01 April 2011

Nikila - "Short Tracks"

Another masterpiece from the Queen of Electronica (10/10)

This album is a part of the project Vacui Spacii, launched by Martin Eschoyez.
I used here material from tracks i already released, recycled material from tracks i didn't upload and new tracks i composed for this project. I also used samples from The Freesound Project
Ulterius is a re-mix of a phon's track End
[...]
The idea is that the concepts attached to music inspire other artists to manipulate and reinterpret, recreate or destroy them to generate new audiovisual works.
The idea is to release not only the concepts but the works, the materials they were made with, the typography, the music.
The idea is to free them for exploring the potential of shared knowledge and inspiring others to wonder about this freedom.
When all is said and done, everything comes from an empty space : the feelings, the sound waves, the pencil movement and its traces, the experimentation on a grid of voxels which, in the end, is just an empty space on a digital canvas.
So now, it's up to you, enjoy the journey : BE CREATIVE !

[Artist's Blog]



Creative Commons License
It's very diverse electronica of superb quality. Almost everything is perfect on this album - crystal sound, the quality of samples, mixing, the melodies. All sounds so fresh and natural, as if recorded by a real band. In fact some tracks could as well be placed under contemporary instrumental music, not simple electronica. I don't know how many real instruments Nikila used for this album (if any), but I doubt it could be so much as it seems. Some of these totally natural sounds simply have to be artificial. And it only confirms her true mastery.

But that's not all. The diversity of this recording is breathtaking. Each song is completely different, full of different ideas, played on different instruments, representing a different genre. Apart from the said contemporary instrumental, we have here nu jazz, downtempo, breakbeat, even industrial. If she let herself put so many ideas into short, under 30-minute album, how huge must be her creativity. It's scary. People shouldn't be so good. ;-) For some artists it would be enough for their whole career.

And that's still not all! One could think that so many different elements contained in such short tracks just have to generate total senseless chaos. And probably they would. With any regular artist, who is not a musical genius. But for Nikila it's a piece of cake. Everything fits perfectly, as if designed by evolution, by trial and error, over millions of years. There's no room for a coincidence. They just had to sound this way. It's so obvious once you already heard them.

I have only one complaint - they are too short. I read the description and I know it's a deliberate move. But these songs are so packed with highly condensed awesomeness, that one minute is really much too short to properly appreciate them. It's as if somebody forced you to admire talent of Hieronymus Bosch by showing his works for 5 seconds each. Wouldn't it be a torture?

For the time being, the only solution for listening to this album without risking a painful death from a musical hunger, is to play it on loop. But that's only a half measure, unfortunately. I WANT THEM LONGER! ;-) I was really tempted to lower my rating because of that, but I came to a conclusion that it would be very unfair to punish these compositions just because they are short.

By the way, what a pity Phon left Jamendo. He would go mad from happiness seeing Nikila used one of his songs. On second thought, he could fall into catatonia, so maybe it's better he can't see it.

By the way (II), I was so lucky as to hear this album in a lossless format, because Nikila was so generous to share the original WAV files with me. I don't know if she would be willing to share them with others, but I would try to ask her if I were you - the listening pleasure will be doubled, that's for sure. This is the work that should be heard in the best format possible.

By the way (III), I know it's April Fools' Day today, but I'm gravely serious here, people.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you !

By the way (IV), anyone who is interested in getting them in wav could ask you for the link :D

Nikila

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