Utp (album)

Last updated
utp_
Alva-noto-ryuichi-sakamoto-ensemble-modern-utp-cd-cover-art.jpg
Studio album by Alva Noto, Ryuichi Sakamoto & Ensemble Modern
Released September 17, 2008
Recorded November 16, 2007
Genre Electronic, avant-garde
Length3:04:58
Label Raster-Noton r-n 96-2
Producer Michael Hock
Alva Noto, Ryuichi Sakamoto & Ensemble Modern chronology
Revep
(2006)
utp_
(2008)
Summvs
(2011)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Headphone CommuteFavorable [1]
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [2]

utp_ is the fourth collaboration between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Ensemble Modern is featured on the CD as well. [3]

Alva Noto German musician

Carsten Nicolai, known as Alva Noto, is a German musician. He is a member of the music groups Diamond Version with Olaf Bender (Byetone), Signal with Frank Bretschneider and Olaf Bender, Cyclo with Ryoji Ikeda, ANBB with Blixa Bargeld and Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto with whom he composed the score for the 2015 film The Revenant.

Ryuichi Sakamoto Japanese musician

Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Japanese composer, singer, songwriter, record producer, activist, and actor who has pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto influenced and pioneered a number of electronic music genres.

Ensemble Modern is an international ensemble dedicated to performing and promoting the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries.

Contents

Reception

After the opening pair of compositions, the remaining disc consists of four pieces, played twice over, perhaps in adherence to the notion that an event only receives signification upon its repetition. In any case, the compositions are cleverly elliptical, loose, but with a complexity of inter-action that displaces the listener just enough. In fact, this balanced exchange between the air-locked ambience and freshness and seeming spontaneity of the string ensemble is one of the works strongest appeals; if only it had been in the least bit upset now and again, one suspects the results would be stronger still.

When this set of pieces is played over for the second time, on the DVD, the lines undergo a re-harmonization, and the performance peaks with an enervated double-time section. Together with the visuals, this makes for a rich, steadily evolving continuum — Utopia in a surprisingly traditional sense.

—Max Schaefer, The Squid's Ear [4]

Track listing

  1. "Attack" – 7:24
  2. "Grains" – 6:24
  3. "Particle 1" – 6:40
  4. "Transition" – 3:31
  5. "Broken Line 1" – 6:32
  6. "Plateaux 1" – 8:07
  7. "Silence" – 6:51
  8. "Particle 2" – 7:00
  9. "Broken Line 2" – 6:29
  10. "Plateaux 2" – 12:59

Personnel

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References

  1. Headphone Commute
  2. Couture, François. "Alva Noto / Ensemble Modern / Ryuichi Sakamoto: utp_". Allmusic . allmusic.com. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
  3. "Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto / Ensemble Modern – utp_". Discogs . discogs.com. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
  4. "Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto with Ensemble Modern --- Utp". The Squid's Ear. squidsear.com. Retrieved 19 January 2016.