*Back in stock* For the first time ever, this book Wolfgang Voigt – Gas presents the visual aspect of the comprehensive gas project. it is not meant to be a monolithic retrospective of his visual work, but it features a broad spectrum of photographic images taken between 1995 and 1998 showing many different moods and perspectives of Wolfgang Voigt’s Cosmos. what they all have in common, however, is the mystical focus and seemingly, the blurring of boundaries between lightness and darkness, happi…
The world became another since the release of »Decadent yet Depraved« and Belief Defect's reflection of it: now darker, political, honest - end times in Cinemascope. When the duo reunited in the studio after the 2 year fracture COVID inflicted on reality, the album that had been on pause all this time seemed insufficient against whatever life had morphed into, while humanity hid from itself. Finishing an album coherent to the present moment took prolonged studio shut-ins that proved to be as cat…
»Radial« is the result of a vivid creative merge between Esplendor Geométrico and AtomTM. A transparent diamond formed by a heavy implosion. Its underlying massive mechanics are covered by a crystal surface made to cut reality in half. Just one letter short of “radical”, this album is no less than exactly that - an orgy of powerful, blunt repetition and hyperbolic simplicity, a profound evocation of nothingness and its surroundings. The tracks of »Radial« are the exact expansion of sonic ideas t…
»Ödipus, Herrscher« is the debut release of Berlin-based, Japanese sound artist Mieko Suzuki on raster. It is the result of a composition commissioned by Schauspielhaus Bochum.
Alva Noto returns to his much awaited Xerrox project with Vol. 4, the fourth installment of the five-piece intended series based on the concept of digital replication of source material.
"Kamilhan, il y a Péril en la Demeure" is the conclusion of a 5-part cycle of works by artist Grischa Lichtenberger which was initiated with the album "La Demeure, il y a Péril en la Demeure" in 2015 and continued with the triple EP release "Spielraum, Allgegenwart, Strahlung" in 2016.
Alphabet explores the combinatorics between signs on one side and signals on the other. The performance, inspired by the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville twisting the scientific rigor to privilege phonetic acquaintances, revisits the strategies of representation invented by the man to tell the world around him in the digital age. Alphabet invites the spectator to immerse themselves in the multiple relationships that, through language and its digital translations, maintain words and things.After…
Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto present Two, which captures the esteemed duo’s 2018 performance at Sydney Opera House. The concert saw the pair performing new improvised work and key collaborative compositions from their joint catalogue, which has now reached five albums, one major film score and an EP.Last year the duo undertook a series of live events entitled Two at Berlin’s Funkhaus, Barcelona’s Theatre Grec (closing Sonar Festival’s 25th Anniversary), London’s Barbican Centre and Melbourne’s…
**500 copies** Grischa Lichtenberger’s music stands for broken rhythms, for high-density manipulations that emphasize the digital and fractal nature of its working process. a mindset that grew closer to contemporary jazz in recent years. since free jazz, this genre also sought to overcome musical standards and looked for possibilities of an individual artistic expression. within this context, the collaboration between Lichtenberger and jazz saxophonist Philipp Gropper as well as the resulting al…
Lena Andersson is a fictional character created by Berlin-based Japanese artist Kyoka and Irish producer Eomac. Both met in 2016 during a residency at the Stockholm EMS studios. The initial spark of their collaboration was a joint session on the studio's Buchla system, quickly expanding to multiple other sound sources and instruments. During the improvisations, a call-and-response working principle emerged immediately which joins the special talents of both musicians. Kyoka's free and experiment…
After their highly-acclaimed debut album Decadent Yet Depraved (R-M 178CD/LP, 2018), Berlin and LA-based producers Belief Defect invited a variety of artists to join their Remixed project. Remixed 01 is about transferring the pieces back into abstract space, and each remixer does it in his very own way. Alessandro Cortini's one-take live recording is a lesson in classical ambient music. Telefon Tel Aviv's remix is timelessly modern and extremely delicate sound design. Rather opposite concepts ar…
The great Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) returns with his first solo album in seven years, Applied Autonomy for Olaf Bender's Raster. A survey of what he’s been up to, as much as a statement of intent for here and now, Applied Autonomy reprises the fine balance of tuff-edged minimalism, spatial illusion and melodic delicacy that emerged with Redsuperstructure [2011], but ratcheting its effect with a renewed vigour for a frankly epic impact.As the title makes explicit, Robert’s 3rd solo album is c…
Unieqav is the new album by Alva Noto and latest edition in the Uni series - an outlet for his more rhythmic and dancefloor-oriented work. The Uni series began when Alva Noto was booked to play live at the club UNIT in Tokyo, and had to adapt his sound accordingly for that environment. Unieqav is a continuation and development of the concept of Alva Noto's 'Unitxt' and 'Univrs' albums, and completes the third part in the trilogy, whereby each record is both unique and part of the bigger p…
Glass is a recording of an inspired live improvisation by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto at the architect Philip Johnson\'s hallowed Glass House, in the bucolic setting of New Canaan, Connecticut. The structure\'s transparency and seamless continuity with nature was given another dimension by the addition of this performance, whereby the building, location and audio coalesced into one perfect, harmonious whole. Stylish, stunning and elegantly minimal, the duo\'s architectural sound design evokes…
**Ltd. numbered edition of 800 copies, white vinyl** Carsten Nicolai’s Noton present a masterclass in minimalist electronic discipline with Mika Vainio, Ryoji Ikeda + Alva Noto’s powerfully future-proofed Live 2002 performance, recorded at Newcastle’s Baltic arts centre This recording marks the only ever concert by the trio and its release serves as a tribute to the much-loved Vainio. “Mika was not only a friend and collaborator, but also an inspiration for my work as an artist. This is a cel…
**special vinyl edition limited to 300 copies, gold-embossed sleeve, laser engraving on side B** Winter, or a time which represents that season, in a metropole that appears to be Moscow. The visitor is taking metro No. 6 at Leninsky Prospect as he is on his way to the ballroom close to Gorky Park. The air is icy, the sky is grey. A cat, previously hidden among the dirty snow, is crossing his way. The closer he gets to his destination, the clearer he can hear music, music that reminds him of…
Decadent Yet Depraved, the debut album by Belief Defect, finds shelter and complicity in Raster as a home and label. Familiar with the underground music scene and how its skeptical nature can also be an obstacle to overcome, Belief Defect abandon any claim or credit in an attempt to transcend the limits authorship imposes, avoid the boundaries, or expectations, earned or self-imposed, and find the clearest, most direct path to their music for themselves and the listener. At the core of th…
Epic archival document from Raster Noton; the beginning of a comprehensive and authorized review of the past 20 years of the label. Comes with an exclusive CD featuring material from Kangding Ray, Emptyset, Alva Noto, Frank Bretschneider, Senking, Byetone, Atom Heart, Robert Lippok and more. A short introductory preface by Olaf Bender is followed by a keynote interview conducted by berlin publicist Max Dax that provides an insight into the identity and philosophy of the label heads. The main par…
dedicated to promote young and evolving artists and to present musical diamonds in the rough, raster-noton is curating the unun series which name refers to the chemical elements 111-119. »unalloyed, unlicensed, all night!« is jesse osborne-lanthier’s first release on raster-noton, and the ninth and final release of this series.jesse osborne-lanthier is a berlin / montreal based, canadian electronic music producer and multidisciplinary artist. his erratic research process incorporates the …
Inspired by her residencies at Stockholm's EMS, Kyoka's SH may be her most experimental record yet. Each of these four snapshots manifests its own spontaneous character, as they were edited and recorded during various sound checks and performances. The results showcase Kyoka's chaotic sound with unforeseen shifts in beat, unpredictable repetitions, and surprising clicks and bops. Gloomy opener "Susurrus" is followed by the dubby, up-tempo "Smash/Hush," which culminates in a repetitive and …
One of Raster-Noton’s newest, most virulent recruits fillets the themes of his previous solo album, La Demeure; Il Y A Peril En La Demeure into the variegated post-techno, drone and ambient dimensions of the 3-part, 19 track Spielraum|Allgegenwart|Strahlung.La Demeure; Il Y a Péril en la Demeure is the opening to a five-part complex of works by artist Grischa Lichtenberger. "La demeure" -- "the residence" -- could be understood as referring to a sense of intimacy in the possibilities of isolat…
Cory Arcane is the fifth LP from the French-born, Berlin-based experimental techno producer, real name David Letellier. Like the previous four, including the most recent, Solens Arc, from early 2014, it will come through Raster-Noton. Letellier typically brings a conceptual, cinematic approach and a rebellious spirit to his work, and this one would seem to continue in that vein. The press release for Cory Arcane comes with an essay from the artist himself, which describes what appears to be the …
after two years of abstinence, Senking takes us again into the depths of his musical creativity with his new record »closing ice«. The nine tracks of the album are intently dedicated to his distinctively bass-heavy and atmospheric compositions and the trips into the dark recesses of the human psyche.the mid-tempo grooves leave plenty of room for his sawing, war-declaring sounds that are unfolding expressive and gloomy but nevertheless warm soundscapes. every now and then, like a distant e…
La Demeure; Il Y a Péril en la Demeure is the opening to a five-part complex of works by artist Grischa Lichtenberger. "La demeure" -- "the residence" -- could be understood as referring to a sense of intimacy in the possibilities of isolation. The focus of the work is the joy of being isolated and having the chance to work, explore, and, most importantly, experiment, free from economic, temporal, or social restraints. The tracks and their components are constantly broken, disassembled, an…
Raster-Noton co-founder Frank Bretschneider\'s new project Sinn + Form (Meaning and Form) is based on the conflict between the fundamentally chaotic world described by mathematical and physical theories and models (dynamical systems, probability theory, stochastic systems) and the constant human attempt to recognize, describe, predict, control, and change this world. Musically, Bretschneider simulates this concept with a modular synthesizer system, in which various modules produce a consta…
Universal DVD data disk, mainly for playing on computers only (there is no NTSC or PAL format or region designation for data DVDs). HD+ is a data DVD documenting the visual aesthetics of Uwe Schmidt aka Atom TM for the first time. The conceptual engagement with and the critical yet diverting examination of pop music, delivered with a twinkle in the eye, is a central topic of this musician's diverse creative work and is certainly included in this visual presentation of it. Together with the secon…
Sleepstep's subtitle, Sonar Poems for My Sleepless Friends, describes its underlying concept -- Sleepstep is a trip through electronically alienated micro-compositions and sound collages that, interwoven with text passages, aim at creating a dream-like atmosphere. The album's journey strives for oblivion of time, an immersion, a drifting in universal states -- moving through the stations of death, life, birth, grief, desire. The titles often appear to be raw sketches; fugitive, surreal shor…
Dedicated to promote young and evolving artists and to present musical diamonds in the rough, Raster-Noton is curating the unun series, which name derives from the atomic numbers of the chemical elements 111-119. ‘Vortices’ is Ueno Masaaki's first release on Raster-Noton, and the seventh release of this series. Ueno Masaaki takes his musical cue from natural phenomenon and laws of nature by trying to reconstruct, not simulating them. The results are mainly rhythmical patterns that set off a chai…
After successful EP Collapsed, the Bristol-based project Emptyset strikes back with a full-length album on Raster-Noton. Once more James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas challenge the perceptual boundaries between noise and music and the potential for both technology and architecture to embed and codify themselves within sound. Recur is presented as Emptyset's third studio album -- continuing on from their work with Demiurge, the material examines the central themes of time, structure and recursion, thr…
With RV8, the Osaka-based producer and musician Aoki Takamasa continues his long-term project that focuses on the modulation of rhythms and grooves. It began with his first EP Rhythm Variations in 2009, released as part three of the Unun-series. Besides his collaboration with Raster-Noton, he released records on several labels like Commmons, Progressive Form and Op.Disc, produced remixes for well-known musicians like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yoshihiro Hanno and played performances at Elektra/Mont…
The tale of the mythic Pentaki mountain has been engraved on a two-sided 12" by Kangding Ray. The north face of the peak is steep, abrasive, and has been the subject of many legends. It is said that whoever would manage to climb it would find a plateau, leading to a place called "the single source of truth." The source diffuses endless loops of haunted voices, apparently sampled from a discarded call center, running low on power, encouraging listeners to shorten cycles, deliver requests an…
Mantle is Pixel's fourth release on Raster-Noton since his debut in 2003 and a further exploration of his approach to rhythm-driven electronic music. The overall atmosphere which is produced by the fragile but nevertheless complex sounds is gloomy and quite threatening. Deep, pulsating basses are accompanied by ominous and fierce tones which emerge like flashes of light or shock waves, giving the impression of being warning signals. The few calm moments are constantly disrupted by dark dr…
Super.Trigger is an absolute trove of percussive tensions and frequency-driven finesse and deals mainly with the basic principles of any modern music: rhythm. Frank Bretschneider takes his, never simple, but all the more heartfelt relationship to rhythm and its complexity to an intense inventory and, this time, works less out of suspenseful abstract sounds, than out of grooves. There is a real sense of perpetual evolution and coiled tightness to the pulsating rhythmic programming, while t…
Vladislav Delay's EP Espoo features two conceptual, rhythm-intense tracks. Whereas the groove of the opener "Olari" derives from a sound loop which is manipulated by filters and echoes, the reverse is done with "Kolari." Starting from an impulsive, staccato beat, a sound carpet is woven by means of modifiers which gradually shape a permanent melody, close to Terry Riley's minimalistic concepts. Both tracks share a linear increase in density, and because of their break with the common four…
With “Kuopio”, Raster-Noton releases the second full length album by Vladislav Delay aka Sasu Ripatti. The record features eight new songs which allow the listener to dive into Delay’s cosmos of deep and likewise organic sounds. Subtle yet complex electronic manipulations are used, resulting in a high degree of variation within every single track and a nearly imperceptible intensification of their density. Progressive and energetic rhythms play an important role as already indicated in hi…
Ununhexium is the sixth release in Raster-Noton's Unun series. Emptyset is a Bristol-based project formed by James Ginzburg, director of the Multiverse Studios and the curator and electronic artist Paul Purgas. Collapsed is Emptyset's first release on Raster-Noton and investigates the threshold where sonic structure is destabilized to the point where a chaotic order emerges. Across the four tracks a structural grammar is defined and then pushed to excess to the point where it reforms from re…
With And IV (Inertia), Grischa Lichtenberger presents his first full-length record on Raster-Noton after his participation in the Unun series. For his musical production, he uses field recordings of his environment which are manipulated and broken down to their bare nakedness until only fragments are left. Apart from analog sources, he also uses digital sound data which is likewise turned and twisted until the boundaries between analog and digital are blurred. The arrangement of these atom…
*2024 stock* Vladislav Delay‘s EP »Espoo« features two new conceptual, rhythm-intense tracks. Whereas the groove of the opener »Olari« derives from a sound loop which is manipulated by filters and echoes and finally brings forth the intensifying beat, the reverse is done with »Kolari« on the b-side. Starting from an impulsive, staccato beat, a sound carpet is woven by means of modifiers which gradually shape a permanent vacation-like melody, close to Terry Riley‘s minimalistic concepts. Both tra…
Winterreise is the audio soundtrack to a series of photographs with the same name produced by Atom TM. The series was exhibited during 2011 in Tokyo and Frankfurt (excerpts included in the packaging of the Winterreise CD edition). The Winterreise soundtrack may be considered a sequel to the Liedgut (R-N 099CD) album, in the sense that the resulting photo series was conceived as a consequence of the contextual framework which Liedgut both initiated and provided. Winterreise, though, is a far m…