IIKKI France Schallplatten & CDs

Review: This new LP, Shadow's Praise, is the result of a dialogue between its maker - painter, sound and installation artist, and field recordist Akhira Sano - and David Nissen, a French photographer who captures urban landscapes in low light and high contrast. Initiated by label and publisher IIKKI - who specifically commission these sorts of collaborations - the project works in two physical imprints: a book and a disc (vinyl or CD). Intentionally, this highly experimental album may be experienced in three different ways: the book read alone, the disc listened to alone, or the book and disc read and listened to together. For the sake of Juno being a music site, however, we'll focus on the sonic content of the album; it features six muted but beautifully melancholy works, each lasting around six minutes, combining haunting dronescapes, subtle melodic upturns, lowercase glitchings and immersive enviro-ambiences - all reflecting the mood of Nissen's photographs, which are somewhat removed from their context. The ultimate aim of the album, we glean, is to establish a specific mood relative to the perceiver's gaze - the music helps the viewer to "plunge into the image".

Review: You don't often see a clavichord credited on the list instruments used on an album. The stringed, rectangular keyboard found favour in the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras, and while commonplace during the Middle Ages is, today, pretty obscure. That is, unless you're a musician with a penchant for recreating those historical periods in sound, or someone like Tori Amos or Bjork, both of who are among the