| 12k:
XLR8R (US)
MINIMAL
EFFORTS
Taylor Deupree's New York-based 12k leads the minimalist electronic
camp
with a novel approach: diversity
Philip Sherburne
Minimalism
keeps getting starker. When Brian Eno recorded Music For Airports
in 1979, the title encapsulated his philosophy of music-as-wallpaper-Muzak
redeemed, where art music could acceptably be reduced to its use-value
as aural enviroment, a sonic cocoon for travelers gliding on people-movers.
But the new minimalism might be better called music for airlocks-built,
as it is, from fragments of vacuum hiss, CPU hum and eardrum pressure.
Somewhere between ambient music and inaudibilty, microsound (a term
coined by Sean Cooper and Kim Cascone from a news group of the same
name) marks the crystallization of a smattering of influences and
impulses: the sandblasted silence of German composer Bernhard Günter
overlaid with the silicon pointalism of Raster-Noton recording artist
Ryoji Ikeda. The
sound itself is crystalline, marked by the glassy absences and
pinprick flashpoints. This description is especially true of releases
from Brooklyn imprint 12k and its sub-label LINE. With genre-defining
releases from Richard Chartier, Shuttle358 (Dan Abrams), Tetsu
Inoue, *0 (Nosei Sakata), Komet (Frank Bretschneider) and others,
12k has become one of the primary platforms for the movement,
as well as its most visible proponent in North America.
Founded
in 1997 by Taylor Deupree, 12k was initiallyconceived as a vehicle
for experimental and minimal techno, moving away from the ambient
techno projects Deupree had pursued in the early 90's with projects
like SETI and Prototype 909. The first release was one of Deupree's
own, Human Mesh Dance's Thesecretnumbertwelve , recorded for Silent
but never released there. "I had no real plan for the label except
to make a plan as time went on," recalls Deupree. "As the next
year or two progressed, I knew I wanted to venture into more subtle,
minimal territory. As my tastes shifted away from the straight
techno rhythms into more listenable, yet still very synthetic
sounds, i decided to release the .aiff compilation."
Named
after the standard sound-file format .aiff proved to be a turning
point for the label, highlighting not only familiar minimal techno
of Kim Rapatti and Komet, but moving into the more unsettling
realm of sharpened sinewaves and out-of-earshot rumblings. .aiff
was released within a month of Caipirinha's Microscopic Sound,
also compiled by Deupree, and together the two albums established
a framework for what, at the time, seemed only a sprawling assemblage
of entrpoic sounds.
"It
was with that release," notes Deupree of .aiff "that the past
seven years of my musical career came into focus. It was a huge
turning point for me, and it defined a the direction for both
my personnal work and the output of the label-both in terms of
sound and design."
With
its striking mylar packaging based on the 12k floppy-disk logo,
also established the design standards that have become integral
to the label's aesthetic. Similar to British experimental label
Touch, 12k conceives of its releases as audiovisual projects where
the design and music interrelate, "creating a complete concept."
0/r , for instance, from *0 and Richard Chartier, comes packaged
in a die-cut sleeve with a preforated opening. Once its torn open,
it can't be returned to its pristine state-a detail that resonates
with the CD's pure/impure sonicoppositions, and highlights the
fetish quality of 12k's impeccably designed releases (limited
to 500 apiece, seven of of the label's 12 releases are sold out
or out of print).
While
12k represents a self-concious attempt to reinsert the idea of
Art into the thoroughly commodified electronic music scene, LINE
(curated by Chartier) is an outlet for "ultraminimal soundworks"
by artists who work in other media-plastic, spatial, video- as
well as music. While LINE is less rhythmically oriented, both
labels, according to Deupree, "explore sound versus silence and
question the art of listening." The labels-and microsound itself-are
about the essential opposition between silence and listening.
"It's about stripping away the excess and being able to concentrate
on sound as pure form," he says "and yes, this requires a certain
skill of listening. It is sound, but not necessarily music."
For
12k, as with many other self-conciously digital artists and labels,
the means of production is as important as what it ultimately
sounds like. "On a more conceptual level, i think its an exploration
of the computer as an instrument," Deupree explains the label's
mission. "Just as experimental artists would dig and abuse the
limits of hardware synthesizers in years past, the recent explosion
of software sound tools and powerful home computers has led to
an interest in seeing how far they can be pushed, and to find
ways to use them as they are not suppossed to be used."
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