lokai – transition

lokai – transition (2009)

We took all the time we needed to develop our sound for this record.

We recorded most of the stuff in my studio, using different acoustic and electric guitars but also different instruments that where around. Prepared Fender Rhodes, violins, my heat radiator served as a drum…

After a recording session Stefan would go home and work on synthesizers or experiment with the recorded material and return for the next steps. Live we played a lot of times with Bernhard Breuer (Electro Guzzi) as a trio. We linked our website to the site of stefan – sonotope.

The record was released Thrill Jockey on Vinyl and as CD/DL.

Here you can check out different tracks or read up some more: www.lokai.at

Buy the cd

Thrill Jockey Sonotope iTunes

Press Reviews

The Wire

Transition´s austere minimalism belies the agreeable conditions of its creation: Kmet and Németh recording in a home studio in Vienna´s old town, drinking Schnapps and coffee in breaks between layering Rhodes piano, guitar, electronics and percussive strikes on the flat´s ancient heating system.

Tokafi

Transition" meanwhile, manages to sound equally familiar and exciting. With its integrative tendencies, it has turned into an album all friends of experimental music may be able to agree on this year. It is certainly not just the summer which makes it feel this warm

Igloo Mag

a taste of deliciously ordered chaos wrapped in a warm, acoustic package. Multi-dimensional flavors pull out the organic fears, whimsical idealism and stark logic that reside in every human brain.

Cyclic Defrost

the Vienna-based duo Florian Kmet and Stefan Nemeth have sharpened their sound into a tight, taut fusion of electroacoustic instrumentation and dub – in the loosest sense – atmospherics. It is this use of the recording space as an instrument that lifts ‘Transition’ into the category of masterpiece.

The Milk Factory

The result (...) appears overall smoother and more delicate than the duo’s previous output, yet it retains the same granularity and subtle layering. Each track is composed of multitudes of sonic particles which continuously form, disperse and reform into various musical phrases, or progressively converge toward a central point.

Cokemachineglow

I’ve been turning the notion over and over in my head for days, rolled the phrase around on my tongue, and can say that with each subsequent listen to Transition it feels right to declare the album Austrian duo Florian Kmet and Stefan Nemeth’s masterwork.

Musos Guide

Lokai conjoin sounds to silence, therefore there is a sense of exposure, the listener is stranded, unsure what is coming around the corner, what is lurking in the darkness

Kevchino

The result is an album that floats you through a delicate and haunting dreamlike world, alternately soothing and unnerving. A sort of soundtrack for the inside of your head, Lokai’s Transition is an experimental instrumental excursion that manages to be much more than a philosophical point. Rather, it’s great music that actually takes you somewhere emotionally.