Browse by Artist: HENKE, ROBERT

Artist:	HENKE, ROBERT
Title:	Piercing Music
Label:	IMBALANCE COMPUTER MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	ICM 002CD

Originally released in 1994 on his own Imbalance Computer Music, Piercing Music was Robert Henke's (Monolake) debut, created at first as a sound installation which ran for a few weeks in an office building. The positive reaction of the audience led to a discussion about making a record out of it. Piercing Music is a one-hour journey into a dark, warm and sometimes pretty noisy world, full of artificial life, created long before the terms "glitch" or "microsampling" were real words. This is probably Henke's most serious academic work, composed using controlled random distributions to create a synthetic structure which behaves "naturally"; this is achieved by deconstructing sound into tiny little particles and embedding them into a grid of slow, permutating deep drones. Most sounds are derived from recordings of water, transformed into crisp spikes of noise with occasional low bursts. It was produced using one of the first versions of the MAX software, with a minimum of other equipment; but, nonetheless, already embodied the typical depth and width which has come to characterize his releases as Monolake. Repackaged and re-released in 2003, Piercing Music is serious ambient music, more connected to the works of Thomas Köner or Asmus Tietchens than to the melodic structures of 1993's chill-out productions. It still sounds up-to-date today and stands out as a unique piece of music.

Artist:	HENKE, ROBERT
Title:	Layering Buddha
Label:	IMBALANCE COMPUTER MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	ICM 006CD

Berlin-based Robert Henke is best known for his work as Monolake, and as the software technology developer for the pioneering Ableton music software. This is his fourth full-length solo release for his own label, Imbalance Computer Music. The new ambient work Layering Buddha is a dark, shimmering, epic journey, solely created with sounds taken from the famous FM3 Buddha Machine. By transforming, filtering and massively layering the thin buzzing audio sound from this device he has achieved intrusive and dense soundscapes with strong cinematic associations, slowly travelling into deeper and deeper sonic layers, opening spaces where the perception of time is extended, where microscopic details become visible, and where slight changes in color and timbre create sensations of giant structures moving slowly in the distance. The sound of the original Buddha Machine player was captured using state of the art recording equipment, capable of collecting artifacts far beyond the frequency response of the human ear. This made it possible to reveal hidden and usually inaudible aspects of the material during the processing, leading to sonically rich results full of incredible, almost organic detail. During the project, long permutating sequences were set up, using numerous independent layers of processed sound, all oscillating with their own frequency and breath. In a later production step, these long sequences were rearranged and cut down to obtain more closed works of different color. Finally, the most fascinating structures were chosen and assembled to form the Layering Buddha CD and limited edition vinyl. The CD has been compiled to work best as one long audio piece where the order of the tracks, and the way they interleave, guides the listener through different moods and places. Part of the fascination of the original FM3 Buddha Machine comes from the fact that it is a toy-like tool where one can experience each built-in loop as a solitary thing. But it's also a source of experimentation -- turning on more than one player at a time is highly satisfying. The limited edition vinyl box is a reference to this. Each work on the five record set can be played at any speed but, just like the original Buddha Machines, playing back two or more records simultaneously allows the creation of an infinite number of variations. The artwork for the CD and the limited vinyl edition is based on a work by Australian photographer Justine Lera.

Artist:	HENKE, ROBERT
Title:	Atom/Document
Label:	IMBALANCE COMPUTER MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	ICM 007CD

Atom is a collaborative performance by visual artist Christopher Bauder and Robert Henke. A matrix of 64 moving, helium-filled balloons each contains a bright white LED. By moving the position of the balloons and triggering the LEDs inside, it is possible to create morphing, flashing and flickering three-dimensional sculptures. Atom has been performed at Centre Pompidou in Paris, at Tesla Berlin, and at several other festivals in 2007 and 2008. This CD/limited 2LP contains the music written for the Atom performance. The performances allow for a lot of spontaneous interaction between Christopher, who controls the height of the balloons in the matrix, and Robert Henke, who controls the LED patterns by triggering various musical elements. So each performance is different, and the CD serves as a document of one possible scenario. The music for the performance has been created according to a few basic principles: there are floating elements that are not percussive and have no direct connection with the LEDs in the balloons. There are percussive elements where in each piece, each percussive element has to trigger an LED. And there are no percussive elements allowed that do not trigger LEDs. This strict conceptual approach made it possible to come up with impressive music and LED movements in a very limited period of time in 2007, before the first performance. Also each piece contains only four channels of percussive sounds, a deliberate limitation which made it possible to control the audio part of the performance entirely via a hardware MIDI controller box. Both artists felt the musical effort deserved to be conserved. Henke spent a lot of time refining each detail of the sounds and the patterns: "Some of the pieces I rebuilt from scratch, and in some cases I went in a totally wrong direction and came back to a much earlier version after weeks of unsuccessful attempts. The result is the most 'serious' album I created so far, and it marks a new coordinate in my musical universe, with its combination of noisy and rough industrial sounds, processed piano, and distant drones."

Artist:	HENKE, ROBERT
Title:	Atom/Document
Label:	IMBALANCE COMPUTER MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$23.50
Catalog #:	ICM 007LP

Double LP version. The vinyl edition is a limited heavy 180 gram pressing in a luxury gatefold cover with full-color printing. Atom is a collaborative performance by visual artist Christopher Bauder and Robert Henke. A matrix of 64 moving, helium-filled balloons each contains a bright white LED. By moving the position of the balloons and triggering the LEDs inside, it is possible to create morphing, flashing and flickering three-dimensional sculptures. Atom has been performed at Centre Pompidou in Paris, at Tesla Berlin, and at several other festivals in 2007 and 2008. This limited 2LP contains the music written for the Atom performance. The performances allow for a lot of spontaneous interaction between Christopher, who controls the height of the balloons in the matrix, and Robert Henke, who controls the LED patterns by triggering various musical elements. So each performance is different, and this release serves as a document of one possible scenario. The music for the performance has been created according to a few basic principles: there are floating elements that are not percussive and have no direct connection with the LEDs in the balloons. There are percussive elements where in each piece, each percussive element has to trigger an LED. And there are no percussive elements allowed that do not trigger LEDs. This strict conceptual approach made it possible to come up with impressive music and LED movements in a very limited period of time in 2007, before the first performance. Also each piece contains only four channels of percussive sounds, a deliberate limitation which made it possible to control the audio part of the performance entirely via a hardware MIDI controller box. Both artists felt the musical effort deserved to be conserved. Henke spent a lot of time refining each detail of the sounds and the patterns: "Some of the pieces I rebuilt from scratch, and in some cases I went in a totally wrong direction and came back to a much earlier version after weeks of unsuccessful attempts. The result is the most 'serious' album I created so far, and it marks a new coordinate in my musical universe, with its combination of noisy and rough industrial sounds, processed piano, and distant drones."

Artist:	HENKE, ROBERT
Title:	Indigo_Transform
Label:	IMBALANCE COMPUTER MUSIC (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	ICM 008CD

Berlin-based Robert Henke is best known for his work as Monolake, and as the software technology developer for the pioneering Ableton music software. Indigo_Transform is a re-envisioning of the quietly pulsing, water droplet-dappled Monolake piece, "Indigo" for use in an installation piece by Swedish artist Fredrik Wretman. As Henke himself explains: "I liked the idea, but found it a bit inappropriate to simply play back the same song again and again in a loop. Instead I isolated some elements from the original piece and transformed them into slowly evolving atmospheres to match with the aura of Fredrik's installation, Tap Tim, which radiates a sense of timeless contemplation -- one single calm and focused work of art in a large gallery space. With my laptop and my pre-prepared atmospheric sounds, I came to Ostersund a few days before the opening and created a constantly permutating and endless, multichannel soundscape based on some of the sounds of the 'Indigo' piece. During the installation, the music is played back from three CD players, each of them containing a slightly different version of the soundscape, each with a different playing time and each fed to speakers located in different parts of the gallery. As a result, things never fully repeat, and the sound travels slowly through the space, filling the room like a perfume. The recording here is a stereo mixdown of the initial state of the installation, if all three CDs would be started at the same time." Lovely, open-air ambient drone with a sound that could fill the deepest caverns. Housed in a beautiful digipack with photos by Henke. Limited edition of 1,000 copies, at a low price.

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