Stefan Goldmann: Scale and Scope
Edition Kymata

Ever adventurous, Stefan Goldmann is the very embodiment of the Macro aesthetic, the experimental Berlin-based label he founded with Finn Johannsen in 2007. Goldmann's large discography includes techno material, but consistent with his nature and sensibility his releases in that genre are audacious outliers worlds removed from the kind of material one associates with the form. More esoteric sound art project than musical expression, Scale and Scope houses four individually coloured flexidiscs within a handsome cardboard portfolio (its back cover identifies it as an Edition Kymata release, but info about it and order details are at Macro's Bandcamp site).

Available as a download as well as physical object, the project comprises four six-minute tracks, one for each flexidisc, that are differentiated by colour and “Series” name: “Series a” (Alpha, transparent), “Series ß” (Beta, blue), “Series ?” (Gamma, yellow), and “Series d” (Delta, black). The flexidisc is played like a vinyl record but is marked by surface noise, such that one is told to “expect occasional clicks, crackle, and other variations, which differ substantially from copy to copy” and which thus make each set unique. While the digital file versions are re-recorded directly from the flexidiscs and thus replicate their sound, Goldmann has customized them with a “few corrections and … a few spectral interventions.” For all intents and purposes, however, the sets are pretty much the same.

Content? Each flexidisc is said to contain “an instantiation of an individual microtonal designer scale.” And how does Scale and Scope sound? Well, “Series a” pulsates, rings, clangs, and crackles like some radically mutated field recording of a chaotic traffic jam, with a steady, rippling flow of static hiss and grime punctuated by high-pitched bell tones and other convulsions. “Series ß” begins with a fuzz-smeared, monotone drone whose glistening textures expand and contract for six starry-eyed minutes; “Series ?” flickers and flutters madly like some demented hurdy-gurdy or broken organ; and “Series d” burrows through its opaque accretion of crackle, hiss, bells, and tones like a deranged mole.

November 2024