Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld – Nerissimo (Specula Records)

A compelling album that leaves a thick trace after it, like a fog or a snail track.

This from the press release.

“This record is also a nocturnal transfer, a diary of apparitions, it’s about colours that could transform the whole universe once you name them, a nocturnal flight with the lights off above european capitals.”

Nocturnal is right. It is deep and dark and has a midnight pacing to it.

The arrangements are in a chamber setting mostly, strings and woodwind taking the foreground under Bargeld’s intriguing intonations.

The pizzicato tiptoe of Caetano Veloso’s ‘The empty boat’. The low bass hum and undertow of the title track. The thrumming menace of ‘The beast’. The scrapes and whispers of the spoken word ‘Ulgae’. The pulsing waves of ‘Nirgendheim’.

A wonderful and enduring piece of work.