Pitchfork

It'll set you back at least $150 to spend a night in Stockholm's Nordic Light Hotel, where, according to its website, the core design element is "the light, and the inspiration is the northern lights." Thriftier travelers might prefer the virtual tour-- for a mere four bucks, you can experience Nordic Light via Axel Willner's musical interpretation of his stay there, commissioned by the hotel and released via iTunes. Willner was a savvy choice for this project, as his minimal techno can evoke a broad array of natural incandescence while complementing the sterilized, hermetic ambiance for which upscale hotels strive.

Fans of last year's transcendent From Here We Go Sublime will happily find more of the same here, and if Sound of Light is somewhat less satisfying, it's a matter of structure, not technique. As on Sublime, microscopic samples orbit each other in taut ellipses, making for music that's both kinetic and inert-- in the typical Field composition, gracefully synchronized mechanisms go through fluid motions without actually progressing. But Willner's greatest asset is his ability to realize one perfect idea per song, and to let it go precisely in the narrow range between making its point and wearing out its welcome. While Sublime's "The Deal" stretched out over 10 minutes, most of its tracks clocked in at a handy five or six. The four 15-minute tracks on Sound of Light present a special challenge for someone whose strength is white-hot brevity-- how to keep one perfect idea rolling for a quarter-hour?

Instead of taking a more varied or narrative approach to composition, Willner chose to simply protract the static pulses that filled out Sublime, trusting his listeners to dig in their heels with him. It's a ballsy gambit that makes Sound of Light seem imposing and uncompromising, but occasionally stretches its ideas a bit thin. Nevertheless, there is a deep pleasure in following Willner past the point-making break and entering realms of pure hypnosis, and the album's conceit-- each composition meaningfully connects with a particular time of day-- is an extra breath of wind in its sails.

The stutter-step of "Morning" is instantly familiar, with a toe-stubbing groove remindful of "Over the Ice" and dual-octave jackhammer synths à la "A Paw in My Face". Willner punches in little frequency quivers to imbue the relentless throb with a touch of hesitancy, before a choir of quivering "ahs" kicks in like an epiphany. From there it's simply a matter of reiteration and subtle ramification as the wave rolls on and on, even as a reversed rhythm track sucks backwards against its tide. There's something very caffeinated about the track; it conveys a distinct sense of Willner planning his day over coffee, with morning-bright clarity of purpose.

In "Day", the sense of boundless optimism that enveloped "Morning" gives way to one of grinding monotony and hectic activity-- a feeling that anyone who's prone to making big plans upon waking, only to see them vanish into tedious routine, knows well. "Day" displays an emphasis on minutely graded progression uncommon to Field songs: Opening with a one-note synth lockstep and a two-note bassline, then sieving in extra hi-hat hisses, syncopated rimshots, and 16^th-note synth flurries, it's like watching a juggler gradually adding more pins to his toss. But the climax of incantatory near-vocal figures arrives about when it would in a short Field composition-- a few minutes in-- and we're left with an exceptionally long final act that, while accomplished, can be enervating.

"Evening" is a conceptual relief after "Day", palpably venting steam and currying a coolly engaged getting-ready-to-go-out vibe. Airy coos capped with hi-hat ticks pant amid more naturalistic vocal snippets, as tones both pinging and staticky swirl, eventually breaking into a soulful lope shot through with chattering comb-swept synths. And "Night" finds Willner venturing outside of his safety zone-- those ubiquitous pressurized cadences-- for a nearly beatless descent into dream, tiny vocal tremors and hi-hats flitting about the periphery. Sound of Light isn't a proper follow-up to Sublime, nor is it meant to be, and despite the album's minor drawbacks, it's to Willner's credit that his one-off project is as bold and euphoric as many musicians' canonical efforts. It's an occasional case of "too much of a good thing"-- which still beats the hell out of "not enough."