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Kangding Ray - Or

Recommended by us on 9th June 2011

Or by Kangding Ray

5...according to our on Thu 09 Jun, 2011.

Oh shit yeah!!! I love the more straight up energetic techno side of Raster Noton. Don't get me wrong I do like a lot of the more arty stuff a whole lot too but the heavier stuff always gets me well excited. I totally adore the Kangding Ray 12" that came out last year and this follows very much in that sonic direction. The off kilter beats and itchy rhythmic structure recall T++/recent Monolake in many ways, working within a post techno/post dubstep rhythmic framework. Each percussive hit is executed with clinical precisssion yet maintains a ridgid sense of funk. Then of course are the breathtaking atmospherics that recall classic IDM. I'd love to hear this bumping out of a massive Funktion One Soundsystem. This will appeal to followers of the whole Berghain/Sandwell/Berlin sound as well as seasoned followers of the label and anyone with a keen ear for deeper shades of techno.

After the Pruitt Igoe E.P, Kangding Ray returns with his third album for raster-noton, pushing further his explorations on the edge of digital and analog sounds. With OR, Kangding Ray continues to blur the borders between experimental and bass music, and brings his signature sound to another level, somewhere at the darkest fringe of club culture. With the massive metallic beats of « athem », the frightening distorded waves of « Mojave », the elevated groove of « Odd Sympathy », the modulated guitar walls of « Leavaila Scheme », or the low-bitrate Everest of « La Belle », KR creates deep atmospheres, loaded with echoes of collapsing economies, dysfunctional political systems, and corporate alienation. In an abstract manner, OR depicts the desillusions of modern civilizations, while initiating a positive reflection on crisis as a creative state. OR (« gold » in french), as the only chemical element that seems to keep its value for eternity, refers to the cult of endless consumption and the absurdity of fluctuating currency valuations, while in english, as a logical operator or grammatical conjunction, OR represents the possibility of another choice, an « inclusive disjunction » which suggests that there might be another answer, a different path to follow. Noticeable inputs have been provided by Ben Frost, who composed a keyboard line for « Or », Rose Tizane Merrill who lend her voice to the anarchist poem « Monsters », and Magne Mostue who wrote the words and sang on « Coracoid Process » as well as the vocal version of the prophetic electronic mantra « Pruitt Igoe

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