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CD
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R-M 207CD
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$21.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 6/13/2025
Ostranenie is a collection of digitally manipulated, impressionistic piano miniatures -- each named after blockbuster films and TV series. Improvised late at night as a reaction against passive media consumption, these pieces function as both homage and critique, navigating the space between classical impressionism and contemporary digital manipulation. They don't just deconstruct traditional piano expression; they interrogate the emotional stakes of sound in an era where immersion culture flattens meaning and algorithmic logic erodes agency. The album's title references the Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky's concept of "ostranenie," (estrangement/defamiliarization), a term he introduced in the early 1920s to describe art's role in resisting the indifference of habitual perception. Shklovsky saw art as a way to break through the anesthetizing effects of routine, stripping away the layers of habit that dull the senses. By making the familiar strange, art reclaims perception from the mechanical and the automatic. His argument wasn't just a theoretical exercise -- it was a response to a world rapidly consumed by industrialization, war machines, and the alienation of a technologically dominated modern life. In this context, he positioned artistic technique as something autonomous, distinct from mere social criticism or psychological reflection. This tension -- between revolutionary/artistic and industrial technologies -- defined the 20th century, and it continues to resonate today. The mechanization and automation that fueled the First World War's devastation, alongside the social and economic turbulence of the 1920s, became central to the era's self-conception. But just as technology was a source of alienation, it was also positioned as an agent of radical change. As the shock of modernity disrupted the human condition, it also became the driving force behind an ideological utopia -- one that ultimately deformed into political totalitarianism -- a paradox that remains unresolved. Ostranenie plays within this contradiction. The music shifts seamlessly between an uncanny black MIDI dismantling of traditional piano virtuosity and moments of raw, fragile intimacy. The result is a work that resists automatic anonymity while questioning what it means to create in an era where the technological mediation of sound -- and experience itself -- is unavoidable: Art in the age of its technological constructedness.
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LP
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R-M 207LP
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$46.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 6/13/2025
LP version. Ostranenie is a collection of digitally manipulated, impressionistic piano miniatures -- each named after blockbuster films and TV series. Improvised late at night as a reaction against passive media consumption, these pieces function as both homage and critique, navigating the space between classical impressionism and contemporary digital manipulation. They don't just deconstruct traditional piano expression; they interrogate the emotional stakes of sound in an era where immersion culture flattens meaning and algorithmic logic erodes agency. The album's title references the Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky's concept of "ostranenie," (estrangement/defamiliarization), a term he introduced in the early 1920s to describe art's role in resisting the indifference of habitual perception. Shklovsky saw art as a way to break through the anesthetizing effects of routine, stripping away the layers of habit that dull the senses. By making the familiar strange, art reclaims perception from the mechanical and the automatic. His argument wasn't just a theoretical exercise -- it was a response to a world rapidly consumed by industrialization, war machines, and the alienation of a technologically dominated modern life. In this context, he positioned artistic technique as something autonomous, distinct from mere social criticism or psychological reflection. This tension -- between revolutionary/artistic and industrial technologies -- defined the 20th century, and it continues to resonate today. The mechanization and automation that fueled the First World War's devastation, alongside the social and economic turbulence of the 1920s, became central to the era's self-conception. But just as technology was a source of alienation, it was also positioned as an agent of radical change. As the shock of modernity disrupted the human condition, it also became the driving force behind an ideological utopia -- one that ultimately deformed into political totalitarianism -- a paradox that remains unresolved. Ostranenie plays within this contradiction. The music shifts seamlessly between an uncanny black MIDI dismantling of traditional piano virtuosity and moments of raw, fragile intimacy. The result is a work that resists automatic anonymity while questioning what it means to create in an era where the technological mediation of sound -- and experience itself -- is unavoidable: Art in the age of its technological constructedness.
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CD
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R-M 211CD
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Originally released in 2005 on his brother's online label Tokyo Trauma, Die Wiederholung der Geschichte der amerikanischen Heimatlosigkeit is Grischa Lichtenberger's debut release, predating his involvement with raster. Anticipating and framing his later works, the visceral sound palette, ranging between harsh digital noise and compelling analog roughness, is put to play in a very unconcerned and uncompromising way on this release, in harmony with an idiosyncratic beat science and an organic, natural feel of song structure and melodies. The influence of independent rock music of the '90s as well as an artistic experimental approach center this record, as his brother David Lichtenberger put it in his description of the record: "Very arty stuff, but first of all characterized by an incredibly direct and heavy sound oscillating between punching beats and digital harsh noise making your ears bleed and you (me at least) scream for more." Conceptionally, Die Wiederholung der Geschichte der amerikanischen Heimatlosigkeit (the repetition of the history of American rootlessness) parallelizes the history of European and American relations with the dialectics between digital and analogue technologies. Experimental methods of electronic music are put in a metaphoric relation with a historical topic, like in "Durchquerung 3" scrubbing a wave form of an audio file that is put in a relation to the crossing of the Death Valley by early American settlers. Using the compressor as an expressionistic tool of composition, overshooting the 0db barrier creating noisy artefacts, time stretching, collaging all work as tools for regenerating material, create a relation to an acoustical subconsciousness of recorded sounds (similar to the optical unconsciousness of slow motion and montage that Walter Benjamin described in his first analyses of cinema in the 1920s). raster reissue this early work of Grischa Lichtenberger, remastered and for the first time in physical format. Silkscreen artwork; edition of 300.
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2LP
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R-M 171LP
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Double LP version. Includes handmade and signed silkscreen print. KAMILHAN; il y a péril en la demeure is the conclusion of a five-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 (R-N 169CD) and continued with the triple EP release Spielraum, Allgegenwart, Strahlung in 2016 (R-N 168-2EP). In addition to the concept of "demeure", one's residence as a symbol for the joy and artistic possibilities one can find in isolation, Lichtenberger places a further emphasis on the expression of the voice, represented by the word "Kamilhan". "Kamilhan" is a non-existent word, an expression that Ernst Bloch once mentioned in an anecdote about his childhood. Fascinated by its sound but without knowing its meaning, it remained vivid in his memory in its purely "material" form. Lichtenberger also refers to this childish perception of language. Words that we do not know, but repeat in our thoughts until they become insignificant. Lyrics in a foreign language that we do not understand and still sing along and imitate. With computer-generated voices, Lichtenberger tries to reproduce these experiences. In his tracks you hear syllables and phrases that are similar to words and that seem familiar to us, but whose meaning remains a secret. As on the previous album, the tracks on KAMILHAN are constantly torn apart and reassembled. Borrowings from hip-hop and even pop are unmistakable, desired, and yet delusive. Rhythms that are repeatedly broken in order to re-organize themselves into new temporal patterns. Melodies that are pierced by precisely these intricate rhythms. Voices that lack any empathy due to their artificiality. Lichtenberger himself describes these tracks as "crooked ballads", which, by deliberately following classic pop song structures, try to sell us the absurd as the normal, and in turn smuggle some hope of recognition into the absurd.
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CD
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R-M 171CD
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KAMILHAN; il y a péril en la demeure is the conclusion of a five-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 (R-N 169CD) and continued with the triple EP release Spielraum, Allgegenwart, Strahlung in 2016 (R-N 168-2EP). In addition to the concept of "demeure", one's residence as a symbol for the joy and artistic possibilities one can find in isolation, Lichtenberger places a further emphasis on the expression of the voice, represented by the word "Kamilhan". "Kamilhan" is a non-existent word, an expression that Ernst Bloch once mentioned in an anecdote about his childhood. Fascinated by its sound but without knowing its meaning, it remained vivid in his memory in its purely "material" form. Lichtenberger also refers to this childish perception of language. Words that we do not know, but repeat in our thoughts until they become insignificant. Lyrics in a foreign language that we do not understand and still sing along and imitate. With computer-generated voices, Lichtenberger tries to reproduce these experiences. In his tracks you hear syllables and phrases that are similar to words and that seem familiar to us, but whose meaning remains a secret. As on the previous album, the tracks on KAMILHAN are constantly torn apart and reassembled. Borrowings from hip-hop and even pop are unmistakable, desired, and yet delusive. Rhythms that are repeatedly broken in order to re-organize themselves into new temporal patterns. Melodies that are pierced by precisely these intricate rhythms. Voices that lack any empathy due to their artificiality. Lichtenberger himself describes these tracks as "crooked ballads", which, by deliberately following classic pop song structures, try to sell us the absurd as the normal, and in turn smuggle some hope of recognition into the absurd.
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CD
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R-M 188CD
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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 album are documents of this development. It also offers both musicians the opportunity to expand their familiar environment by breaking with expectations. The foundation for Re: phgrp were pieces from the album Consequences by Philipp Gropper's band PHILM which Lichtenberger reinterpreted without giving up their original character. He rather looked for figures, subjects, and reference points in the compositions to reflect and condense them. As Consequences was recorded with all the instruments in one room at the same time (like a classical jazz recording from the 1950s), the extraction of individual instruments was a challenge which Lichtenberger took up with shifts, distortions, and rearrangements of the original temporality of the material. Except for a few synthesizer sounds and an additional piano recording, he remained largely true to the source material, even though the tracks develop their own unique voice throughout the album. Re: phgrp (reworking consequences by philipp gropper's philm) will be released in cooperation with Whyplayjazz in a limited edition of 500 CDs. The cover was screen printed and shows a compositional notation by Grischa Lichtenberger. The album marks the beginning of an encounter between Lichtenberger and Gropper that promises to continue in joint improvisational concert situations and further recordings in the future.
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3x12"
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R-N 168-2EP
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As a central point of reference of Grischa Lichtenberger's La Demeure; Il Y a Péril en la Demeure complex (R-N 169CD, 2015), Raster-Noton presents a limited edition of three 12" vinyl EPs that are accompanied by a handmade, signed and individualized screen print. The three EPs, Spielraum, Allgegenwart and Strahlung, were set up as an experiment. Each of the records is guided by a word that could be described as a phantasmagoria, a delusion of the 20th century - like a metaphor that is concerned not only with its immediate meaning, but with an implication more emotional, more irrational, telling something about the mindset of the not so distant past. These keywords already existed before the production on the tracks began and thus played the role of an indirect orientation or playground for association. Nevertheless, the EPs are not conceptualized, but are rather a collection of habits and strategies in relation to the titles. Common to all EPs of the triptych is the question of a connection between intimacy and the public sphere. Aesthetically, the music presented on the EPs ranges from distressing and unaligned dancefloor-oriented tracks to tribal and politically charged drones to unsettling noise ballads. On Spielraum, for example, hypnotizing music box melodies are combined with claustrophobic breakbeats. Allgegenwart, on the other hand, presents mechanical rhythms and sawing pads, topped with high-pitched warning sounds. Last but not least, the final EP Strahlung features self-forgetful, gloomy and melancholy tracks backed by melodies that are reminiscent of a barrel organ turned upside down. Printed, stamped and signed by Lichtenberger himself. Print and paint application variations are intended. Edition of 500.
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CD
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R-N 169CD
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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, and reassembled again. Some parts may remind the listener of hip hop and breakbeat; others may evoke associations with a broken music box -- something mechanical that is not working as it should. In his very own way, Lichtenberger is examining limits, new experiences, and unfulfilled expectations. This unfiltered rawness, as well as the album's lack of a specific target audience, is what is fascinating about La Demeure; Il Y a Péril en la Demeure. It is a luxurious, Kafkaesque collection of materials; an uncensored archive of a seeker. This CD is released in advance of three vinyl EPs, as well as a second album focused on Il Y a Péril en la Demeure -- danger in delay.
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CD
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R-N 143CD
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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 atomic elements results in a rather rough and brute, machine-like cut-up sound with an outstanding dynamic -- almost none. It seems that the 21 tracks only consist of a minimal set of elements, but which are rearranged in a virtuous manner and with a high degree of variation. Broken beats and dribbling basses allude to downbeat tunes, let one stumble because of their arrhythms, to eventually take up the underlying groove again. Equally, there are fierce and harsh technoid elements. And towards the second part of the record, there is also room for new developments where more introverted and airy songs take over. Lichtenberger's musical production on And IV (Inertia) goes in line with his general artistic work, which also comprises other artistic genres such as installations and paintings. There is a mental attitude behind all this, and while the music sounds abstract, one may still identify his personal touch. In this way, And IV (Inertia) is the extension of a concept he already started with his ~Treibgut EP, "to define aspects of legitimization for an artistic work in engagement with the concreteness of one's living situation."
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12"
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R-N 112EP
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Ununbium is the second release in Raster-Noton's Unun series, derived from the Greek atomic numbers of the chemical elements 111-119 in the periodic table. The series will continue with Ununtrium (R-N 113EP); Ununquadium (R-N 114EP); Ununpentiumr (R-N 115EP); Ununhexiumr (R-N 116EP); Ununseptium (R-N 117EP); Ununoctium (R-N 118EP); Ununennium (R-N 119EP). For Ununbium, Berlin's Grischa Lichtenberger recorded sounds from the world around him -- a sliding table top, the noise of a radiator or the droning of a broken machine. By means of digital manipulation, these sounds become instruments.
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