Roland Kayn
Roland Kayn (1933-2011) was a German composer who studied in Stuttgart at the “Hochschule fur Musik”, and at the “Technische Hochschule” with Max Bense. He was a pupil of of Boris Blacher at the “Hochschule fur Musik” in Berlin from 1956 to 1958 and he later worked in various music studios in Germany, Netherlands and Italy. Despite its relative obscurity in the last years of the 20th Century, Kayn’s work can be considered as one of the most emblematic in the realm of cybernetics and in the general contemporary art production related to the electronic medium.
Roland Kayn (1933-2011) was a German composer who studied in Stuttgart at the “Hochschule fur Musik”, and at the “Technische Hochschule” with Max Bense. He was a pupil of of Boris Blacher at the “Hochschule fur Musik” in Berlin from 1956 to 1958 and he later worked in various music studios in Germany, Netherlands and Italy. Despite its relative obscurity in the last years of the 20th Century, Kayn’s work can be considered as one of the most emblematic in the realm of cybernetics and in the general contemporary art production related to the electronic medium.
Exotica, The Great Learning, Cybernetics III / Contrappunto Dialettico Alla Mente
Earlier this year, Deutsche Grammophon announced and delivered one of the most exciting initiatives in recent memory: a brand-new audiophile vinyl reissue series dedicated to crucial avant-garde and experimental works from its own extensive catalog. Beginning with Luc Ferrari's Presque Rien No.1 / Société II (1970), Mauricio Kagel's Acustica (1972), and Tōru Takemitsu's Quatrain / A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden (1980), these deluxe limited editions completely blew us away, returning…
Cybernetics III / Contrappunto Dialettico Alla Mente
Limited and numbered edition, featuring original artwork and a newly designed, beautifully crafted collector’s sleeve with new liner notes by Bradford Bailey, and pressed on 180g vinyl. A reissue of one of the most singular documents in Deutsche Grammophon's legendary Avantgarde series - a single LP that sets two radically opposed ways of working with magnetic tape against one another, both realized within months of each other at the same address: the Studio di Fonologia della RAI in Milan.
On o…
Elektroakustische Projekte & Makro
Building upon the ground of their previous “Infra”, “Scanning”, and “Tektra” collections, Reiger Records Reeks continues its dedication to Roland Kayn’s monumental back catalog, delivering “Elektroakustische Projekte & Makro”, a towering 5CD box set reissuing two of the composer’s most important bodies of work for the very first time since their respective original releases in 1977 and 1981. Fully remastered from the original analog tapes by none other than Jim O’Rourke - allowing a number of th…
Simultan
Edition of 300. Die Schachtel, in collaboration with SZ Sugar, is finally able to make available in CD format (a deluxe 3CD boxed edition with a lavishly illustrated booklet) of the legendary vinyl-only edition of 2017, the first in a series named “K-Kybernetische Musik /Cybernetic Music” that documents the birth of Roland Kayn cybernetic music, remastered from the original analog master tapes. One of the great pioneers of electronic, computer, and instrumental avant-garde music, for most of hi…
The Ortho-Project
Returning to the unreleased oeuvre of the master of cybernetic sound Roland Kayn, frozen reeds hereby unveils a new high watermark for longform electroacoustic composition, unfolding across 15 CDs in a luxurious gold-stamped boxed set.
The Avantgarde Series
The legendary DG Avantgarde vinyl series (1968-1971) is turning 55! In order to celebrate this occasion, the series is now released on 21 CDs for the first time. The Avantgarde series serves as a historical document for a time of radical change in musical thinking and the breaking of artistic boundaries. The question "What is music?" confronted many of the composers and musicians involved in the series, and the anti-authoritarian spirit of the 1960s and 1970s was a palpable influence. Deutsche G…
Infra (3CD Box)
One of the titanic cybernetic works Kayn issued on Colosseum, Infra (1978-79) returns across three CDs and an extensive booklet: Isotrope, Nastie, the two Formantes, the two Randoms and Apeiron. Mastered by Jim O'Rourke from the tapes held in the Lydia and Roland Kayn Archive.
Scanning
Recorded in 1982-83 and heard in public barely once, Scanning is the largest of Kayn's cybernetic works: ten CDs, ten hours, twenty-four moments moving between shimmering harmonic ambience and raw droning distance. Remastered by Jim O'Rourke from the original recordings.
Tektra
Kayn's landmark of the early 1980s, out of print for decades, restored across five CDs. Jim O'Rourke mastered it from the original tapes in the Lydia and Roland Kayn Archive, following the composer's own directions on crossfades and edits and restoring almost five minutes never issued digitally.
Infra
**We managed to get a few copies of the original LP box set of this renowned Roland Kayn masterpiece** A pioneer of electronic, computer, and instrumental avant-garde music, for the majority of his life, the German composer Roland Kayn remained one of the great unheralded figures in the landscape of 20th century sound - a founding member of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, who delved into singular territories entirely his own. Fortunately, in the last few years, in part due to the rel…
Reiger Records Reeks Bundle
Fifteen titles on twenty-nine discs: every CD Roland Kayn issued on his own Reiger Records Reeks between 1995 and 2006, from the three Kybernetische Musik volumes and the ten Electronic Symphonies to the late Multiplex Sound-Art sets and the orchestral and keyboard works. Specially priced.
Electronic Symphony I / III
The first instalment of the ten Electronic Symphonies: Symphony I (1966-96), II (1970-96) and III (1971-97), with Equivalence Sonore II and III from 1995. Pieces concreted in real time by a complex autonomous electronic system, a process Kayn documented rather than composed.
Electronic Symphony IV
Electronic Symphony IV (1988-96) unfolds over four sections across two discs, joined by Frottage and Minimax, both from 1996. Sound generated in real time by an autonomous electronic system: since the process cannot be retraced, the recording itself stands in for the score.
Electronic Symphony V / Emissioni Trasformati I-II
Electronic Symphony V (1977-97) in two sections, one per disc, each paired with one of the Emissioni Trasformati of 1996. Twenty years of revision folded into music that a complex autonomous electronic system concreted in real time, beyond any traceable authorship.
Electronic Symphony VI / VII
Electronic Symphony VI (1982-97) on the first disc, Symphony VII (1984-98) and Frottage II (1996) on the second. Two of the longest gestations in the cycle, worked over fifteen years and left to a self-regulating electronic system to concrete in real time.
Electronic Symphony VIII / X
The close of the cycle: Electronic Symphony VIII (1978-98) and the single-year Symphony IX (1999) on the first disc, Symphony X (1982-99) in two sections on the second. Thirty years of Kayn's generative studio work arriving at its last and largest statements.
Kybernetische Musik
The first volume of Kayn's cybernetic works: Ready-Made I and II (1982) on one disc, Collage and Decollage (1984) on the other. Four long pieces that arise, in the composer's words, from the interplay of merged control loops setting a process into motion.
Kybernetische Musik II
The second volume of Kayn's cybernetic works, a single CD holding two long pieces: Assemblage (1984) and Refractions (1995). Music not composed and practised but set going, arising from merged control loops and feedback in a system that can be entirely autonomous.
Kybernetische Musik III
The third volume, six pieces from 1986 to 1996 across two discs: Cybernetic Serendipity, Transfluxion and Syntropie on the first, An Artificial Acoustic Environment, Syzygy Dynamical Units and Equivalence Sonor I on the second. A decade of self-regulating systems at work.
Gärten Der Lüste / Cybernetics II / L'Innominata
Two long pieces from the turn of the millennium, Gärten Der Lüste (1999-2000) and L'Innominata (2000), each in two sections, with the early Cybernetics II (1969) set between them on the first disc. Thirty years of Kayn's electronic practice in a single pairing.