enhanced. kahn has demonstrated his versatility on two earlier solo cut releases, and many aspects of his percussion/electronics music are brought to bear on this fruitful collaboration. what's most impressive about select dialect is the keen sense of scale and proportion: the musicians never extend an idea beyond its functional worth, and they invariably leave you wanting to hear more.
>avant

repeat is toshimaru nakamura and us-born, geneva-based jason kahn, who have numerous concerts and three records to their collective credit. the former plays no-input mixing board (he plugs the output into the input and uses the knobs to manage the consequent feedback), the latter percusion and electronics. unlike yoshihide and voice crack, who use discreet and non-repeating sounds, repeat works mostly by accruing and withdrawing layers and loops and continuous tones; bells and metals toll, drum patterns quietly tumble, and the mixing board yields an impressively broad array of hums, whistles, and chirps. in places the record has a contemplative quality not far removed from brian eno's "music for films," at other times it sounds like cleaned-up and carefully sculpted shortwave radio noise, radiating a glowing neon warmth.
>signal to noise

repeat revels in the austere beauty of pure sound on select dialect, a series of improvisations made from hypnotic loops and sustained, bell-like tones.
>magnet

repeat is nakamura's berlin-based duo with american musician jason kahn, who works with drums, metals and electronics. nakamura is more muted than on "no-input mixing board" and the two interlock in ways that suggest an intense musical affinity. kahn brings in a huge variety of sounds, from thudding backbeats to pellucid, high-pitched chimes, coming in at intelligent, obtuse angles that offset nakamura's haunted tones. like his partner, he's drawn to small gestures and repetition. all the pieces are single ideas worked up and developed over a few mintues. the album is just as rich and persuasive as the nakamura's solo release, sharing a similair vision–narrow focus music that's delightfully provisional.
>the wire

bring together the percussive abilities of jason kahn and toshimaru nakamura's deft manipulation of the mixing desk sans input, and it's repeat. select dialect consists of ten untitled improvisations which ride on the shrill otherworldly trill of the board and the rattle and shakes of metal, the less obvious elements of drums, bells and other percussion. this cd works it's way into the background at first, drifting from the interaction of tightly-restrained warbles and wobbles of the mixer at the fringes of activity as kaan makes a zen perusal of his percussion. as events take a more rhythmic turn, the idea of singing bowls becomes favourable, as do internal structures emanating from electronics folded in, around and above themselves. bass rumbles, unsteady whips of self-replicating tones and chirrups meet the frozen scrape and slide of metals to combine into abstracted hints at time changes and almost liquified sound. texture is all, though beats can be summonded as easily as the passing whirr of crackling electricity as the seventh and ninth tracks confirms to heart murmuring, even post-tribal effect. There are more than a few affinities with the clicknological sounds of a thousand laptop engineers to be drawn on many pieces, but bear in mind this is realtime stuff, not programmed or emanating from a suite of software tools. whether formed via digital routes or from the hands and sliders of a duo hard at work on their instruments, the results possess a distracted quality which could veer into the nerdish and tedious, but select dialect makes the most of dynamic minimalism to drive the cd onwards into overarching absorbtion.
>frequency

the means behind what is, with increasing breadth of reference, referred to as "electronic music" are often obscure. when the music is of a more or less experimental bent, this fact can make it all the less accessible, and all the more open to suspicions of triviality or even charlatanry. these two disks use sounds and ideas from the world of electronic music -- and they use electronic means, too -- but with a distinct human touch. that said, their actual methods are as obscure as those of any bedroom knob-twiddler. nakamura of repeat, for example, uses something called a "no-input mixing board", a rather arcane descriptoin which provides no clear idea of what it does. which is, of course, no bad thing in music like this; it precludes any irrelevant questions about musicianship and techniques and focusses attention on the music.
their approach certainly favours repetition, often of very small rhythmic phrases. yet one rarely gets the imporession (so common in "dance" music) of listening to a loop. instead, something in the music is constantly evolving at any one time, making this music sound extremely organic. and, indeed, it is at least cybernetic; kahn's percussion sounds pleasingly acoustic, and the placement of such rich, often metallic sounds in an electronic (or at least artificial) environment is most effective. what's more, kahn himself is an able percussionist and so this music, which is perfectly capable of appealing to fans of, say, aphex twin or the orb, has a "live" feel which will please those who prefer a human presence in their music, too.
>musings e-zine

select dialect: must listen to it.
>atsushi sasaki, groove

repeat are toshimaru nakamura on the no-input mixing board and jason kahn providing drums, metals and electronics. 10 experimentally-inclined pieces explore a variety of unusual sonic disturbances, many of which are quite intriguing... The enigmatic bleep-and-churn of 1 squeals, scrawls and boils then is followed by the more relaxed expanse of 2; its quietly radioative backdrop is overlain with fluffy chimes, which give way to the hazily rhythmic thump-and-clang of the 3rd track. The squeaky wheel gets no grease as evidenced by the rattly squawks of 4. 6's (2:56) mechanical thrums are topped with periodic soft tonal bursts. Murky tropical-like drumbeats pound beneath 9's careening soundwaves, though everything eventually slurs into dense wavering clouds.
>ambientrance

ce troisième disque de repeat–moins un groupe que la rencontre ponctuelle de toshimaru nakamura (no-input mixing board) et de jason kahn (drums, metals, electronics) dans l’aire de jeux de musiques improvisées–n’a peut-être pas l’evidence ou la pertinence du duo sachiko m / nakamura, ou plutôt est dans l’evidence d’un son électronique tel qu’il se fait aujourd’hui pour des labels comme mille plateaux, touch ou encore sub rosa. dans cette actualité sonore qui n’a sans doute pas l’exigence d’une démarche expérimentale radicale, simple flux sonore abstrait s’écoulant dans le vide d’une époque, comme une nouvelle musique d’ameublement, un décor électronique à habiter. cette sorte de muzak pour ascenseur repensée par brian eno. finalement la musique n’a peut-être jamais autant été si fonctionennelle que depuis sa transformation par l’électronique en valeur boursiére (le recyclage), foncière (design sonore) ou pour les multiples usages auxquels elle se prête (de la piste de danse à la propagande techno). pour autant de disque dispose de qualités sonores propres, de stratégies d’improvisations qui s’appuient sur de choix de structures et de ruptures. sans doute parce que jason kahn est avant tout un batteur, qu’il se pose des questions des structures et de rhythmes, et parce que toshimaru nakamura a choisi une position ambiguë par rapport à la technologie, celle de confrontation, dès lors dans un rapport de dépendance et d’accidents, obligé à trouver des tactiques pour contrer les effets inatendus de la machine, à improviser (ce qui est contraire à la programmation, au sèquençage musical). malgré quelques beaux effets sonores, de belles textures, certaines fréquences insistantes, ce disque n’echappe pas à une certaine froideur, comme un habitant au design impersonne. c’est ce qui m’ennuie souvent dans les productions mille plateaux ou sub rosa, ce sentiment d’errer dans des constructions post-modernes semblables (sorte de néo-bauhaus) toutes bâties avec les mêmes materiaux. sans doute arriverait-on en jouant simultanément l’album solo de toshimaru nakamura avec ceux de jason kahn. on entre dans ce disque come on se glisse dans un profond sofa. lounge music for techno peoples.
>revue & corrigée

dans une précédente chronique, j'exprimais mes réticences envers certaines musiques répétitives, elles se voient battues en brèche par le travail de ce duo d'abord, le disque excède à peine les quarante-cinq mintues et il se compose de dix pièces brèves. chacune d'entre elles se distingue des autres par son cheminement particulier sans que le procédé répétitif devienne ennuyeux car il évolue subtilement en cours d'execution. passion et onirisme retenus, quelques alertes fragments non dènuès d'ironie concourent à l'intelligente architecture de cette musique. de plus, et c'est un usage bien établi: la superb pochette cartonnée.
>improjazz

this is the very interesting pairing of multi-instrumentalist jason kahn and toshimaru nakamaru. the latter, a leader in tokyo's new music scene, used to be in paragon for beauty, and i think it's his past work in minimalist electronics that this music best resembles. in a slow, quiet way, these spare, futuristic songs sound like nothing i've ever heard. it's all very high-tech, and yet the drums, bells, metals -- yes, there's plumbing work of some sort done on track three -- and live electronics are used so slowly that a brooding melancholy hovers over the world repeat is creating. the structure of the tracks -- partly improvised, i imagine -- is impressive too, because you find yourself caring about everything unexpected that comes around the corner...as opposed to much exploratory or avant-garde music, wherein the only mystery you want to solve is how to fling its sounds completely from your memory. select dialect is, in many ways, the same sort of long instrumental experiment once championed by pink floyd. It's a lot more interesting, though, and could possibly even teach brian eno a few new tricks.
>splendid e-zine

repeat is toshimaru nakmamura (who performs on a no-input mixing board) and jason kahn (acoustic drums, metals, electronics, sampling). kahn is a seasoned improviser who recently surprised me with two exceptional solo records released on his own cut label (the see related reviews below); surprising not because I was expecting otherwise, but because I had never heard kahn's music before. much like these two solo records, the focus for repeat's recording projects is on slowly evolving repetitive structures and textures. on this disc we have 10 tracks which investigate the possibilities of such structures to amazing effect. generally subdued and subtle, these minimal rhythms and abstract tones move slowly through the cold air. nakmamura provides quiet shifts from his feedback mixing board, while kahn moves the rhythms forward with his percussive instrumentation and electronic noises. the two elements work extremely well together; the pieces move in a natural way, engendering and developing new and complex repetitive structures. there is an unassuming harmony between all sound elements in this music, and the results are often quite captivating. track 10, for example, is a stunning example of this "harmonising", and provides a mesmerising conclusion to the programme. the chimes and tones are guaranteed to prick up your ears and invite you to respond cognitively to their evolving structures. another excellent new release from cut records.
>incursion publishing

the third release of the duo from toshimaru nakamura and jason kahn under this name. like the previous recordings, here too a light and airy atmosphere prevails, despite which a certain distance and coolness prevents one from looking all too deeply into the innerlife of the tracks. each of the ten approximately four-minute improvisations maintian a soft, quiet and endearing approach to the re-working and repetition of a theme which never quite manages to divulge a certain mystery inherent in the music. the overall aesthetic is marked by an extremely restrained way of working with a broad tonal palette, held together by a bare compositional framework with few thematic coordinates. pleasant, contemplative sounds.
>de:bug

at first glance, the duo repeat would appear to be the meeting of a drummer with a japanese: in this case toshimaru nakamura, who, with his no-input mixing board provides the electronic facet to the duo; and jason kahn, whose electronically processed and modified percussive sounds never move beyond the recognition of their source. kahn's fascination with the vibrating sound of metals, along with his partner's discrete electronic treatments place repeat's music in the category of electro-acoustic rhythm n' noise miniatures, sound surprise and abstract techno. repeat's music is probably too "highbrow" and not "novel" enough for the opinion-arbiters on the pop front--but i beg of you: antonelli electric and snd? madonna, radiohead and sigu rós? queens of the stone age (ho ho ho)?...
>bad alchemy

jason kahn gives us an example of how someone coming from improvised music can work with pulsing, vibrating sounds. kahn's duo repeat (together with toshimaru nakamura) is built around no-input mixing board with various electronic effects and metal percussion. select dialect sounds raw and fresh, the throbbing tones and buzzing electronic signals building upon a basis of rustling sound fields and pointillistic drumming. the music lives from the nuance of experimentation and a tension arising from the risk that every experiment can be spontaneously abandoned. once again, repeat enter new territory.
>auf abwegen

dal paese degli orologi e della cioccolata (notata l'assonanza del titolo precedente?), via etichetta cut, arriva anche il terzo album del duo nippo-statunitense repeat. select dialect focalizza in manier ancor più convincente le intuizioni dei dischi già pubblicati de nakamura e kahn: una rarefatta ed ipnotica implosione di sparpagliate percussioni dal vago aroma etnorituale e rade gradazioni elettroniche ad assecondare le grinze foniche increspate da un mixer privo di input decrittata con sicurezza e personalità davvero sorprendenti.
>ricerche

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