2017-12-01 Aseral

Aseral

A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound, Disk Six: Aseral by Roland Kayn.

I was reading an article (Monumental late piece by composer Roland Kayn set for debut release) in The Wire Magazine, which talked to Kayne’s daughter Ilse about his work. ‘“He would always explain it with throwing stones in the water,” she says. “You get those circles… it’s about the crossings.”’ Another water metaphor, and an apt one.

Discrete events creating intersecting systems which go on to transform one another as they decay.

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2017-11-30 Rosonic; Ilay

Rosonic; Ilay

A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound, Disk Five: Rosonic; Ilay by Roland Kayn.

Rosonic starts with cacophony, as if you are tied to the mast of a ship during a raging storm, and quickly quiets to near silence, punctuated occasionally by tonal and non-tonal events. I would liken it to swimming across a lake in a storm. Popping your head above water to take a breath, check if it is still storming, and then, submersing back under to the peace and relative quiet of the underwater world.

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2017-11-29 Ykties; Naaps

Ykties; Naaps

A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound, Disk Four: Ykties; Naaps by Roland Kayn.

Ykties might be my favorite track, so far. Sputtering static and buzzing saws punctuated by moments of real beauty. What sound like underwater choirs and submarine pianos. Though, of course, that is just my schizoid human brain, attaching meaning to abstract electronic sound.

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2017-11-28 Somitoh

Somitoh/caption]

A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound, Disk Three: Somitoh by Roland Kayn.

Maybe it’s that I listened to this on the bus, but Somitoh seems to have a little more of a menacing feel than the previous two disks. Moments of quiet punctuated by noises which sometimes sound like squealing pigs or deflating tires.

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2017-11-27 Xattax

Xattax

A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound, Disk Two: Xattax by Roland Kayn.

Xattax is quieter than Czerial. It is composed of intersecting static fields of glowing sound, interrupted at seemingly irregular intervals by loud bursts of whooshing, sputtering static. It reminds me of a quiet night in Chicago, looking up at the stars, then suddenly having an Elevated train rush by.

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2017-11-21 Czerial

Disk One: Czerial

A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound, Disk One: Czerial by Roland Kayn. “A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound” is the Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz of Electronic music. A 14 hour long, 22 track, epic musical journey originally assembled in 2009, it is nearly as diverse as a Galaxy.

Without regular pulse, traditional harmonic content, or recognizable analog sound sources, finding your way in to this monumental work is perhaps the biggest challenge.

Like many 20th Century composers, it seems like Kayn was trying to find something new, and even almost 10 years later, it still sounds alien.

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