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Byetone, "Death of a Typographer"
As one of the co-founders of the Raster-Noton label, Olaf Bender, a.k.a. Byetone, is no stranger to the cold, clinical school of electronic music that his label is known for. However, on this album he takes a somewhat more organic, less esoteric approach that is both danceable, and strangely dissonant.
For a label known for its experimentation, Death of a Typographer has a familiar, although icy feel throughout. The album has the traditional glitchy abnormal rhythms, but also dense, dark, almost industrial synth lines that separate it from just the art gallery scene and into more conventional territory. “Black is Black” and “Plastic Star (Session)” both bring old-school Detroit electro to the world of Max/MSP, with the former even featuring a classic rudimentary bass synth sequence, while the latter is bathed in digital reverb and even drifts into raw, distorted territory, but never losing its solid rhythm.
“Rocky (Soft)” is one that particularly grabbed my attention, with its extremely stripped down mix of buzzing ambience and analog pulsing kick drum eventually becomes a study in bass synth, having a warmth that is often lacking in work of this style. Similarly minimal is “Straight,” built on a steady bass line and monotone beat, the occasionally squeaky synth stab cutting through the mix. Compared to the more electro tracks, it’s less dynamic and more repetitive, but the structural diversity is there, albeit more subtle.
Most of the songs stay in this danceable framework, though the two part “Capture This” opens with vast digital ambience and digitally constructed feedback that never opens up into a rhythm, but instead stays a thick, dense mix. The second half does include a click and pulse based rhythm track over the tense ambience that resembles Pan Sonic’s best moments.
The closing tracks provide a notable contrast to each other: “Grand Style” goes right back to the dance floor, featuring a traditional style of building layers from a minimal opening to a thick, more active mix by the end. In contrast, “Heart” resembles its title in its low bass drum rhythm, but the darker, almost industrial synth tones build in volume and density until swelling to heavy distortion, then returning to the near silence of a field recording.
For the sterile, equation and computer modeling based soil this release is growing from, it is almost surprisingly conventional and catchy, but retaining a world of microscopic subtlety behind the beats and industrial tinged synth lines.
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