textura

Albums
Actress
Ellen Allien
The Alps
Aniline
Anodyne
Tommy Babin's Benzene
Maya Beiser
Pier Bucci
Budd & Wright
Celer
Ceremony
Richard Chartier
Deceptikon
Deepchord & Echospace
Marcel Dettmann
Dirac
Efdemin
GéNIA
Guillaume & C. Dumonts
Hammock
Helvacioglu & Boysen
Richard A Ingram
Inhabitants
Marsen Jules
Akira Kosemura
Manual
Dom Mino'
Teruyuki Nobuchika
Nono/ Wakabayashi
Olan Mill
Originalljudet
Fabio Orsi
M.Ostermeier
Rene Hell
Jeffrey Roden
J. Rogers
Roll The Dice
Secret Cities
Soundpool

Compilations / Mixes
Main Control Board
SEED X: Part I - III

EPs
Alternative Networks Vol. 2
Aural Diptych Series # 1
Aural Diptych Series # 2
Celer
Deerhoof vs OneOne
Filterwolf
Incite/
Ketem
Kogumaza
Yann Novak
Poratz
Quiroga
Repeat Orchestra
Sepalcure
Sub Loam
v4w.enko
The Zeitgeist EP

DVD
Stephen Vitiello

Dirac: Phon
Valeot

The third recording by dirac—Peter Kutin (guitar, electronics), Florian Kindlinger (electronics), and Daniel Lercher (electronics)—is a single, uncut exercise in real-time composition of some forty-two-minute duration. Phon begins restrainedly as tiny slivers of electronic sound converge alongside a portentous violin theme whose repetition proves trance-inducing. Everything unfolds with quiet deliberation until, a dozen minutes in, the volume and intensity begin to slowly rise. The drone-heavy mood remains dark and disturbed as the electric guitar's scalding stabs move to the forefront, its lead followed by other materials (including the deep-throated honk of Susanna Gartmayer's bass clarinet) that swell in volume and density too. Having reached a relatively tumultuous pitch at the halfway mark, the sound mass deflates slightly, only to undertake another ascent, this one even more intense than the first. A field recording of a train or subway car rattling down its tracks works its way into the totality alongside see-sawing tones and the crackle of electronic embers. During its final quarter, the sound mass grows ever noisier and turbulent with again the guitar's searing lines leading the charge, but then decompresses as it enters the final laps. It's easy to visualize the Viennese trio hunkered down over their respective laptops in deep communal concentration as the collective material—twenty-first century chamber music, they call it—develops as arrestingly as it does. That it was generated in real-time makes the listening experience all the more powerful.

June 2010