KOMET "RAUSCH" (12K1010)

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ALTERNATIVE PRESS (US)
- Distant radiating glitch nebulae -

Frank Bretschneider, who divides his time between making beep 'n' click minimal techno as Komet and operating his Raster-Noton label, has more in common with UK compatriots SND than with most of 12k's artists. Like SND (who help out with some technical tweaks on "Rausch"), Bretschneider's faded beats, bracing clicks, and vaportrail synth snatches are airy without being diffuse or empty, yet are strong enough to not be weighed down by the bleached-white polyrhythms Bretschneider uses to near-psychedelic effect. A Komet track never ends, it just sort of insinuates itself into the next, in the same way SND's tracks unfold into each other.

Loosely translated as "White Noise", Komet's latest album could be just that, in the form of a thousand transmissions filtered down to a base set of pulses and tones. Dub echoes left by Komet's filtered beats are quickly extinguished by the deepspace vacuum lurking beneath, as on "Plus." On "Band", delay is used to create an unusual melodic accent out of a one-note tone, which eventually melts into the glassy chattering of "Sog." If I may so bold as to say, "Rausch" is clearly one of the most spectacular albums of the year.

AMBIENTRANCE (US)
Proving that less can indeed be more, komet's tiny bleeps and beats are strung together in patterns which evoke warmth. Oftentimes tropical zones are hinted at, as if rausch were documenting a micro-excursion deep into the untamed depths within the silicon heart of a computer...

Syncopated blips are overlain with less-ordered, slightly off-kilter chimes as opening number licht gives a taste of things to come. Though spaciously placed, bass notes and sparse percussive hits intriguingly manage to eke out the ghost of a tribal ryhthm in plus (7:17). A faint, continual haze extends behind the cymbal taps and electronic blits of rund, giving the impression of hovering in space while trickling notes bubble up outside in regularly repeating patterns.

Those self-replicating tones segue into the beginning of rausch where they slowly sink beneath a rhythmic (and slightly hissy) bed of clicks, pops, dinks and monotoned bass notes. With a perkier arrangement, blank also achieves a technical-tribal feel, topped with gleaming, beeping tones. Thin wisps drifts behind the comparatively dense foreground matter of loop (4:10); bassy thumps, squeaks, bloops and buzzes weave an electronic web of rhythmicated sound, which becomes...

band, a direct continuation of the previous piece, then begins to slow and thin, variating into a different, fragiley hypnotic cycle, which extends into sog until only the highs and low remain, pulsing in afterlife; a twistedly blooping entity takes over and is joined by a more-mechanical counterpart. Echoing staccato notes and cymbal blits spiral out from hub, another example of minimalistic prescences adding up to a greater whole.

The warm-though-cold groove carries over into ring and then into june, by which time its fragmented even further, trailing away with a final round of hisses, bloops and clicks, until revitalized with phantasmal reggae-like pulsations.

rausch's 11 tracks form a continuous 67:44-minute soundstream glistening with atom-sized silicon accents. komet bridges a gap between "minimalism" and "microscopics", maintaining an intriguing amount of semi-rhythmic interest while rendering spaced-out tableaus. 9.2 for warmly glittering subatomic soundscapes.

Of course, 12k is the home of those crispy miscrosounds and more.

BLOW UP (IT)
Well known to the public of microwavers, thanks to a couple of releases on Raster (a label which he was a co-founder of) and Mille Plateaux, German Frank Bretschneider a.k.a. Komet publishes a pleasant CD on Taylor Deupree's 12k. Glacial microrhythms, sinewaves and crystalline tones, smoothed tappings, stylized pop and dub echoes of lunar chill-out outlines make "Rausch" an agreeably flowing and hypnotic work, even more particular since the author prefers the synth to the nearly ubiquitous laptop.

BOSTON'S WEEKLY DIG (US)
Rausch (roughly translated, it means white noise) is the latest album from Frank Bretschneider, co-founder of the excellent German ultra-minimal electronic music imprint Raster Noton. Given the title, one might expect blasts of hissing static. Instead, Bretschneider offers delicate, often pinprick-like sounds &endash; gentle taps, clicks, pads and pings &endash; which he then fashions into compositions that are spare and minimal, yet rhythmically intricate. Tracks, such as the austere "Rund," the undulating "Rausch," and "Blank" with its popping Latin rhythms, flow almost seamlessly into each other, linked by drones, pops and hisses. It's an exquisite disc and far more successful than Bretschneider's most recent full-length, Rand (on Mille Plateaux), which often seemed on the verge of disintegration. Highly recommended. - S. Bolle

VITAL WEEKLY (NL)
It's not clear what is decisive for Frank Bretschneider to release music under his own name or the monniker Komet. Being part of the Rastermusic scene he might not be an unknown person if you already dig the new dance music. This brandnew CD is his first US release and is simply excellent. His beats are slow, minimal, and brittle sharp with great depth. The beats he produces are being fed through his Nord synthesizer (live is not using a laptop, but sits behind his synth, which looks cool - check out his live gig this sunday at De Melkfabriek here in The Netherlands), which add those crazy little sounds. This CD is like a concert, since the tracks flow into eachother, with the offset points set cleverly. Each track has a steady beat, those crazy little sounds and sometimes a shy melody. It bears resemblence to both SND CD's, for it's laidback, yet rhythmic features. Maybe a difference is that this CD is less fragmented then the CD Bretschneider released under his own name on Mille Plateaux, this is much more coherent and gains strength. More then dance music, this is relax music for the moden living room. Excellent stuff. (FdW)

THE WIRE (UK)
This delicate, silvery toned minimalism from Raster-Noton's Frank Bretschneider begins like techno constructed out of litle glass chimes. This is supple, upbeat music, though the percussion lies in the bleeps rather than any noticable beat. Afro rhythm patterns made out of glancing tinkling sounds leave little sense of pressure, though beats might resonate in tiny after-echoes. Clockwork and raindrops spring to mind in some places; where the accent is stronger and more dubwise. Pole may be an influence, though this never gets intense. Occasionally spacy in approach, Rausch remains a subtle project which resists total flatness, without becoming sonically bouffant. Super chilled, the brief presence of pulses is played against faint longer resonances on certain bass beats, or the odd, quietly visible noisedrone or cyber-cicada.

XLR8R (US)
that rausch translates as "intoxication" is not surprising, given the engrossing, disorienting qualities of this album from frank bretschneider, one of the raster-noton's minimalist founders. but it also can bean "blush" - a meaning lending additional color to this reductionist masterpiece. despite microsound's frequent characterization as cold and wan, rausch pulses with unusual vitality, partly due to the merging of all 11 tracks into a single, arcing form. this rich-hued glow also derives from komet's skill at pairing shudderingly deep bass tones with the most exquisite of crystalline pops and ticks. rausch wends its way through imagined spaces to the sound of feet on wet pavement and the hiss of failing streelights. in conjuring otherworldy atmospheres from the merest hint of line and motion, it's an album italo calvino - maestro of gesture and tangent - would have admired immensely. - philip sherburne