Jean-Gabriel Becker and Susumu Mukai are two friends who enjoy making music together. That’s how the story of their creative partnership goes on the Becker & Mukai Bandcamp profile. The page explains how, since first coming together in a Shoreditch studio in 2016, “[their] recording sessions typically unfold as a musical dialogue”. The language spoken between the pair, captured now across three releases and two remixes, flows freely: unreserved, energetic, containing multitudes.
There’s a looseness in the vivid rolling compositions of Spirit Only, their latest album and first in four years, that effectively and earnestly reflects the casual nature of their creative process, one that not only allows freedom to wander but is founded upon it. It’s not surprising that this partnership has yielded such magnificent results given their respective musical pursuits and primary outlets. For Mukai (also known as Zongamin, a word he coined himself), that is as one-third of revered experimental group Vanishing Twin, while Becker has worked extensively scoring various film and TV projects as well as releasing music under a number of different guises.
Expansive, improvisational sensibilities and emotive, cinematic compositions are the realms within which Becker & Mukai speak fluently. Here, especially, they have cultivated an album that is full of surprises, one where they aren’t afraid to lure you into a world of existential dread (with Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor singing “I’ve been forging my own demise” on ‘Meditative Blip’) and also plant you in the lush tropical haze of ‘Azores Pt 2’. You have to be ready to go with their flow.
The playful duality in some of the track titles on Spirit Only (the aforementioned ‘Meditative Blip’ and ‘Sunshine Demagogue’) trickles into the albub’s tonal palette. There are dark shadows cast on the captivating opener, as a dense bass riff dances with buoyant harpsichord-like synth motifs, an instant highlight on the latest Becker & Mukai offering. Thunderous synth interjections sit against the pretty interplay of Senegalese singer Kadialy Kouyate’s introspective performance and a guitar melody on ‘Toumado’. This atmosphere carries over into a sound like the Eno-steered Talking Heads releases on the brilliant ‘Wild Away’, another highlight. Across the album, the pair do extremely well to strike a balance between their inherent styles to make a dexterous body of work that manages to maintain a cohesiveness in its commendable sonic diversity.
There are great sonic foundations to each of the ten tracks here, be it a commanding beat or bass riff as evidenced on ‘Ni Vu Ni Connu’ or their overall project direction, that successfully translates into the alluring presence of the many great guest vocalists such as Dani Croston, Yama Warashi, Kadialy Kouyate and Alexis Taylor. But the finesse of Becker & Mukai’s combined musicality is best demonstrated in the details. It’s in the twinkling chimes on ‘Kinoko No Kioku’ which are almost shrouded by a bombastic steel drum, or the unsettling ticking of a clock in the intro of ‘Moon High’ that unceremoniously morphs into an infectious krautrock instrumental. The elegant touches applied throughout Spirit Only make for a memorable listen. The depth and breadth of the album’s textural variety is developed fluently and masterfully by the pair who eloquently express themselves through music.
