Founded by Olaf Bender and Frank Bretschneider in 1996, "Raster-Noton. Archiv für ton und nichtton" is meant to be a platform -- a network covering the overlapping border areas of pop, art and science. Emerging from the fusion of the two labels Rastermusic and Noton (in 1999), Raster-Noton is the curator of new music projects, publications and installation works. The common idea behind all their releases is an experimental approach -- an amalgamation of sound, art and design.
So far, the label's catalog consists of more than 100 releases, with contributions by diverse artists such as William Basinski, Alva Noto, Ivan Pavlov aka COH, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Ryoji Ikeda, Mika Vainio, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Richard Chartier, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, SND, Wolfgang Voigt and Uwe Schmidt aka Atom TM.
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R-M 212CD
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$23.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 12/6/2024
The world became another since the release of Decadent yet Depraved (R-M 178CD, 2017), and so has Belief Defect's reflection of it: now darker, political, honest -- end times in Cinemascope. When the duo reunited in the studio after the two-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 cathartic as the struggle sessions of the cultural revolution must have been. Desire and Discontent unfolds like a parable, structured by subsonic frequencies that give arrangements a solid gravity, dissonant chord progressions resulting in coherent movements, punctuated by human-like voices over slow, suspenseful melodies that come into being without the listener's awareness. Contributing to the album with machine-like precision drumming is Merlin Ettore, vocals from Anna Gartner, and the artwork of Juan Mendez (Silent Servant).
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R-M 215LP
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LP version. Reflex is Gábor Lázár's debut album on raster. His new record is a collection of seven tracks, featuring an extended sound palette of percussions and synthesizers drawing listeners attention towards the essential soundscapes of techno while maintaining his distinct, uncompromising and meticulously detailed style. While the tracks do not follow traditional narratives, the album has an evolution: it gently builds up from challenging, unpredictable, and organically composed structures to linear yet playful forms of techno-infused tracks, taking listeners on a journey from home listening environments to club contexts. The senses are stimulated by micro-variations of textures and patterns, leading to the feeling of here and now. Gábor's consistent production techniques and intuitive compositional approach work together coherently, addressing the listener's cognition from different angles simultaneously, offering a variety of ways for the listener to get immersed.
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R-M 215CD
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Reflex is Gábor Lázár's debut album on raster. His new record is a collection of seven tracks, featuring an extended sound palette of percussions and synthesizers drawing listeners attention towards the essential soundscapes of techno while maintaining his distinct, uncompromising and meticulously detailed style. While the tracks do not follow traditional narratives, the album has an evolution: it gently builds up from challenging, unpredictable, and organically composed structures to linear yet playful forms of techno-infused tracks, taking listeners on a journey from home listening environments to club contexts. The senses are stimulated by micro-variations of textures and patterns, leading to the feeling of here and now. Gábor's consistent production techniques and intuitive compositional approach work together coherently, addressing the listener's cognition from different angles simultaneously, offering a variety of ways for the listener to get immersed.
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R-M 214CD
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Unequal cycles searching for synchronous experiences: On his new album Pounding, Frank Bretschneider tells of distance, convergence and congruence in a continuous, ever-changing flow of events. What is often considered to be an unquestionable dogma in club music (for which Bretschneider has provided significant impetus since the 1990s) -- the groove -- appears precarious, unstable, and in motion. Pulse and accent are volatile encounters and have to be found again and again for short, delightful moments. Music becomes a constant process of negotiation. In search of new sound spaces, Bretschneider has recently worked a lot with modular synthesizers, both solo and in collaborations, including the project Beispiel together with Jan Jelinek. Pounding was created using similar means -- conceived in 2020 for the Pochen Biennale in Chemnitz, subsequently developed further and recorded in March and April 2023 on a sample-based modular system. And in fact, Bretschneider is once again exemplarily scanning his own sound material, for example Dub effects that listen to themselves crumbling. But also the human voice, or more precisely: the stuttering of fragments of speech, far in the distance but omnipresent, like a mysterious narration. Aesthetically, the eleven pieces form part of a series of works with a focus on percussion. Bretschneider has already perfected this approach with albums like Rhythm (2007) and has been shifting the perspective ever since, for ever-new results. Shifting is the basic principle of Pounding. Bretschneider combines elements that are in different aggregate states, changing their relationship to each other and thus ensuring the complex overall movement. He lets one to two-bar loops run against each other and through manipulations, develops a network of rhythms that creates a hypnotic state in the counterplay of repetition and mutation, between clearly recognizable meter and disorientation. There are comparable approaches in aleatoric music. Bretschneider combines them with sounds and patterns that are reminiscent of step sequencer logic and at the same time go far beyond it. The result is relational techno. Never clear, constantly restless and exciting.
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R-M 214LP
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Unequal cycles in search of synchronous experiences: On his new album Pounding, Frank Bretschneider tells of distance, convergence and congruence in a continuous, ever-changing flow of events. What is often regarded as an unquestionable dogma in club music -- the groove -- appears precarious, unstable, and in motion. Pulse and accent are volatile encounters and have to be found again and again for short, delightful moments. Music becomes a constant process of negotiation. In search of new sound spaces, Bretschneider has recently worked a lot with modular synthesizers, both solo, and in collaborations, including the project Beispiel together with Jan Jelinek. Pounding was created using similar means -- conceived in 2020 for the Pochen Biennale in Chemnitz, subsequently developed further and recorded in March and April 2023 on a sample-based modular system. And in fact, Bretschneider is once again exemplarily scanning his own sound material, such as dub effects that listen to them-selves disintegrate; but also the human voice, or more precisely: the stuttering of fragments of speech, far in the distance but omnipresent, like a mysterious narration. Aesthetically, the eleven pieces form part of a series of works with a focus on percussion. Bretschneider has already perfected this approach with albums like Rhythm (2007) and has been shifting the perspective ever since, for ever-new results. Shifting is the basic principle of Pounding. Bretschneider combines elements that are in different aggregate states, changing their relationship to each other and thus ensuring the complex overall movement. He lets one to two-bar loops run against each other and through small manipulations, develops a network of rhythms that creates a hypnotic state in the counterplay of repetition and mutation, between clearly recognizable meter and disorientation. There are comparable approaches in aleatoric music. Bretschneider combines them with sounds and patterns that are reminiscent of step sequencer logic and at the same time go far beyond it. The result is relational techno. Never obvious, always restless and exciting.
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EXT 016LP
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White Noise is a cooperation project between Raster-media and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. It is conceived as an audio archive of the MPIEA artists in residence which records the artistic works on vinyl and documents the respective concepts and working methods in text form. Victoria Keddie's Pshal P'shaw is a multimedia exploration delving into phonetic expression's auditory and rhythmic nuances of phonetic expressions through an amalgamation of text, sound, video, data, and customized learning software. Drawing inspiration from the painter and architectural theorist Hermann Finsterlin who made speculative architectural renderings, the project originated during a residency at the Max Planck Institute of Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt in 2023. The project's engagement with the sonic landscape of the eight diphthongs in US English, documented through recorded sessions at EEG labs with participants of diverse international backgrounds, is not just a technical analysis. The applied script for the recording session, infused with a contemporary Western US dialect, ventures beyond, exploring the primal essence of phonetic expression and its impact on the oral landscape of mouth, throat, and tongue. This work focuses on the spoken aspect of language: the art of oration, conversation, and mimicry. It reflects the beauty of perpetual change, speaking directly to humanity and the raw, tender moments of existence. It embraces the awkward, beautiful and vulnerable essence of the shared human experience. Victoria Keddie is a multidisciplinary artist delving into sound, video, installation, and performance. Her work uncovers hidden narratives within ordinary artifacts and spaces, emphasizing their role in shaping humanity's collective story. The examination of acoustic phenomena and language is a recurring theme in her artistic work. Keddie's current projects navigate the acoustic complexity of language and dialects. Limited black 12" vinyl LP in handmade white cardboard box, black inner sleeve, including 40-page magazine English/German.
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R-M 213LP
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LP version. Il Quadro di Troisi presents La Commedia. Four years after their eponymous debut, Il Quadro di Troisi return with a new album and a new line-up. The perfect circle traced by Eva Geist (aka Andrea Noce) and Donato Dozzy (aka Donato Scaramuzzi) becomes a triangle with the permanent addition of Pietro Micioni, who collaborated in the previous recordings and had been part of ll Quadro's live set. La Commedia is about turning a crisis into an opportunity and using change as a catalyst for rebirth. Much like the characters in classic Italian comedies, who are masters in using irony to face life's hardships, Il Quadro di Troisi explores the vast and unpredictable terrain between the lighter and darker sides of the human experience, matching the magical with the mundane. La Commedia marks the band's embrace of a more traditional song form, shaped by a very personal and distinctive musical style. The distinguishing elements of Il Quadro di Troisi's music -- classic Italian songwriting with an electronic spin -- meld into a unique mix that is both seductive and eerie, elegant and earthy, contemporary and timeless. La Commedia celebrates the band's cultural roots while constantly moving into new territory, balancing nostalgia with a forward-thinking approach. La Commedia is a rare gem that confirms Il Quadro di Troisi's relevance in the international music scene, as demonstrated by the number of top-level artists featured on the album: from Suzanne Ciani, a legend and a pioneer of independent music with a career spanning five decades, to Aimee Portioli, aka Grand River, a Dutch-Italian musician, composer and sound designer based in Berlin, along with Francesca Colombo's eclectic violin (the de facto "fourth angle" of Il Quadro di Troisi's frame), Fiona Brice's strings, cultural agitator and icon of the Roman underground scene Stefano Di Trapani (aka Demented Burrocacao and a member of Trapcoustic and System Hardware Abnormal, among other projects), Maestro Daniele Di Gregorio, an excellent musician and a longtime collaboration of songwriting legend Paolo Conte, and Tommaso Cappellato, whose professional description goes well beyond "drummer" and who has been working with artists like Rabih Beaini and Maurice Louca.
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R-M 213CD
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Il Quadro di Troisi presents La Commedia. Four years after their eponymous debut, Il Quadro di Troisi return with a new album and a new line-up. The perfect circle traced by Eva Geist (aka Andrea Noce) and Donato Dozzy (aka Donato Scaramuzzi) becomes a triangle with the permanent addition of Pietro Micioni, who collaborated in the previous recordings and had been part of ll Quadro's live set. La Commedia is about turning a crisis into an opportunity and using change as a catalyst for rebirth. Much like the characters in classic Italian comedies, who are masters in using irony to face life's hardships, Il Quadro di Troisi explores the vast and unpredictable terrain between the lighter and darker sides of the human experience, matching the magical with the mundane. La Commedia marks the band's embrace of a more traditional song form, shaped by a very personal and distinctive musical style. The distinguishing elements of Il Quadro di Troisi's music -- classic Italian songwriting with an electronic spin -- meld into a unique mix that is both seductive and eerie, elegant and earthy, contemporary and timeless. La Commedia celebrates the band's cultural roots while constantly moving into new territory, balancing nostalgia with a forward-thinking approach. La Commedia is a rare gem that confirms Il Quadro di Troisi's relevance in the international music scene, as demonstrated by the number of top-level artists featured on the album: from Suzanne Ciani, a legend and a pioneer of independent music with a career spanning five decades, to Aimee Portioli, aka Grand River, a Dutch-Italian musician, composer and sound designer based in Berlin, along with Francesca Colombo's eclectic violin (the de facto "fourth angle" of Il Quadro di Troisi's frame), Fiona Brice's strings, cultural agitator and icon of the Roman underground scene Stefano Di Trapani (aka Demented Burrocacao and a member of Trapcoustic and System Hardware Abnormal, among other projects), Maestro Daniele Di Gregorio, an excellent musician and a longtime collaboration of songwriting legend Paolo Conte, and Tommaso Cappellato, whose professional description goes well beyond "drummer" and who has been working with artists like Rabih Beaini and Maurice Louca.
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12"
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R-M 209EP
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ASA (Arturo Lanz, Saverio Evangelista, AtomTM ) are the last three futurists on earth. 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.
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R-M 205LP
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In Words is the first solo album by the Danish musician, composer, and visual artist Alexander Tillegreen. The album represents a series of varied electronic music pieces while also carrying examples of ongoing work with psychoacoustic phenomena. Composed partly of material taken from his artistic practice as an installation artist and his ongoing interdisciplinary artistic research into psychoacoustic phenomena, Tillegreen investigates subjective sonic perception and the negotiation of language. Particularly, these investigations are done through the use of the phantom word illusion, originally discovered by music psychologist Diana Deutsch. Tillegreen's unique sound works unfold like a kaleidoscope of phonetic mirrors which render possibilities to reflect upon the listener's own psychological and culturally situated linguistic embeddedness. Gender-distorted voice perception, speech and language borders are all challenged and thematized throughout Tillegreen's work. The polyrhythmic seriality of spatialized syllabic structures is accompanied by elements of heavy bass drops, high-frequency tensions, undulating synth lines, and hypnotic effects. Some of the many compositional potentials of the phantom word illusions are exercised and unfolded in selected tracks throughout the album. Other parts of the album represent more diverse approaches to abstract electronic music. In Words morphs soundscapes into glacial, spherical passages of ambient backdrops, while at other times emphasizes raw tectonic blocks of hyper-panning drones that erupt into high-velocity outlets of energetic, granular fields. Tillegreen is alternating between cyclical, minimalist, hypnotic approaches and complex, glitchy polyrhythmic melodic structures that shift and melt into evocative ambiences. The phantom words and the nature of Tillegreen's musical visions progressively demand more of the listener's attention and represent the artist's ongoing artistic work and scientific research into psychoacoustics and language. While In Words is a highly conceptual album, the musical bandwidth is extensive.
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2x12"
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R-M 199LP
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Following up on their highly acclaimed debut release from 2020, Raster presents Il Quadro di Troisi's Remixes album, an eclectic collection of reinterpretations of eight of the duo's tracks. By inviting fellow label artists as well as friends and long-term collaborators to contribute to this, Remixes shows a broad spectrum of diversity, ranging from colorful, loop-based renditions by Toulouse Low Trax and Tropicantesimo, to (Italo) disco-inspired versions by Daniele Baldelli and Marco Dionigi and Chloé, to more rhythmical and functional tracks by AtomTM, Dasha Rush and Front de Cadeaux. The album also includes a dub-infused reinterpretation of "Il giudizio" by the artists themselves. Remixes will be out on Raster on August 18, 2023 as a double LP and digitally. The record's artwork was contributed by Spanish graphic designer Alicia Carrera.
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R-M 209CD
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ASA (Arturo Lanz, Saverio Evangelista, AtomTM) are the last three futurists on earth. 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 13 tracks (which comprise the digital full-length version) of Radial are the exact expansion of sonic ideas those three artists have explored during the last couple of decades. Unexpectedly so, this makes this production an outstandingly atemporal one -- some would even classify it as meta-contemporary. A selection of ten tracks of the digital full-length album on CD.
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R-M 210LP
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LP version. Immerse yourself in an ethereal sonic voyage with Dasha Rush's latest electronic music masterpiece, Contemplating. This ambient album takes listeners on a transcendental journey through ethereal landscapes and immersive textures. The album's title perfectly encapsulates its essence. From the very first note, Contemplating captivates with its intricate layers of atmospheric harmonies, meticulously weaving together a tapestry of minimalistic sonic elements. As the ethereal soundscape unfolds, listeners are invited to embrace the moment of stillness in a realm where emotions and thoughts intertwine, creating a sonic experience that is both introspective and otherworldly.
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R-M 210CD
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Immerse yourself in an ethereal sonic voyage with Dasha Rush's latest electronic music masterpiece, Contemplating. This ambient album takes listeners on a transcendental journey through ethereal landscapes and immersive textures. The album's title perfectly encapsulates its essence. From the very first note, Contemplating captivates with its intricate layers of atmospheric harmonies, meticulously weaving together a tapestry of minimalistic sonic elements. As the ethereal soundscape unfolds, listeners are invited to embrace the moment of stillness in a realm where emotions and thoughts intertwine, creating a sonic experience that is both introspective and otherworldly.
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R-M 206CD
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Ödipus, Herrscher is the debut release of Japanese sound artist Mieko Suzuki on raster. Her work is the result of a composition commissioned by Schauspielhaus Bochum. The classic, timeless material of Oedipus has been staged as a gloomy dystopia in Bochum since 2021. With her immersive sound layers for the play, Suzuki focuses on the processing of archaic resonance media such as wood, stone, metal, fur, and clay. Already before the first words of the play are spoken, the auditorium is filled with a gloomy, static drone; a sound that anticipates what will later become the bitter basic tendency of the material on stage: pestilence, decay, fear, and resignation. Anticipating the plot theme with this drone also underlines the key role of the sound, the importance of the music for this production. Suzuki processes sounds with contact microphones, gently stroking on wood, but later increasing to scratching and hitting. Only in the background the sound sources are electronically manipulated, alienated, and distorted. Her central concern is direct interaction, the correspondence between acting and music through the direct improvisation of her sound spheres. Without the primary use of classical instruments, music emerges that includes the gesture of triggering sound events. The titles of the individual tracks such as "Disaster", "Taboo", "Pest", and "Vertigo" express the underlying story line musically and emotionally without illustrating it as a compositional narrative. "Vertigo", for example, features a constantly playing Shepard tone, expressing the inevitability of the abyss. In addition to this production, Suzuki is involved as a sound artist and musician in other theater plays such as Hamlet at Schauspielhaus Bochum and Richard II at the Vienna Burgtheater. She has performed at Mutek.JP (Tokyo), CTM Festival (Berlin), Human Club (Barcelona), and E1 (London), among others, and co-organizes the Berlin event series Kookoo. Mieko Suzuki lives and works in Berlin.
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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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12"
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R-M 204EP
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Atom TM's new four tracker Nacht contains some highlights as well as some unreleased titles from the Neuer Mensch album (R-M 201CD). Both "Nacht" and "Geometrische Einheit" are previously unreleased compositions, while "Sprechender Raum" and "Selbst" appear on the previously mentioned album, yet are presented as alternative versions here. The EP's track selection was made having the emerging meta-techno dancefloor in mind.
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R-M 200CD
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Frank Vigroux's latest release Magnetoscope refers to the eighties, a "terrifying time" as he calls it. A time that influenced him and raster; Blade Runner dystopia, Polaroid colors, and VHS video recorder aesthetics (in French "Magnétoscope") form the conceptual foundation of the sound aesthetics used here. The compositions, between progressive pop ("VHS"), Vangelis romanticism ("L.A."), and dark, abstract layers of sound ("Stream"), are worked out in detail, driving forward, and can also be harmonically complex. Nevertheless, as usual from Vigroux, they somehow always remain timeless and classic. New on Magnetoscope is a kind of melodic euphoria paired with machine-funk elements, like on "Cassette". Magnetoscope is part of a series of releases -- including Vigroux's predecessor Ballades sur lac gelé from 2020 (R-M 192CD/LP) -- that interrelate strict and cool analog sounds, drum machines and noise landscapes in an epic, almost cinematic way. Let's leave it open whether this artistic attitude is also a child of the '80s.
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R-M 147LP
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Atom TM's electronic quintessence: a blend of pop, electronic abstraction and powerful grooves. HD can be described Atom TM's electronic quintessence: a blend of pop, electronic abstraction and powerful grooves -- an invention Atom TM Stands for and which was popularized through previous releases, classics in the electronica genre, such as Pop Artificielle and others. Here is what the artist says: "As so often I was asked to say and write something about the recording you are currently having in front of you: HD. To any musician this is no doubt a complicated moment, since the choice of medium had already been taken in the first place: music. However, it seems that the written word needs to accompany the music, if not just to make sure the composer knows how to defend himself. Let me be frank, in the past this has been a rather ungrateful job, due to the fact that words either seem to appear like a method of justification or explanation of something that in my modest opinion doesn't need either one of the two. In the same sense in which "Liedgut" wasn't about romaticism and "Winterreise" had nothing to do with Schubert, HD isn't about anything I'd wish to express in a lengthy text or would like to see you being able to pinpoint or sell with a flashy headline. In order to get done with the headline, apart from the rather descriptive details I will dedicate my time to in an instant: HD is a spiritual work, HD is a musical work, HD is a scientific work. The first recordings for HD were made in 2005. Back then the album still carried another title which was Hard Disc Rock. The initial selection of songs for Hard Disc Rock was of course a very different one, and while the years passed by most of those songs which did not continue to please, were one by one replaced by newer compositions . . . All of the "early" tracks for the later re-entitled HD album necessarily were subject to profound changes in music and words, and i can say that by the time around 2012 Hard Disc Rock had completely transformed into something else, which is pretty much what you got laying in front of you right now. HD contains a couple of contributions by friends and colleagues such as Jamie Lidell (main vocals on "I Love U"), Alva Noto (additional programmings on "Ich Bin Meine Maschine"), Marc Behrens (additional programmings on "Strom" and "My Generation"), Jean-Charles Vandermynsbrugge (main vocals on "Pop HD"), Dominique Depret (guitars), and Chilean pop star Jorge Gonzalez (backing vocals, guitar, bass).
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R-M 201CD
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Brilliant new album by AtomTM -- After <3 (R-M 189CD/LP, 2020) comes the Neuer Mensch. The continuously edited, autonomous piece of code as which AtomTM defines itself enters the hot state of flow. Neuer Mensch (New Human) is the relentless, visceral expression of metamorphosis. A projection of the metahuman horizon, an exercise in shedding the exoskeleton. Dead tissue is being torn off in radical body movements. Dead ideas are crushed by feet, dancing the dance of brutal elegance. Somatic exorcism via hyper realistic surfaces of binary noise. Physicality. Unseen geometries dressed in the most basic of rhythmic patterns -- simple structures of hidden symmetries. The false promise of linear progress as it shatters, hitting the barrier of sound. Familiar vocal fragments speak to us in foreign tongues, languages still to be invented. Indecipherable messages from another species -- future faux amis. The seductive spell of artificiality and its inherent promise of tomorrow's bliss. A soundtrack for all of you hi-tech vagabonds, you godless drifters, deprived of past and present. [text generated by x1n]
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R-M 198CD
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In ancient Greek mythology, Zeus was the king of the Olympian gods and the supreme deity. He was the god of the sky, lightning, thunder (KEPAYNO∑), law, order, and justice. The Cyclopes were three, orb-eyed, immortal giants who forged the thunderbolts of Zeus. The lawless Titans, encouraged by Gaia, tried to wrestle control of the world from the Olympian gods in a ten-year battle known as the Titanomachy. The Titans were the brothers and sisters of Cronus and it was only through the help of the Cyclopes (who made Zeus his thunderbolts) and the hundred-handed giants or Hecatoncheires (Briareos, Cottus, and Gyges) that Zeus was finally able to imprison the Titans in Tartarus, the deepest part of the underworld. Making himself ruler of the skies, Zeus then gave dominion over the seas to Poseidon and of the underworld to Hades. KEPAYNO∑ was one of the most powerful symbols in ancient Greece -- if not the most powerful. As contemporary science proved, the thunders that dominated the earth before the creation of life gave birth to the primordial substances by enhancing the production of nitrogen and thus amino acids which are essential for the production of proteins and life. In numerous civilizations they believed that the overlord of thunder was a deity. In Celtic mythology, Taranis was the god of thunder. In Slavic mythology it was Perun and in Scandinavian it was Thor. In India, the god of thunder was Indra and in Finland it was Ukko. In China, Lei Gong was worshipped as the deity of thunders and in Rome the people who died because of thunder were considered as blessed. Inkas believed that thunder was the son of the sun and the moon and in Christianity thunder is the voice of god. The music of KEPAYNO∑ was composed by using environmental sounds and field recordings from the five continents: Oceania: Tarkine Rainforest, Asia: Okinawa, Europe: Ancient Olympia and Iceland, Africa: Uganda, Botswana and Namibia, America: Amazon Rainforest and Niagara Falls.
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10"
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R-M 191EP
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Albert van Abbe x Byetone. Sutch sound artist Albert van Abbe now joins the Raster family, with an unexpected collaboration with founder Olaf Bender aka Byetone titled Dual. Having spent time working side by side in 's-hertogenbosch at the Willem Twee Studio, the result of their collaboration is both smooth and haptic, rounding out as an expressive camaraderie between the two veteran producers. jovial and innocent, Dual alludes to the experimental research process of finding common ground. fully embracing the haphazard richness of live recordings, the result is a remarkable fusion of contrasting outputs; intricate collaborative efforts and byproducts woven together with an eager indifference towards expectation. The artists embrace a skewed navigation through pronounced highlights, intricate lulls and moments of temporal stasis, intermittently punctuated as a means of intentionally avoiding notions of rigid perfection. With "real-time" approach directing Dual's creation, the pair effectively shies away from any meticulous planning, and the music runs free and negates any rigid parameters one might have expected. Quirky titles exude the collaged form of the release, and underline its innocent charm. As a whole, Dual focuses on the creative process and fully engages listeners with its own dialogue, though it is very outspoken, at times even abrasive.
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2LP
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R-M 197LP
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Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve. The four Scottish-Irish musicians Conor Dalton, David Donaldson, Greame Reedie and Ian Maclennan are Island People. After their highly acclaimed debut from 2017, they have now finished their second album with the simple and consistent title II. Compared to their debut, II sounds more mature and complex. The arrangements unfold like the long tracking shots of an early Antonioni film -- time seems to stand still, circling the moment. Impressionistically, one feels transported into the Scottish island landscape with its contrasting lights and harsh elements. Gloomy, darker, richer textures have conquered their space on II as much as the more present acoustic components. As much as its predecessor, also this record was skillfully produced, the musicians' entire experience is audible (Conor Dalton is a sought-after mastering engineer; David Donaldson a Grammy Award-winning producer) -- but anything fashionable or sensationalist has been intentionally waived. The musical serenity, holding up a craft that neither has to show itself off every minute nor wants to respond to the latest trends impressed us the most. The cover photo was contributed by the Scottish artist Helena Ohman. She also provided the video for the track "Crash". Furthermore, singer Alice Hill-Woods was invited to contribute the lyrics and vocals to "Stalling". Island People on the creative process behind the album: "This album reflects on the destination we have in common before us, and celebrates the longer road while also considering paths not taken and journeys that ended too soon. It has been said that »art is how we decorate space; music is how we decorate time. For us the writing of this album has been a great journey through both, shared with friends. While our first album acknowledged our own spaces and borders as individuals, the new album seemed to grow very quickly from our travels together as a band. Periods spent on the road playing live afforded extra time together and while we didn't feel constrained to a concept at the start, more and more of the tracks evolved to reflect these journeys and experiences together."
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CD
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R-M 197CD
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The four Scottish-Irish musicians Conor Dalton, David Donaldson, Greame Reedie and Ian Maclennan are Island People. After their highly acclaimed debut from 2017, they have now finished their second album with the simple and consistent title II. Compared to their debut, II sounds more mature and complex. The arrangements unfold like the long tracking shots of an early Antonioni film -- time seems to stand still, circling the moment. Impressionistically, one feels transported into the Scottish island landscape with its contrasting lights and harsh elements. Gloomy, darker, richer textures have conquered their space on II as much as the more present acoustic components. As much as its predecessor, also this record was skillfully produced, the musicians' entire experience is audible (Conor Dalton is a sought-after mastering engineer; David Donaldson a Grammy Award-winning producer) -- but anything fashionable or sensationalist has been intentionally waived. The musical serenity, holding up a craft that neither has to show itself off every minute nor wants to respond to the latest trends impressed us the most. The cover photo was contributed by the Scottish artist Helena Ohman. She also provided the video for the track "Crash". Furthermore, singer Alice Hill-Woods was invited to contribute the lyrics and vocals to "Stalling". Island People on the creative process behind the album: "This album reflects on the destination we have in common before us, and celebrates the longer road while also considering paths not taken and journeys that ended too soon. It has been said that »art is how we decorate space; music is how we decorate time. For us the writing of this album has been a great journey through both, shared with friends. While our first album acknowledged our own spaces and borders as individuals, the new album seemed to grow very quickly from our travels together as a band. Periods spent on the road playing live afforded extra time together and while we didn't feel constrained to a concept at the start, more and more of the tracks evolved to reflect these journeys and experiences together."
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LP
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R-M 190LP
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LP version. Raster presents Il Quadro di Troisi a project by Andrea Noce (Eva Geist) and Donato Scaramuzzi (Donato Dozzy). The record is a colorful ode of an Italian scented vision, overflowing of details and profound intensity. The contemporary world condition, the pandemic in Italy and around the world define Il Quadro di Troisi as a unique and right-on-time release. This record is an enigmatic collaboration between the two Italian natives Andrea Noce and Donato Scaramuzzi. Andrea Noce takes lead on the vocals, with Donato Scaramuzzi carving the dreamlike soundscapes of the record. The record was born with a correspondence between the two artists about the late actor and director Massimo Troisi, and this exchange soon became an inspirational source of identification. Andrea Noce's lyrics are sensitive and multi-faceted, they perfectly cling to the musical phrases and flow like a filmic monologue from the oeuvre of that very Troisi. In a highly creative and confident manner, entire decades of national music history are comprehended and transformed into the here and now. The record takes its cue from the Italo-disco, synth pop tradition corroborated by the contribution of artists such as the legendary Twilight Music co-founder, Pietro Micioni. With Il Quadro di Troisi, Noce and Scaramuzzi prove their eclecticism, and passion for their home country. Il Quadro di Troisi is a collaboration between Raster and the Milan-based festival Terraforma. With this release, the first with a purely Italian topic at its center, Raster celebrates its long-standing relation with Italy and the Italian audience, encapsulated in the label's project "Electric Campfire" held in Rome for ten years. Terraforma is an international experimental and sustainable music festival taking place since 2014 in the park of Villa Arconati, where Dozzy has been invited at every edition in different forms, DJing, live performing both in solo and with Voices From The Lake (together with Neel).
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