Published:
October 4, 2016
With his latest record, Notwist singer & guitar player, film soundtracker and label boss Markus Acher, aka Rayon, offers up a sparse, intoxicating LP of instrumentals.
An obvious reference point is Javanese gamelan, with its ensemble of hand-beaten metallophones and bamboo flutes, pulling in all directions at once and yet, like a starling murmuration, maintaining shape as one, rippling whole. Eschewing electronic equipment, the title track sees marimbaphone, piano and vibraphone appearing to mimic a delay pedal, giving the effect of rain falling with odd regiment into a singing bowl.
This melancholy but weirdly uplifting arrangement surfaces throughout the record, punctuated by mossy synth hums and subterranean rustling. Like much of Rayon’s work, “A Beat of Silence” beams across like a soundtrack for some forgotten documentary: dusty archive footage of cities being built and eroded in time-lapse seeming to flicker across the screen. Closing tracks “To the Quiet”, a tentative, almost impossibly fragile ballad, and “Kona”, a stretched and mangled wash of orchestral drone akin to Plinth or Edmund Finnis, leave the listener fully enveloped, as this incredibly sensitive work draws to a close.
Sachiko Hara - piano, harmonium
Cico Beck - marimbaphone, bass-drum, percussion, electronics
Karl Ivar Refseth - vibraphone, glockenspiel, bassdrum, percussion
Anton Kaun - objects, electronics
Markus Acher - harmonium, percussion, gongs, electronics
Tadklimp - electronics, algorithmic processing
Produced by Tadklimp + Markus Acher
Cover Artwork by Michael Dumontier
Tracklisting
1. Kona
2. A Beat Of Silence
3. Cuts
4. Dots
5. -Kona
6. Zombi
7. But For One Minute
8. On The Quiet
9. Kona