Frank Bretschneider - EXP (Raster Noton)

Frank Bretschneider, a chance discovery following a return to the wonderful 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)care of Aoki Takamasa.

The music of Frank Bretschneider would probably have not been too appreciated by myself maybe even 9 months ago but as i find myself more and more drawn to the experimental side and ambient dub the deep, thudding glitchy beats are a delight to the ears. Very much like label mates SND's Atavism, their is little melody as such, at least in a conventional manner, instead electronic stabs, skitters of interference and wasp like hums and zips.

Compared to 2007's almighty Rythym, EXP takes a slow start not really kicking in until half way through track 4, namely, b.l.u.e., polylog, node, from there on in it's nothing short of exceptional, tracks 6 through 9 in particular, sure to appeal to fans of Raster Noton, SND and Atom TM.

What Boomkat Said :

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 and other radiation. These sounds inform the visual animations, paralleling their changes in frequency, intensity and shape, attempting to exactly reproduce the audible occurences. Of course, that's pretty hard to grasp without seeing the animation so we'll just concentrate on the music. The album is divided between 35 tracks, each ranging between 13 seconds and nearly 3 minutes. Living up to his reputation as a master digital craftsman, Bretschneider uses his abilities to sculpt cochlea engulfing bass tones and ultra-visceral hi's, occasinally arriving at moments where he creates the illusion of 3D electro-acoustic environments with spectacular depth perceptions. Between these hyperreal scapes and his avant B-boy beats this is a special album that should warrant repeat listens for those who really want to explore every nook and cranny of his artificial spaces. Very highly recommended

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