Cut and Splice 2005: Frank Bretschneider, Carsten Nicolai & Olaf Bender

by 5:4

Returning to the archives, here’s an eclectic variety of electronic music from the 2005 Cut and Splice Festival in London. The festival included a focus on three composers associated with the German Raster-Noton label: Frank Bretschneider, Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) and Olaf Bender (aka Byetone). During the festival, Frank Bretschneider spoke of the issues he and the other composers experienced when first presenting their music, commenting on the disinterest shown by record labels towards their work, as it didn’t (he says) correspond to existing traditions in contemporary music; although why no-one felt the connection to minimalism is beyond me. With its emphasis on rhythm, and without depending on tired quasi-‘tonal’ harmonic ideas, it’s the kind of minimalism i can engage with; it’s “in your face”, confronting the listener with unavoidable glitches, blips and poundings, and all the better for it. Bretschneider’s untitled piece is a superb example of this, exciting and irresistible, at times seeming to evoke the complexity of African drumming patterns.

Carsten Nicolai spoke about the origins of the rhythmic aspect of the Raster-Noton music, unsurprisingly alluding to the grid-like nature of modern technology (and of course providing the word “raster”), but – to me at least – surprisingly referencing free jazz as an influence. It was fascinating to hear of the painstaking process involved; Nicolai spoke of paring down the music and taking a lot of time to select just the right sounds. Mention of tradition returned here, and the connection seemed more solid than before; Nicolai came across with a far greater sense of knowing, with regard to his music, ‘whence it came’. The “paring down” of which Nicolai spoke is arguably the most apparent characteristic of his piece (and, indeed, a great deal of his output). It’s an almost ascetically barren soundscape that he explores, shaped with very gradual, subtle rhythmic development, and ever underpinned by deep bass bursts. For all its activity, it’s remarkable how sparse it sounds; the connection to (in my opinion) the master of pure electronics, Ryoji Ikeda, is powerfully apparent.

Finally the festival tacetly introduced Olaf Bender, whose most recent album as Byetone, Death of a Typographer, snuck into the tail end of my Best Albums of 2008. If Bretschneider is Schoenberg, and Nicolai is Webern, then Bender is very much the Berg of this trio, his works often accompanied by a warm ambience that tends to be absent from much Raster-Noton output (Nicolai’s much-lauded collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto notwithstanding). However, none of that is evident in the final, untitled pieces that they performed together as Signal; the first is a driving, rhythmic piece, of which Kraftwerk would seem to be the éminence grise (visually too, as Signal perform standing behind their computer banks à la Hütter and Schneider). After a time it disperses somewhat, before a gritty bass oscillation kick-starts the material and propels it forward once again; overall, it’s a stirring and exhilarating piece, nicely captured by the audience’s enthusiastic reaction at the end. It’s followed by a shorter untitled piece, slightly less focused, but exploring compelling, deeper and darker tones.


Frank Bretschneider – Untitled


Carsten Nicolai – Untitled


Signal (Frank Bretschneider, Carsten Nicolai & Olaf Bender) – Untitled


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