AkA

"Dataism" (Album, 2019) !Recommended!

+CLOSER²

AkA operates somewhere around the soundscape or soundtrack fields and more short-form, song-based structures. Portugal based Henri Sizaret (aka AkA) applies a carefully considered, conceptual approach to each new musical work. Especially when it comes to long form EPs and albums.

Bringing a quirky, unconventional approach to a pure electronic sound, Sizaret begins with an overall concept/idea/theme and then mines it for all it's worth. And, in the process, strips away all artifice, decoration and unessential elements leaving only a distilled, pure musical form.

I suspect he rarely knows precisely what the final product will sound like but, confident in his methodology, allows his composition process to complete itself. True artists understand that the finest of their works come about much less from force of will, but rather a willingness to allow the work itself (and the process in achieving it) to present itself - given the right conditions.

Because Sizaret doesn't sing, the album features a smattering of abstract, treated vocals by Pedro Peñas y Robles of electro industrial project HIV+ on a couple of tracks - Body Bang and Gone.

Few have as distinctive a sound as AkA does, and this largely comes from the exceptional mind driving its output. What's lacking too much in these days of being able to create music so readily is any kind of considered perspective, significant thought/creation-process, personal manifesto, or similarly intellectual rigor that actually brings something of meaning and value to the act of composition and output.

Dataism is AkA's finest work to date. 8/10

Rob Dyer (February 2020)