Uncut (UK)

Another long, slow drift by Japanese dream-droners.

Japanese quartet Minamo have spent a long time slowly perfecting their pastoral electronica; not too much has changed in their noughties. There are some very lovely parts to Durée, particularly when acoustic guitars and piano tangle and mesh with laminar constructs of surprisingly clinical electronics. Like other releases on 12k, it can sometimes be a bit too wilting wallflower and wallpaperish, but there’s more than enough hidden in Durée to caress the gentle ear. – John Dale