The late 90s/early 00s witnessed the breakthrough of the minimal electronic/glitch/clicks+cuts genre. Well, for some values of “breakthrough”: I think you had a perfume ad that used music by Oval? And that was probably it, commercially.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCZPH2J-WC0But! Raster-Noton (along with Touch) dropped a lot of music associated with the genre, and this record sampler almost perfectly encapsulates what was so fascinating about it all.
While I think there’s an audience crossover with noise, the music here is distinctly different from that genre. It’s not abrasive, but instead thoughtful and (dare I say it) pretty.
Archiv für Ton und Nichtton (one half of the label, sort of) was a perfect name for the thing, and look at the packaging: Anti static bags. Eh? Eh?
I guess Alva Noto is the most famous performer here (perhaps through his many collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto), along with Ryoji Ikeda… And of course William Basinski these days.
But this sampler feels like more than just a random sampler — it got the flow of a “real” album. It’s also a snapshot of a particular time in history. I used to listen to it all the time, but then I sorta forgot.
And it also worked well as a sampler in that it made me buy albums from almost all of the acts featured.
03:45 ø+Noto - Mikro Makro 05:56 Pixel - Scrapple from the Apple 04:14 Senking - Lift 04:38 Coh - Silence is Golden 08:40 Robert Lippock - Close 06:35 W. Basinski - Shortwave Music 05:21 Lima - Versions 00:51 Signal - Lines 05:17 Cyclo - C7 00:12 Ryoji Ikeda - 0'12''32 00:12 Rjoji Ikeda - 0'12''34 00:39 Signal - Waves 03:22 Byetone - Oacis 04:31 M. Akiyama - Arteial 04:29 Komet - Band 04:25 Noto - Time Dot 05:54 Signal - Spiral 04:55 Noto - Mm
Full album here, and some individual tracks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEDjl8gnVvk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbteRoIoSHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuyF2xBcZU4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WveNx9ioGEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYnZL_0YGAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3ktNSg43Z8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28HNsw15wLg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmIvjDFLz0o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTrUPTq1I68
This blog post is part of the Record Label Samplers series.