After the crisp EP Segmente, on which JakoJako alias Sibel Koçer documented the sound of her Berghain residency in a trenchant and self-confident manner, her new album Tết 41 surprises with beat-free, atmospheric ambient tracks – and shows her full range. The modular synthesizer specialist, producer and DJ picks up on earlier works such as Metamorphose or Vere and, with a minimalist setup, embarks on a very personal search for traces of her own family history.
The album was created in her home country of Vietnam, where she traveled with her mother around the Lunar New Year festival of Tết . Framed by field recordings she made during the festivities, the cultural reference ends there. Instead, JakoJako translates the impressions she felt on site into her own language of electronic music: gentle and restrained, then again expansive and enraptured. Melodic and rhythmic fragments – loops, arpeggios – hint at technoid conventions, but without a bass drum, Tết 41 exudes a meditative, almost spiritual sublimity instead of party hedonism.
Tét 41
