Kangding Ray _ Monad XI _ [SAM011]
Can you remember the last time that you heard someone’s music and you’ve immediately wanted to listen to every single thing that they’ve ever produced? This is exactly that kind of music and Kangding Ray is that kind of artist. Monad XI is incredible.
Opening track Cerle offers a fresh perspective on how to use noise / pads / atmosphere in modern techno tracks. This time, it steps out from the shadows & is used aggressively – like a rhythmical saw – to build peaks and create space for the Carpenter-esque synth that follows. Though the bottom end of this track is dense pummel, I’m genuinely impressed by how thoughtfully the groove is introduced during the opening 45seconds. Pure class.
If you like the idea of an orchestral shepard tone skipping backwards on a CDJ and being mixed over a fucked up version of Electric Deluxe’s Electric Deluxe – then you are going to really love Thar. It’s a dementia inducing, absolute destroyer of a track. Fact.
Oise‘s multiple filter lines are held together by the biggest bass note that you have ever heard. If I heard this track out, I’d be dying to know what it was.. it’s a mindmelter.
That’s the thing with all these tracks – they’re not simple or straightforward. KR advances along a different route to your standard 4/4, and the result is just as relentless. You have to admire the compositional process that makes this flow.. and so naturally – without missing a beat.
To close, Isib spins is a deeper groove – but not before KR imparts his signature over its percussive techno riff. Whether intentional or not, it hypnotically combines the past with the present over pounding polyrhythmic kicks.
This latest installment of the Monad series ensures that Kangding Ray’s next releases will be eagerly anticipated. Taken in isolation, I can think of no better example to show the commitment of Stroboscopic Artefacts to finding the best producers and releasing the best of their music.
For Kangding Ray, this release is a welcome and exciting departure from his beautiful sound and personally, I can’t wait to hear more in this vein.
We have an interview with Kangding Ray, which will be on the blog very soon.. and until then, please check out his stunning back catalog. You need all this music in your life.
Stroboscopic Artefacts: http://www.stroboscopicartefacts.com/shop/releases/monad/
Kangding Ray Website: http://www.kangdingray.com/
Press Release Info:
Stroboscopic Artefacts presents the Monad series. Rarefied and introspective, confrontational and extreme, each featured artist will delve into the Monad concept: “The generation of number series is related to objects of geometry as well as cosmogony. From the Monad evolved the Dyad; from it numbers; from numbers, points; then lines, two-dimensional entities, three-dimensional entities, bodies, culminating in the four elements earth, water, fire and air, from which the rest of our world is built up.”
Kangding Ray’s Monad XI is a fierce exploration of points of origin. With track titles referring to a circle, a stork, a river and a desert, the compositions are filled with abstract references to the four elements. These tropes emerge in the form of dizzying aqueous loops, arid beats, punishingly dark pads, and splintering top lines. This is music which emerges from a sound design process where spontaneity is just as prized as structure. With one ear always attuned to the coincidental, Kangding Ray’s Monad is not just capable of demolishing dance floors, but also bristles with brilliantly curious details.
Music production and history are my biggest passions in life.
Though people often say that Techno is faceless and should be about the music blah, blah, blah.. I believe in the need to document the people and stories behind it. Techno is a very small world in reality and I think it needs a proper resource.
I hope that everyone who is interested in Techno finds this blog accessible in terms of the way that it is written. I personally prefer to hear the artists voice as loud as the music and never enjoy synopsised and pasteurised versions of old conversation; the sort that's peppered with the occasional quote here and there.
