★Raster-Noton

"since the last senking album "pong" (r-n122) was a great success in 2010 and sold out quickly raster-noton swiftly asked for a follow-up of massel's sound cosmos. on "tweek" senking again reveals his sense of cineastic atmospheres and dark abysmal depths of sound, which are subordinate to extremely slow choky basses and delayed beats. references to dubstep are rather the result of testing the outlying areas of the frequency spectrum than a direct relation to the genre. nevertheless it se…

With Vantaa, Raster-Noton releases for the first time an album by Vladislav Delay aka Sasu Ripatti. Ripatti, one of the pioneers of electronic music of the last decade(s), who is known for several projects, has attracted our attention and received our respect most notably under his pseudonym Vladislav Delay. Vantaa will be the beginning of a long lasting collaboration, which will extend and deepen the spectrum of the label, whereas it falls in line with releases of, for example, William Basinski…

Gatefold 2LP version. Alva Noto's (Carsten Nicolai) Univrs follows on from and develops the concept of the album Unitxt (R-N 095CD/LP). Whereas the focus of Unitxt was on the processing of rhythmic patterns ("unit" = unit of measurement, element) and information ("txt" = data, language), with Univrs the focus is on the conceptual differentiation of a universal language ("universum/universal" = unity, entirety). The 14 tracks on Univrs have evolved from a live context, hence, the approach is…

"simple sonic events are unfolding themselves and evoke the sound of an orffean children ensemble. pleasant and strange noises join a bass foundation that recreates the ground shaking subsonic waves of mid-nineties drum&bass. it's like a drum major meets a tibetan monk. all is good in the noosphere - with "redsuperstructure" robert lippok's new record "redsuperstructure" is based on the spectacular set he performed at raster-noton electric campfire at villa massimo in september 2010. afte…

5th in a series of releases beween Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and electronic artist Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto), "Summvs" presents passionate minimal electronics, and includes a Cluster/Eno cover.  The new album will host its world premiere on may 12th, 2011 at the roundhouse in london and will be followed by a european tour called s in may/june 2011 with stations in rome, padua, graz, copenhagen, brussels, eindhoven, paris, frankfurt, bonn, berlin, leipzig and barcelona. The name o…

After the pruitt igoe e.p, kangding ray returns with his third album for raster-noton, pushing further his explorations on the edge of digital and analog sounds. With or, kangding ray continues to blur the borders between experimental and bass music, and brings his signature sound to another level, somewhere at the darkest fringe of club culture. With the massive metallic beats of « athem », the frightening distorded waves of « mojave », the elevated groove of « odd sympathy », the modulated gui…

The latest project from sheffield based artist and electronic musician mark fell, multistability is primarily an exploration of erratic and non-regular rhythmic patterns. drawing equally from his work with snd and his many solo projects fell's most recent work promotes a minimal complexity; combining meticulous synthetic chordal layering with convoluted, chaotic yet fundamentally engaging temporal structures. (label info)

"pong - referring to the classic video game - is senking's fifth release on raster-noton, moving its focus on stretched dubstep rhythms. to these slow motion grooves, he adds shredded melodies, sub basses and echoes, which create an atmosphere like an angelo-badalamenti-soundtrack known from david lynch's movies. his electronic sound aesthetic reflects rather an organic texture than a machine made algorithm. in tradition of former dub producers, he generates his tracks while playing, and therefo…

Having nicely set up the release of this album with their Ret Marut Handshake EP a few months back, Alva Noto and Blixa Bargeld (of Einsturzende Neubauten fame) deliver a set that exceeds all expectations. One of the most strikingly obvious comparisons to arise from that first batch of material was the Alan Vega/Pan Sonic collaboration, yet Mimikry goes much further than combining the established aesthetics of its constituent parts and creates something that actually feels very new. Car…

Enhanced and incredibly produced bass music from the Raster Noton camp courtesy of Kangding Ray, reinforced with stunning remixes from Alva Noto and Ben Frost. With 'Pruitt Igoe' Kangding Ray augments his sound to Raster's current avant-techno agenda, logging onto the 'floor with the burly swing of 'Rise' and 'Fall', both echoing Dubstep's move into slower tempos and elevated groove technology like some uncompromising Teutonic cousin to Pinch's 'Croydon House' sound or a steel-plated Shac…

Two of the most distinctive presences in German experimental music unite for this stunning new collaborative venture, introducing the project with a five-track 12" that precedes a full-length due later on in the year. As it turns out, these two seemingly strange bedfellows have long admired one another's work and the project has itself been a long-term concern, in development since 2007. Bargeld lends his vocal to Nicolai's soundscapes, a formula that in theory might lead to an end prod…

Indispensible 94-page Hardcover book and 2XCD limited edition focusing on Mika Vainio's intense and truly jawdropping work for installations and site-specific works - making for one of his most priceless collections of material complete with beautiful images and essays - do not miss! Raster Noton is never short of opulent hi-end concepts for sound and design, but they've truly excelled themselves with this book + 2xCD (one disc of unreleased material and a reissue of the amazing Ø + Alva…

We're struggling to contain our excitement over the latest in Raster Noton's Unun series, following essential excursions from Aoki Takamasa, NHK and Grischa Lichtenberger with four tracks of absolutely immense nasty beats and techno reductions from Mika Vainio! It's fully acknowledged that we have a man-crush on this producer, but it's totally justified when he gives out analog brutalism of this variety. There's a definite theme of northern-European destruction going on with this 12" with titles…

LAST COPIES...Incredible 25-minute percussion and bass variations from Japanese uber-producer Aoki Takamasa, new on Raster Noton!* Hugely respected percussive technician Aoki Takamasa has released a stream of rhythmic electronic expressions on labels like Fat Cat and Progressive Form since 2001. This is his first set of productions for the Raster Noton imprint, released as part of their 'Unun' series, after previous installments from Grischa Lichtenberg and NHK. 'RN-Rhythm-Variations' explores b…

Raster Noton's rhythmic auteur, Frank Bretschneider, presents his first album in three years, a "music-visual project based on the idea that fine art should attain the abstract purity of music". 'EXP' is an attempt to assimilate the qualities of music, namely rhythm, movement, tempo, mood, intensity and compositional structure within the visual aspect. The music for the project is arranged from an array of generated and selected waveforms sourced from pure electricity, magnetism, light an…

Finally, after a long long wait, the first new SND album proper in almost 7 years drops on the wonderful Raster Noton label. Followers of these pages will no doubt be aware of our long, drawn-out love affair with this project, beginning back in 1998 with the anonymous arrival of their first self-released 12", through the series of albums produced for Mille Plateaux, the 'Blir' releases and all the way up to last year's amazing '4,5,6' triplepack. The sound they make is an oblique and utterly unp…

Billed as a soundtrack to an imaginary road movie this latest album from Jon Egeskov's Pixel project (his third in all) reaches into your subconscious and yanks out whatever images are lodged in there. Using a basic palette of miniscule percussive elemnts and delicately manipulated amplifier hiss Egeskov instils a sense of gentle motion, sounding out dream-like engine noise that propels the listener down whatever shady lane they're prepared to venture down. The floating hum and crinkled analogue…

LAST COPIES Now deleted, this is the super-limited transparent vinyl. Revolving around a collaborative new arrangement of Sakamoto's classic 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence', this third outing for Carsten Nicolai and Ryuichi Sakamoto has been once again packaged and delivered with utmost attention to detail from the quite remarkable Raster Noton imprint. Designed to accompany their extensive tour through much of Asia and Europe this Summer, 'Revep' is another indispensible record from two absolute…

Awesome new raster cd..."We're completely blown away by Raster Noton at the moment. There used to be a time, back in the mid-late 90's, when we had a total obsession with the work of Uwe Schmidt, aka Atom Heart, aka Atom Tm. His seemingly endless series of albums for his own 'Rather Interesting' label not only displayed a visionary ability to harness technology into an ever-changing series of pseudonyms and personalities, but also somehow managed to do so with the kind of attention to detail and…

The inimitable Raster Noton label picks up it's Unun series with five tracks of utterly sick digital spasms and oblique hi-end processing from Grischa Lichtenberger following on from the devastating NHK 12" last year. Via various methods and processes Lichtenberger manipulates field recordings and musique concrete sampled from the world around him such as a sliding tabletop, the noise of a radiator or the humming of a broken device before transforming them into sound-giving instruments. The resu…

unununium (r-n 111) is the first release of the new raster-noton unun series. The name of the series derives from the greek atomic numbers of the chemical elements 111 119 in the periodic table. NHK is a collaboration of Kouhei Matsunaga and Toshio Munehiro who have been working together since 2006 when they both lived in Osaka. Kouhei started making music back in 1992 focusing on rather experimental compositions. He has been working with various artists such as Merzbow, Asmus Tietchens, Sean Bo…

Olaf Bender is co-founder of Raster-noton label. With Plastic star he (pre-)releases an ep of his upcoming album death of a typographer on the label. Plastic star, the title track, illustrates quite well his main concern with music. a stoical bass drum beat grows, gains energy and intensifies with expressive guitar-like sound waves into an intense and propulsive piece. The sound pretty much reminds of rock music, of the 80-s, but byetone rather focuses on the concept and attitude of that music. …

ollowing his highly successful debut stabil (r-n073), Kangding Ray releases his second full length record on raster-noton, entitled Automne fold. With Automne fold, David Letellier has evolved from the quiet, pristine flow of his debut record to sounds that are raw, dark and organic on this second release. pulsating rhythms become lost in within walls of saturated strings, words are spoken over bowed acoustic guitars, and analog synths collide with urban field recordings. Vocals are a central th…

Death of a typographer is meant to be a snap shot. The release was recorded in a winter week in Berlin. Only the pre-released single plastic star was created in sunny athens. The album contains the original session version of plastic star. The music of death of a typographer carries the special sound of raster-noton - but it is different: the tracks act as focal points, as elegy of an latently flowing stream, a stream that still moves on even when the music has long faded away. The tracks do not…

After finishing the transall cycle and introducing the series of xerrox, Alva Noto makes a move back to his more rhythmic approach in unitxt. It could be seen as a kind of continuation to the transspray ep from 2004. A preview of unitxt concept was already released as a remix track for the björk cd-s release innocence produced by Björk-Timbaland, from her latest album volta (2007). Unitxt was recorded during raster-noton japan tours 2006 and 2007. it was reviewed and edited in berlin early 2008.…

'transform', originally released on mille plateaux (mp 102, 2001), is now being re-released on raster-noton. the album, released as cd, comes with a new cover and digitally remastered. On 'transform', alva noto means to reduce the aesthetic of pop to the bone. Rather than in pop music, where the basic focus lies on harmonic and melodic forms, on transform they give way to pure rhythm structures derived from only sine tones and white noise, which nevertheless convey an emotional level. transform …

Following dataplex cd (raster-noton, r-n068), test pattern is the second audio release in Ryoji Ikeda's multimedia project datamatics; an ongoing exploration of the potential to perceive the invisible multiÐsubstance of data that permeates our world. test pattern acts as a system that converts any type of data (text, sounds, photos and movies) into barcode patterns and binary patterns of 0s and 1s. through the conversion of raw data into digital audio files, ikeda enables us to listen to the flo…

Coh plays cosey CD is the first part of an ongoing collaborative project between Ivan Pavlov-COH and cosey Fanni Tutti known for her solo performances and work with Chris Carter-CTI as well as for being a part of the radical cultural phenomena COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle. Very much a statement rather than just a musical venture, Coh plays cosey deals with concepts of honesty, trust, privacy, communication as well as (perception of) sexuality. The work represents a very close, if an …

1000 fragments is Ryoji Ikeda's first solo album. As early as 1995 Ikeda started with this influential release his consistent work on digital sound design, having an inspiring impact on the the founders of Raster-noton label. 1000 fragments was originally released in february 1995 on Ikeda's own label Cci recordings. Raster-noton is proud to make this important piece of electronic music available again. Here's an early review from www.full-albums.net: 'The works on this disc of japanese computer…

Raster-noton's flagship Signal - Olaf Bender, Frank Bretschneider and Carsten Nicolai - is something like the reference group of one of the pivotal labels of new minimal electronic music. Although only having released one cd so far, their sessions and concerts have been very influential until today. Some of those tracks of the past years now result in a compilation that joins the work of the three masterminds of Raster-noton, but not like a simple aggregation of egos, much rather like a conversa…

With his works the swedish artist Carl Michael Von Hausswolff takes interest in revealing and using accoustic, visual, social and cultural phenomena. For the cd Leech he acts as a parasite on works by Olafur Eliasson, Carsten Höller, Tommi Grönlund-Petteri Nisunen and Richard James. In the three first pieces he sucked energy-sound out from the electric functions of those works; sounds that normally can not be heard. On James' work he bruises the skin surface as leeches usually do before they pen…

With Insen, Alva Noto (aka Carsten Nicolai) and Ryuichi Sakamoto continue their collaboration which started with vrioon. The debut album released on raster-noton in 2003 was voted record of the year 2004 in the electronica category by british magazine The Wire. Particular interest was shown in nicolai's creation towards a new synergy of acoustic piano and digital post production that had not witnessed before, in his approach and interpretation of sakamoto's piano clusters. The strict splitting o…

Catalogue: size 29 cm x 24 cm, 128 pages, 52 photos (48 stills from the movie + 4 installation views) + DVD pal, 13 min, stereo and 5.1 surround. Fades is video installation for a specifically designed environment. ultra fine sprays of mist are introduced into a space in which the white light of the projection manifests itself. These fades move in synchrony to the sound creating a variety of shapes and structures based on linear and logarithmic wave modulations. The main focus does not lie on th…

LP version. Probably Bretschneider's most direct, clear and concentrated work yet, ãRhythm' is neither pop nor avant-garde, but deals simply with the basic principles of any modern music: rhythm. A combination of programming, composition and construction is connected with his very idiosyncratic aesthetic of digital sound but always stays emphatically musical and manages to generate sophisticated and complex rhythm-structures.

Is there beauty in what is threatening? With List, Senking introduces 40 minutes of the darkest matter and reckons, yes. He varies and experiments with a -- for Raster-Noton -- frightening diversity of sounds. He reveals the pieces as sound-collages, as quotes, which seem to refer to splatter movies and film noir. Following the tremendous plot of his endtime-subject, he persistently welds together sound spaces in order to compress them later into overwhelming drone-sounds. These as such, then go…

strings is primarily an attempt to reconcile the aesthetics of digital sound with that of the more traditional music instruments and to enrich the respective domains with the qualities of each other. In a larger scale, the album targets the stereotypes in today's perception of music, trying to smooth out the borders between academic and popular, traditional and contemporary, serious and amusing - all in favour of music. The choice of instruments follows coh's own experience in music: from years …

2024 (lucky) stock. Sold out at source. White vinyl, 10“, limited edition of 500. This record was pressed by Carsten Nicolai through his Raster Noton imprint, specifically for Maurizio Nannucci's label Recorthings & Zona Archives and the Base art gallery where Nicolai's installation had been presented. As such, it has no mention of being a Raster Noton release, except for the Raster Noton website (that was selling half of the vinyl copies, and is still selling the download files), where it appea…

In 2005 and 2006 three major tours of insen led the artists alva noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto around the world. Raster-noton is pleased to present insen live dvd as a document of this project. Recordings took place at Casa da música, Porto, Portugal, on june 11th 2006 and at Sonar festival 2006, Barcelona, Spain, on june 15th 2006. Besides material from 2005 insen album the dvd contains previously unreleased tracks such as xerox and barco. The dvd in dolby 5.1 surround sound comes in a cardboard cove…

This release is an expression of long-lasting artistic ties between both labels. In the greyness, heavy waves begin to glide into the one-hour work. They swell and flood a vacuum. Richard Chartier intensifies this maelstrom in long and graceful moves. In a majestic and subtle manner, he creates a subsonic vastness, capturing the listener, disconnecting him from the irrelevant reality. The end mirrors the beginning -- revealing the idea of an endless space in an endless composition. Finally, Inci…

Originally released in 2006, Set Your Center Between Your Parts In Order To is the follow-up release to the stellar debut, Display, by Danish artist Pixel aka Jon Egeskov. As a professionally-trained jazz musician with academic credentials, Egeskov furthers his journey into the realm of minimalistic electronic music. With distinct parts, he continues merging digital (sound) artifacts with subsonic bass lines in a rather allusive manner. Inspired by African conflict and cross-rhythms, Pixel exami…