★Raster-Noton
And IV (Inertia)
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…
Winterreise
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…
Tweek
"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…
Redsuperstructure
"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…
Univrs
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…
Summvs
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…
Or
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…
Multistability
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)
Endless
"endless is an early catalogue covering carsten nicolai`s art works. the book is one of the first collaborations between rastermusic and noton. 18 p. german/english." (label info)
Pong
"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…
Pruitt Igoe
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…
Exp
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…
Ret Marut Handshake
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…
Time Examined
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…
Xerrox Vol.2
Last copies, covers have a top corner slightly bent, price reduced... OK, brace yourselves. Returning to his much lauded Xerrox project, Alva Noto has out of the blue delivered one of the most emotionally arresting and quite simply jaw-dropping album's we've heard in recent times. Carsten Nicolai once again shuns the pinpoint precision for which he's become renowned, turning to a more abstract yet harmony-driven working methodology. As with the first Xerrox album, the starting point is a set of …
Vandal EP
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…
Rn-Rhythm-Variation
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…
~Treibgut
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…
Unitxt
This latest Alva Noto production is quite excited and rhythmical, especially in the first part (tracks 1 to 10), shaking the audience through multiple communication codes, modulated in sound frequencies that are always well synchronized, touchy and reactive. This seems to be the ultimate recording; an elaborate and synthetic frontier, a computation of the "musical text" fashioned by multiple interfaces and software integrations. When listening to "unitxt", even the unaccustomed listener is immed…
Atavism
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…