Kangding ray first performed in Singapore at the Biennale 2006 and, together with electronica heavyweights Carsten Nicolai and Nibo, (literally) impacted the audience with an aural experience that is "intensely visceral and challenging". After that performance, KR went on to release 3 critically-acclaimed albums: Stabil, Automne Fold and Pruitt Igoe. The last was released in 2010 and was on The Wire's chart of 2010 top 15 electronica albums.
Beautiful/Banal is thrilled to collaborate with KR on artistic travelogue project INSITU Fort Canning Hill. In 2011, he will visit Singapore a second time to create original compositions based on his experiences on the hill. Do not miss the world debut of Kangding ray for INSITU, featuring his aural maps of the hill, at the intimate Esplanade Recital Studio on 14 May 2011 as part of the Singapore Arts Festival program. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=170759529637078
"Performing live is the main reason why I make music."
Expect a night of intense, disciplined and unpredictable aural-visual performance. KR approaches every performance as an experimentation on his highly-structured compositions. He combines machines with 'real instruments', integrating noises, walls of distortion, massive bass lines, voices and field recordings. The result is a blend of deep advanced grooves and dark atmospheres, or as he describes, "abstract bass music".
On Boomkat, KR's music is described as 'vehemently experimental work, but there's every chance that a wider audience will find a way into the music of Raster Noton ... seldom do melody and conventional harmony flourish so openly and so convincingly ..."
INSITU Fort Canning Hill also features original works by artists: Taisuke Koyama, Boedi Widjaja and June Yap.
Site documentary by photographer Jovian Lim and videographer David Gan.
Stay on for a post-show dialogue with the artists.
Tickets at $55 (excluding SISTIC charges) at the intimate 245-seater Esplanade Recital Studio. Sale of tickets will start mid-March. Early-bird discount of 5%. More details will be shared soon.
Produced by art practice Beautiful/Banal.
An association program of Singapore Arts Festival 2011.
Supported by National Heritage Board. Hotel sponsor Wanderlust.
REVIEW extract from Singapore Biennale official site
... the live sound performance by Carsten Nicolai, Nibo and Kangding ray was an aural experience that will be remembered as intensely visceral and challenging. All three musicians hail from the respected German electronic label raster-noton, and their performances were accompanied by synchronised live visuals, yielding a sublime synaesthetic experience... Pummeling the audience with high volume and extreme frequencies, it was literally a moving experience as the sound artists sent heavy vibrations coursing through the seats in the National Museum's Gallery Theatre. As Singapore Biennale Artistic Director Fumio Nanjo said with a smile, "It's a pretty good massage."
REVIEW ON THE WIRE by David Grubbs:
... There is a tentative, insidious, melancholy warmth about Automne Fold, more typical of, say, Rune Grammofon. The Noton-like arhythmic beats and glitches underlying these songs ensure that nothing can be taken for granted about them, and it's that tension which is vital to the album, be it on the slow, melting title track, culminating in a shower of granules, the catacomb chorus of sampled vocals chanting throughout "The Distance", the crumbling, collapsing new beats of "Quarante", or the interference-ridden synthscpe of "Altiz".
REVIEW ON mnmlssg . mnmlssg.blogspot.com:
.. It's bleak, it's dark, but it's also fragile and warm and expresses a lot of vulnerability. (...) he deploys crisp digital beats, higher-end frequencies and rhythmic bursts of hiss and static to create an album that feels very clean and pristine, yet also very warm and organic. It’s this contrast that makes ‘Autumne Fold’ such a fascinating album, and the way in which Letellier so perfectly marries these seemingly opposing sounds is amazing.(...) With ‘Automne Fold’ Letellier has crafted an album that is both extremely interesting and extremely accessible. Amazing stuff, and another feather in the cap for raster-noton.
REVIEW ON KULTUREFLASH by Robin Rimbaud
“... Sometimes records creep up on you when you least expect it. Released back in July, Stabil is arguably the most conventional release on Germany's Raster-Noton label, home of binary and polarised music from Carsten Nicolai among others, but succeeds in exchanging brutal electrostatic click and pulse rhythms for a more textural, harmonically led structure. Born in France but based in Berlin, Kangding Ray (aka David Letellier) offers a fresh voice to possibilities interfacing acoustic instruments and electronics. Piano lines softly land on the surface, as simple melodies envelop each track and cloudbursts of intersecting microscopic frequencies surround one another. Deceptively seductive it's come to soundtrack the last days of summer, so under doctor's orders to share our enthusiasm we suggest you embrace this elegant release before the days draw to a close.”
Beautiful/Banal is thrilled to collaborate with KR on artistic travelogue project INSITU Fort Canning Hill. In 2011, he will visit Singapore a second time to create original compositions based on his experiences on the hill. Do not miss the world debut of Kangding ray for INSITU, featuring his aural maps of the hill, at the intimate Esplanade Recital Studio on 14 May 2011 as part of the Singapore Arts Festival program. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=170759529637078
"Performing live is the main reason why I make music."
Expect a night of intense, disciplined and unpredictable aural-visual performance. KR approaches every performance as an experimentation on his highly-structured compositions. He combines machines with 'real instruments', integrating noises, walls of distortion, massive bass lines, voices and field recordings. The result is a blend of deep advanced grooves and dark atmospheres, or as he describes, "abstract bass music".
On Boomkat, KR's music is described as 'vehemently experimental work, but there's every chance that a wider audience will find a way into the music of Raster Noton ... seldom do melody and conventional harmony flourish so openly and so convincingly ..."
INSITU Fort Canning Hill also features original works by artists: Taisuke Koyama, Boedi Widjaja and June Yap.
Site documentary by photographer Jovian Lim and videographer David Gan.
Stay on for a post-show dialogue with the artists.
Tickets at $55 (excluding SISTIC charges) at the intimate 245-seater Esplanade Recital Studio. Sale of tickets will start mid-March. Early-bird discount of 5%. More details will be shared soon.
Produced by art practice Beautiful/Banal.
An association program of Singapore Arts Festival 2011.
Supported by National Heritage Board. Hotel sponsor Wanderlust.
REVIEW extract from Singapore Biennale official site
... the live sound performance by Carsten Nicolai, Nibo and Kangding ray was an aural experience that will be remembered as intensely visceral and challenging. All three musicians hail from the respected German electronic label raster-noton, and their performances were accompanied by synchronised live visuals, yielding a sublime synaesthetic experience... Pummeling the audience with high volume and extreme frequencies, it was literally a moving experience as the sound artists sent heavy vibrations coursing through the seats in the National Museum's Gallery Theatre. As Singapore Biennale Artistic Director Fumio Nanjo said with a smile, "It's a pretty good massage."
REVIEW ON THE WIRE by David Grubbs:
... There is a tentative, insidious, melancholy warmth about Automne Fold, more typical of, say, Rune Grammofon. The Noton-like arhythmic beats and glitches underlying these songs ensure that nothing can be taken for granted about them, and it's that tension which is vital to the album, be it on the slow, melting title track, culminating in a shower of granules, the catacomb chorus of sampled vocals chanting throughout "The Distance", the crumbling, collapsing new beats of "Quarante", or the interference-ridden synthscpe of "Altiz".
REVIEW ON mnmlssg . mnmlssg.blogspot.com:
.. It's bleak, it's dark, but it's also fragile and warm and expresses a lot of vulnerability. (...) he deploys crisp digital beats, higher-end frequencies and rhythmic bursts of hiss and static to create an album that feels very clean and pristine, yet also very warm and organic. It’s this contrast that makes ‘Autumne Fold’ such a fascinating album, and the way in which Letellier so perfectly marries these seemingly opposing sounds is amazing.(...) With ‘Automne Fold’ Letellier has crafted an album that is both extremely interesting and extremely accessible. Amazing stuff, and another feather in the cap for raster-noton.
REVIEW ON KULTUREFLASH by Robin Rimbaud
“... Sometimes records creep up on you when you least expect it. Released back in July, Stabil is arguably the most conventional release on Germany's Raster-Noton label, home of binary and polarised music from Carsten Nicolai among others, but succeeds in exchanging brutal electrostatic click and pulse rhythms for a more textural, harmonically led structure. Born in France but based in Berlin, Kangding Ray (aka David Letellier) offers a fresh voice to possibilities interfacing acoustic instruments and electronics. Piano lines softly land on the surface, as simple melodies envelop each track and cloudbursts of intersecting microscopic frequencies surround one another. Deceptively seductive it's come to soundtrack the last days of summer, so under doctor's orders to share our enthusiasm we suggest you embrace this elegant release before the days draw to a close.”
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