Lumisokea's Koenraad Ecker reworks three multi-channel studies on 'Raw Materials', using dense environmental recordings, close mic-ed, foley crunches and unsettling drones to put his own signature on electro-acoustic/concrète music.
It's been a while since we last heard from Ecker. His last solo album 'A Biology of Shadows' appeared back in 2018, and 'Raw Materials' fills in the gaps, collecting work he wrote between 2018 and 2020. 'Transparent Bodies, Submarine Roots' was penned in 2019, and was originally commissioned by Cristian Vogel for Audiorama Stockholm, Sweden's first listening venue. Spanning 16 minutes, the piece uses sounds recorded at the Belgian North Sea and around Berlin on mics, piezos and hydrophones (underwater microphones), teasing the elements into lengthy clouds of noise and sickly tones. There's a strong sense of narrative here from Ecker; he doesn't just use sound for sound's sake, he takes us on a journey into unseen places. There's none of the expected Berlin street chatter, and the expected sloshing sea sounds are inevitably transformed into unyielding, frozen whooshes and whirrs, interrupted by alien gurgles and evocative foley scrapes.
And although 'Furniture Rebellion' is shorter at just over three minutes, it's no less gripping, setting the scene with lighter sounds and the distant flicker of neon lights, and bringing us into a what might be an office, or a warehouse. Ecker describes the 2020 composition as "a short story" or "a foley-study", and it plays out like theater, only fraying the edges of the soundscape when absolutely necessary. Recorded at Berlin's Studio für Elektroakustische Musik in 2018, 'Heart of a Stone' was originally commissioned by Cristian Vogel for Sentralen Oslo, and is the album's ugliest, most fantastical composition. Here, the source sounds are obscured completely, turned into crackling, eddying crunches and subterranean wails that transport us off planet for a few moments. This isn't trad concrète fetishism by any means - Ecker uses his sonics to pick the fantasy out of the natural world, and suggest a more foreboding presence just outside it. Another very strong release from Richard Chartier's Line imprint.
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Lumisokea's Koenraad Ecker reworks three multi-channel studies on 'Raw Materials', using dense environmental recordings, close mic-ed, foley crunches and unsettling drones to put his own signature on electro-acoustic/concrète music.
It's been a while since we last heard from Ecker. His last solo album 'A Biology of Shadows' appeared back in 2018, and 'Raw Materials' fills in the gaps, collecting work he wrote between 2018 and 2020. 'Transparent Bodies, Submarine Roots' was penned in 2019, and was originally commissioned by Cristian Vogel for Audiorama Stockholm, Sweden's first listening venue. Spanning 16 minutes, the piece uses sounds recorded at the Belgian North Sea and around Berlin on mics, piezos and hydrophones (underwater microphones), teasing the elements into lengthy clouds of noise and sickly tones. There's a strong sense of narrative here from Ecker; he doesn't just use sound for sound's sake, he takes us on a journey into unseen places. There's none of the expected Berlin street chatter, and the expected sloshing sea sounds are inevitably transformed into unyielding, frozen whooshes and whirrs, interrupted by alien gurgles and evocative foley scrapes.
And although 'Furniture Rebellion' is shorter at just over three minutes, it's no less gripping, setting the scene with lighter sounds and the distant flicker of neon lights, and bringing us into a what might be an office, or a warehouse. Ecker describes the 2020 composition as "a short story" or "a foley-study", and it plays out like theater, only fraying the edges of the soundscape when absolutely necessary. Recorded at Berlin's Studio für Elektroakustische Musik in 2018, 'Heart of a Stone' was originally commissioned by Cristian Vogel for Sentralen Oslo, and is the album's ugliest, most fantastical composition. Here, the source sounds are obscured completely, turned into crackling, eddying crunches and subterranean wails that transport us off planet for a few moments. This isn't trad concrète fetishism by any means - Ecker uses his sonics to pick the fantasy out of the natural world, and suggest a more foreboding presence just outside it. Another very strong release from Richard Chartier's Line imprint.
Lumisokea's Koenraad Ecker reworks three multi-channel studies on 'Raw Materials', using dense environmental recordings, close mic-ed, foley crunches and unsettling drones to put his own signature on electro-acoustic/concrète music.
It's been a while since we last heard from Ecker. His last solo album 'A Biology of Shadows' appeared back in 2018, and 'Raw Materials' fills in the gaps, collecting work he wrote between 2018 and 2020. 'Transparent Bodies, Submarine Roots' was penned in 2019, and was originally commissioned by Cristian Vogel for Audiorama Stockholm, Sweden's first listening venue. Spanning 16 minutes, the piece uses sounds recorded at the Belgian North Sea and around Berlin on mics, piezos and hydrophones (underwater microphones), teasing the elements into lengthy clouds of noise and sickly tones. There's a strong sense of narrative here from Ecker; he doesn't just use sound for sound's sake, he takes us on a journey into unseen places. There's none of the expected Berlin street chatter, and the expected sloshing sea sounds are inevitably transformed into unyielding, frozen whooshes and whirrs, interrupted by alien gurgles and evocative foley scrapes.
And although 'Furniture Rebellion' is shorter at just over three minutes, it's no less gripping, setting the scene with lighter sounds and the distant flicker of neon lights, and bringing us into a what might be an office, or a warehouse. Ecker describes the 2020 composition as "a short story" or "a foley-study", and it plays out like theater, only fraying the edges of the soundscape when absolutely necessary. Recorded at Berlin's Studio für Elektroakustische Musik in 2018, 'Heart of a Stone' was originally commissioned by Cristian Vogel for Sentralen Oslo, and is the album's ugliest, most fantastical composition. Here, the source sounds are obscured completely, turned into crackling, eddying crunches and subterranean wails that transport us off planet for a few moments. This isn't trad concrète fetishism by any means - Ecker uses his sonics to pick the fantasy out of the natural world, and suggest a more foreboding presence just outside it. Another very strong release from Richard Chartier's Line imprint.
Lumisokea's Koenraad Ecker reworks three multi-channel studies on 'Raw Materials', using dense environmental recordings, close mic-ed, foley crunches and unsettling drones to put his own signature on electro-acoustic/concrète music.
It's been a while since we last heard from Ecker. His last solo album 'A Biology of Shadows' appeared back in 2018, and 'Raw Materials' fills in the gaps, collecting work he wrote between 2018 and 2020. 'Transparent Bodies, Submarine Roots' was penned in 2019, and was originally commissioned by Cristian Vogel for Audiorama Stockholm, Sweden's first listening venue. Spanning 16 minutes, the piece uses sounds recorded at the Belgian North Sea and around Berlin on mics, piezos and hydrophones (underwater microphones), teasing the elements into lengthy clouds of noise and sickly tones. There's a strong sense of narrative here from Ecker; he doesn't just use sound for sound's sake, he takes us on a journey into unseen places. There's none of the expected Berlin street chatter, and the expected sloshing sea sounds are inevitably transformed into unyielding, frozen whooshes and whirrs, interrupted by alien gurgles and evocative foley scrapes.
And although 'Furniture Rebellion' is shorter at just over three minutes, it's no less gripping, setting the scene with lighter sounds and the distant flicker of neon lights, and bringing us into a what might be an office, or a warehouse. Ecker describes the 2020 composition as "a short story" or "a foley-study", and it plays out like theater, only fraying the edges of the soundscape when absolutely necessary. Recorded at Berlin's Studio für Elektroakustische Musik in 2018, 'Heart of a Stone' was originally commissioned by Cristian Vogel for Sentralen Oslo, and is the album's ugliest, most fantastical composition. Here, the source sounds are obscured completely, turned into crackling, eddying crunches and subterranean wails that transport us off planet for a few moments. This isn't trad concrète fetishism by any means - Ecker uses his sonics to pick the fantasy out of the natural world, and suggest a more foreboding presence just outside it. Another very strong release from Richard Chartier's Line imprint.