remarkably the technical aspect does not take a leading role in senkings anti-utopia visions. it's about substantial and age-old patterns, about impulses and the inevitable. comparable to a tracking shot, the sound masses are flowing grey and drama-laden towards their final purpose - seeming to follow the ductus of the opening piece - lets go.

set your center between your parts in order to is the highly anticipated 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 parts he continues merging digital (sound) artifacts with subsonic basslines in a rather allusive manner. inspired by african conflict and cross rhythms, pixel examines the potential of simultaneous yet independent pulsating metres. he fuses polyrhythmic and polymetrics with the signature raster-noton sound vocabulary and thus connects his work to the here and now.
the tracks are heavily accentuated in regards to dynamics. they were recorded during several studio sessions without any overdubs (and without editing later). pixel may have drawn inspiration to proceed this way after witnessing live performances by pansonic and autechre. the songs were created intuitively and spontaneously during the process and performing and improvising. you can indeed hear that everything is floating and that there are no statics or incidental situations.
the album set your center between your parts in order to gets it's sparks from the ups and downs of it's density... from the complex blending of basic particles to the shift in their significance. if you allow yourself to get into this dark and evolving fabric a auditory sensation of rhythmicized timer will emerge. mastered by stefan betke of pole / scape.

raster-noton has established a core group of artists, many of which were undiscovered talents. in this tradition the new release is no exception.
kangding ray aka david letellier arrives at raster-noton artist collective with his first album stabil. born in france and based in berlin, letellier evolved as a guitarist and drummer in various bands whose influences ranged from rock and pop to jazz before moving into electronic music. stabil is a reflection of letellier's background as it integrates guitar loops, bass lines, residual noise, acoustic instruments and digital anomalies to create a textured soundscape. as the label is looking into new directions, kangding rays' debut makes it's mark as an interesting attempt to find a balance between the flow of melodies and the ever changing structure of rhythm.

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 of the composition process on this record (piano: sakamoto; production and additional sounds: nicolai) reminds one of the debut album. however, "insen" carries a kind of "transcendental aura" of an early morning meditatory exercise – but at the same time avoiding the field of new age philosophy. enriched by new elements, this "high-tech meditation" follows a consistent line.

on "vrioon", nicolai's typical sinus sounds counterbalanced sakamoto's piano accords. now, on "insen" nicolai works directly with the piano sounds. he dismantles sakamoto's recordings with a "surgeon-like precision" into micro loops, into its atomic elements. starting with these atoms of sound, he creates a new basis for form, compressing floating rotating rhythm with harmonic sequences, with melodic counterpoints, and laying it underneath the piano tracks. this makes "insen" appear more of a complex experience, although the time-stretched flow, or even the clear lines of the piano stay untouched.

from the sleeve notes one can learn that the album was a dedication to a certain people. created far away from these people, "insen" might be a kind of dialogue. It definitely represents a diary of a stay over several month at leon feuchtwanger's "villa aurora", where a large part of the production as well as the final mixes were completed. the themes and the track titles directly refer to that place, to the times of the day, and the events there. even the colours of the album cover associate the emotions and atmosphere experienced at "villa aurora".

only the track "berlin" was recorded later, with nicolai and sakamoto together, during a session at nicolai's studio in berlin. as a reference to that place, one can hear a flock of birds singing in the background of the recording.

"aveol" closes the album also seen as a diary, with a mysterious beauty. the evolution of piano recording and digital post production were pushed the furthest on this track. the combination reached its (temporary) final point.

transall #03
this release is the third part of the transall cycle. transall approaches with the problematics of speed, the vision of utopia and the dissolution of our ideas into fragments.

alva noto a.k.a. carsten nicolai states:
... speed of data-flow is equivalent to the speed of our time. in an era when virtual products of our ideas are expanding, we are simultaneously positioning a calm point in which to settle ourselves.

text, image, vector graphic - storage files, were translated into raw audio data as the source material from which constellations of diffused sound start to form. special emphasis is put on the rhythmic aspect of the digitalised and rasterised data. the tools of their transformation reveal themselves by the structure of the recordings.

by the restricting itself to simple and transparent mechanisms, this process becomes independent from existing standards and gains autonomy. ...

marco peljhan (slo) was approached to accompany the cd with a sleeve note, in regard to the content of the release. the text hopefully allows the audience a wider insight into the themes behind the recordings.
compact disc, 21 min

transall #02
this release is the second part of the transall cycle. transall approaches with the problematics of speed, the vision of utopia and the dissolution of our ideas into fragments.

alva noto a.k.a. carsten nicolai states:
... speed of data-flow is equivalent to the speed of our time.
in an era when virtual products of our ideas are expanding, we are simultaneously positioning a calm point in which to settle ourselves.

text, image, vector graphic - storage files, were translated into raw audio data as the source material from which constellations of diffused sound start to form. special emphasis is put on the rhythmic aspect of the digitalised and rasterised data. the tools of their transformation reveal themselves by the structure of the recordings.

by the restricting itself to simple and transparent mechanisms, this process becomes independent from existing standards and gains autonomy. ...

kodwo eshun (uk) was approached to accompany the cd with a sleeve note, in regard to the content of the release. the text hopefully allows the audience a wider insight into the themes behind the recordings.
compact disc, 21 min.

three writers were approached to accompany each part of the trilogy with a sleeve note, in regard to the content of the release. the texts hopefully allow the audience a wider insight into the themes behind the recordings. for #01 transrapid: ulf poschardt (d)

Ø + noto.mikro makro clear series
pixel.scrapple from the apple raster-post
senking.lift raster-static
COH.silence is golden raster-static
robert lippock.close clear series
w. basinski.shortwavemusic clear series
liima.versions kangaroo
signal.lines sonar-limited
cyclo.c7 clear series
ryoji ikeda.0'12"32* 20' to 2000
ryoji ikeda.0'12"34* 20' to 2000
signal.waves sonar-limited
byetone.oacis oacis-box
m. akiyama.arterial raster-post
komet.band oacis-box
noto.time dot 20' to 2000
signal.spiral unreleased
noto.mm unreleased

during his first live tour in japan carsten nicolai met ryuichi sakamoto in tokyo. a year after it happened that he was asked to remix material from sakamoto for the japanese magazine Code Unfinished.

"… the material that was given to me was already layered with digital effects. from one little clean piano piece i made the first track. those simple piano chords i combined with a clear rhythm constellation. … somehow ryuichi was very surprised and really liked my work. weeks later he sent me another specially for this project recorded track."

this was the beginning of an almost 2 year process of music exchange and creation. Vrioon is very relaxing, it opens rooms, landscapes blur before listeners eyes. static rhythmic pieces circle round and vary one and the same theme that, with its impressionistic sphere, reminds of soundtracks and ambient compositions.

in this cooperation 2 different generations meet and share the idea of electronic music as an inspiration source for new musical structures.

ruyichi sakamoto can already refer to an enormous productive achievment. in 1978 he founded The Yellow Magic Orchestra together with haruomi hosono and yukihiro takahashi which later went on world tour with Kraftwerk. since 1983 he has been working in the film branch and has written soundtracks for Merry Christmas, Mr. Laurence, The Last Emporer and Little Buddha. he also worked with famous artists such as David Bowie, David Byrne, David Sylvian, Iggy Pop, Robert Wilson and William Burroughs.

Carsten Nicolai can be seen as one of the most significant artist of the new electronic music generation that shows new attempts in sound composing with its radical reduced style. besides several solo releases he also worked with ultra minimalist mika vainio from pansonic and the japanese sound artist ryoji ikeda. carsten nicolai is one of the founders of the label raster-noton that was awarded the Golden Nica for digital music from Ars Electronica in 2000.

mixed mode cd: 40 min. audio + data track (mac only)
the young japanese artist nibo lives and works in tokyo/japan where he also has his own label "n160". since 1997 he has been working on sound and visual projects where he puts special interest on scientific mathematical features.
his release on raster-noton is a macintosh programmed mixed mode cd connecting audio and visual components. minimal digital sounds are transformed into images which are generated from the soundwaves. geometric forms get their parameters directly from the audio signals.
raster-noton's idea was to document this basic working concept because it shows the current aesthetic, multimedial and technic level of those approaches. even though his release follows the tradition of ikeda's and nicolai's live performance work nibo is part of the japanese generation that seem to have found their own way to work with sound and image.