Starting with a firework of bleeps and bops, already the very first minutes of his new record reveal Aoki‘s preference for vibrating beats and likewise his playful approach to music, generating a sound that is aiming at the dance floor. Like the first ones, almost all tracks of the record are characterized by a constant modulation of chords and lines that sometimes appears somehow hyperactive, but nevertheless results in a natural flow that perfectly reflects Aoki‘s laid-back attitude combined with his will to produce danceable and funky music.

The fluent arrangement is only interrupted by the third track which forms a caesura by being more reduced and slower. In contrast to this, the following tracks present a faster tempo and an increased intensity; and whereas the first tracks reflect downbeat and r’n’b influences due to their broken beats and chunky sound, the later songs are characterized by a more sleek and technoid style, incorporating dribbling basses, clappy sounding snares and modulated voice snippets.

Although all of the musical components are constantly broken down, modulated, and rearranged, the overall sound of the record is dense and compact, featuring a groove made up of numerous elements that are complexly intertwined. The eight tracks of the record fit seamlessly together and create a composition that nearly functions like a DJ set. The album was mastered by Yoshinori Sunahara.

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In contrast to the first part of the series which tried to trace the other in the intimacy of the private (the residence, la demeure), Lichtenberger now focuses on the phrase “il y a péril en la demeure”. The French phrase literally translates into “there is a danger in ones residence” (la demeure) or “a danger is persistent, remains” (demeurer). Lichtenberger is interested in this ambiguity in relation to a metaphor of art:

“In a way, one could describe art as a pathological condition to hold onto a communicative defect. In this respect, the album is about a crisis – about the impossibility of expressing the unspeakable and instead secretly tying it in a parallel thread that deepens the relationship to the impossible.”

On the other hand, Lichtenberger contraposes a social function of art. The legal meaning of the phrase “il ya péril en la demeure” (in German “Gefahr im Verzug”, in English “imminent danger”) describes a situation in which a person or authority intrudes into a private space that is particularly protected against access in order to prevent danger or secure evidence. Lichtenberger writes: “In art, the public is something that could perhaps be described in legal terms as a legitimate transgression of responsibility – it secures and holds what would otherwise be lost because the artist has become entangled in it.”

This ambivalence between crisis and social reinsurance is aesthetically embodied by musical material that on the one hand seems unwieldy and subversive, on the other hand idiosyncratically grooving and encouraging to nod. The focus is on songs featuring computer-generated voices that sing in a language that remains incomprehensible. Fragmented from English syllables and reassembled into cryptic pop songs, Lichtenberger calls them “crooked ballads”.

“In a way the tracks on Kamilhan; Il y A Péril En la Demeure are best understood as crooked ballads. They are songs – intentionally tying themselves to a symbolic repetition of classical pop-song structures. They seek to smuggle the crooked into the common and vice versa smuggle the hope of recognition and transference into the crooked.”

Regardless of the theoretically excessive reflections that are typical of Lichtenberger, this album also succeeds in emotionally connecting to his topic with intimacy and sincerity that immediately touches the listener. 

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During the improvisations, a call-and-response working principle emerged immediately which joins the special talents of both musicians. Kyoka‘s free and experimental approach forms part of the source material that is contrasted with Eomac‘s skillful editing; unconventional reflections face a driving force. From Kyoka‘s extensive field recording collection, an arabesque of disturbing vocal fragments arises that is set against Eomac‘s hard rhythmic framework, as in Das Tier, for instance. 37 Years Later or Mystic live on a vivid texture that has been condensed directly at the mixing console into a kind of dramaturgical capturing of the moment. The immediacy of the collaboration forms the basis for a synergy of the individual production techniques. A strategy that lacks neither absolute creative freedom nor an awareness of musical function.

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The following 12′ EP is a first four-track release of this project. The original tracks of the album are only an approximate starting point for Remixed. In contrast to Decadent yet Depraved, largely conceived in song structures, this EP is about transferring the pieces back into abstract space, and each remixer does it in his very own way.

Alessandro Cortini‘s one-take live recording is a lesson in classical ambient music. Telefon Tel Aviv‘s remix is timelessly modern and extremely delicate sound design. Rather opposite concepts are coming from Surachai‘s brutal pattern design and Kangding Ray‘s expressive and analogously saturated repetitions for the dance floor.

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The production process of the record was heavily supported by her label mates Frank Bretscheider and Robert Lippok, which is, in this way of forming a production team, a unique constellation in the history of Raster-Noton. Whereas Lippok focused on preserving the roughness and complexity of Kyoka‘s compositions, Bretschneider concentrated on refining them regarding their fluidity and focus. Both tried to keep the vitality and hyperactivity of the initial tracks without losing their distinctive eccentricity.

Although Kyoka‘s sound is often kind of chaotic, it is by no means stressful but rather energizing and easy to enjoy. The only exception to this can be found in “piezo version vision“, the noticeably roughest track of the record. Her particularly progressive style is best reflected by the song “re-pulsion“, a rolling groove combined with unusual clicks and snares and topped with crazy sounding voice fragments.

The album thus further deepens what was already initiated with her first ep “iSH“, released as part five of Raster-Noton‘s unun series. It presents a stylistically broader spectrum of Kyoka‘s music but at the same time exhibits the fresh and positive, sometimes even childlike attitude she is already known for.

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The single tracks on La Demeure; il y a péril en la demeure and their components are constantly broken, disassembled and reassembled again. Some parts may remind of hip hop and breakbeat, others may evoke associations to a broken music box, something mechanical that is not working as it should. In his very own way, Grischa Lichtenberger is examining limits, new experiences and unfulfilling expectations. this unfilteredness and rawness, the lack of a target group the music is made for, is what is fascinating about this record. La Demeure; il y a péril en la demeure thus becomes a luxurious- kafkaesque collection of materials, an uncensored archive of a seeker.

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