Kiri Ra!’s second full-length album, nen, distils a decade of shared listening into eight pieces of improvised experimental music. The trio of Lau Nau, Linda Fredriksson and Matti Bye again work without a script, letting coffee, room tone and instinct decide where things go. If their self-titled debut played like a speculative film score assembled from archival rushes, nen feels more like one continuous tracking shot: the same world, but lit from the inside rather than observed from a distance.
Opener “niin-så” sets the pace with flute sounds hovering and trilling around a fragile rhythm; gradually dissolving into space. There’s no clear theme to hang onto, but the trio circle a small harmonic space with such care that it becomes its own kind of hook; inviting you to lean in rather than turn the volume up.
“ream” stretches that mood into something even more vaporous. It is all slow arcs of saxophone and electronic grain that suggest spiritual jazz gently refracted through an ambient lens. The title track, “nen”, is the record’s most immediately memorable moment: a slow, chiming figure on piano nudged forward over a soft synth halo, while Fredriksson’s lines arrive almost reluctantly; lending the piece a hymn-like gravity.
Long-form centrepiece, “omewhere,” is where the album’s method becomes clearest. The material unfolds at a walking pace; coming and going like lanterns appearing and disappearing in the mist. The accumulation of tiny gestures builds its own narrative tension. You end up listening for the decay of a single note as intently as others might wait for a chorus.
“oem” gives the impression of a seance captured on tape. The more shadowed “adad” hints at a submerged pulse, with darker harmonies and a low electronic throb that feels like a distant, slow-motion beat, answered by pointillist phrases from reeds and keys.
“eroplane” brings a faint sense of travelogue motion back into focus. It nods to dusty library cues and half-remembered documentary themes without ever lapsing into retro pastiche. The closer, “ahiahi,” gathers the record’s motifs and lets them evaporate, like the trio stepping quietly away from their instruments and leaving the air humming in their absence.
