Alva Noto - Univrs

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4...according to our Clinton on Fri 07 Oct, 2011.

Clicks, cuts, more clicks and cuts. Cold, rhythmic beats fizzing away indefinitely. At the risk of sounding like Mike Love, its all about melody for me and here we have none whatsoever. The most tuneful thing you are going to get is a one note fizz. So, not one for my stereo but that doesn't mean that its not impressive. There's some kind of convoluted back story here that is so complex the words won't even enter my cranium. You can explain any old thing with academic nous, I learnt that while doing admin in Art School. So I'll ignore all that and cut to the chase, if miniscule, mathematical highly complex beats and ticks are your thing - go ahead and enjoy. A creepy underground barrage of beats.

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”univrs” follows on from and develops the concept of the album unitxt (raster-noton, 2008). whereas the focus of unitxt was on the processing of rhythmic patterns (‘unit’ = unit of measurement, element) and information (‘txt’ = data, language), with univrs the focus is on the conceptual differentiation of a universal language (‘universum/universal’ = unity, entirety).the 14 tracks of univrs have evolved from a live context, hence the approach is more continuous and dense. for the track uni acronym alva noto works again with the french voice artist anne-james chaton. the track is based on a number of 208 three-letter acronyms (set in alphabetical order) creating a random narrative. a video for this track is to be released soon.the audio-visual performance of univrs is based on the real-time manipulation of software-generated test images by audio signals. a customised hardware box unitxt box triggers the video signal according to the value of the audio signal. the resulting colour patterns change constantly without repititon.the visualisation of univrs (uniscope version) – a expanded screen projection setup – on a digital level combines a variety of modules demonstrating different methods of audio analysing. the resultant signal processing is shown as a relay structure and is performed in real-time. each module can be zoomed in on the expanded screen enabling greater visual detail. the univrs (uniscope version) was developed with the touchdesigner software in close cooperation with derivative in toronto, canada (derivative.ca).a cd + dvd special edition of univrs along with a standard album release features a video of the live perfomance of univrs (uniscope version) perfomance in berlin 2011 and the uni acronym video. it also includes two booklets on the visual concept of the performance and the 208 uni acronym video stills. the special edition is an exclusive raster-noton web shop release.alva noto would like to thank anne-james chaton for his on-going inspiration, martin l. gore for providing a sample for the track uni rec, and daniel miller for advice and support. the album was mastered by rashad becker at clunk, berlin.

Tracklisting:

1/a1: uni c
2/a2: uni fac
3/c2: uni asymmetric tone
4/a3: uni rec
5/b1: uni dia
6/b2: uni iso
7/b3: uni mode
8/c1: uni acronym (feat. anne-james chaton)
9/c2: uni asymmetric noises
10/d1: uni deform
11/d2: uni asymmetric III-IIII
12/d3: uni syc
13/d4: uni asymmetric sweep

Paul duffy said:

sounds almost polygon era aphex twin, give it one or two listens & its captivating stuff.
a great listen on a decent hi fi system play very loud indeed!

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