In stock
5 CD box
Roland KAYN
“Elektroakustische Projekte & Makro”
Great news for fans of electronic music: Reiger Records Reeks is set to release a new 5-CD box set dedicated to Roland Kayn’s Cybernetic Music. The collection is based on the original recordings from the Lydia and Roland Kayn Archive, which were sensibly remastered by Jim O’Rourke,
The box set includes the tracks from legendary opuses MAKRO I, II, III, created at the Institute for Sonology, and Elektroakustische Projekte, featuring works like Cybernetic I, II, and III, which were recorded at the Studio di Fonologia in Milan, alongside Entropy PE31, Monades, and Eon. These pieces – previously available only on rare out-of-print vinyl editions – highlight both Kayn’s innovative approach to musical structures and his significant impact on the development of electronic and cybernetic compositions.
Roland Kayn poetically described Makro (1977) during an interview with Mark van de Voort: “Makro breathes in and breathes out, then it breathes in again before disappearing into the dark.” This imagery emphasizes the delicate balance and subtle transition through which the piece unfolds and eventually fades. The idea of the music “disappearing into the dark” suggests a soft, elusive conclusion, as if the sounds gradually dissolve into a space where they can no longer be heard, but still linger in some way.
This description also synthesizes the mystical and organic qualities of the piece: the music doesn’t end abruptly, but transitions smoothly into silence, like a clear picture gradually turning into shadow. Kayn’s reflection that he was never able to fully recapture this unique quality in his later works shows how Makro – a composition where sound, process, and silence merge in a single entity – was a special creature for him.
66,00€
Out of stock
3 CD box
Roland KAYN
“Simultan”
Die Schachtel, in collaboration with SZ Sugar, is finally able to make available in CD format (a deluxe 3CD boxed edition with a lavishly illustrated booklet) of the legendary vinyl-only edition of 2017, the first in a series named “K-Kybernetische Musik /Cybernetic Music” that documents the birth of Roland Kayn cybernetic music, remastered from the original analog master tapes.
One of the great pioneers of electronic, computer, and instrumental avant-garde music, for most of his life, the German composer Roland Kayn (1933 - 2011) remained almost entirely unknown, a founding member of the legendary ensemble, Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, heralded as a singular genius by a small number of figures like Jim O’Rourke, who is currently curating the archive of the artist.
While Kayn might be easily described as a composer of electronic, electro-acoustic, or computer music, most of his career was in fact largely dedicated to the revolutionary sculpting of an entirely new territory of sound - Cybernetic Music, a generative process of composition through programming. Simultan was among the first of the composer’s works to emerge from this process. Cybernetic Music grew from Kayn’s longstanding engagement and fascination with data processing theory, which far outweighed his interest in the work of other composers and the zeitgeists of the day - a fact which contributed to his being declared persona non grata by the avant-garde establishment, and ultimately his lasting obscurity. This territory of creativity was the composer’s attempt to allow sound to be self-self-sufficient, stripping away notions of harmony, melody and rhythm, as much as those of the composer and art, deploying complex networks of electronic devices - early computers, to follow his instructions, taking form through a system of signals and commands.
Created during the period in which Kayn was living in the Netherlands, and recorded with the assistance of electronic music legends Jaap Vink and Leo Küpper, Simultan is a work of astounding beauty – filled with a remarkable sense of humanity and touch – a strange incongruity considering the system through which it was made, doubling as an indication of the inherent power of sound which Kayn spent his life fighting to reveal. For fans of avant-garde electronic music, particularly those drawn to the work coming out of Utrecht and Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM), but who have not encountered Simultan, the work is likely to represent a towering revolution. It stands among the most striking works from the world of sound. Ranging from seductive ambiences, grinding swells of atonally and pure texture, to buried tone clusters, it does everything Kayn set forth in his ambitious project. It is an immersive image of what might be when sound organizes itself, and a metaphor for a way of being – the wonders which happen when we relinquish ego and control.
A stunning journey in sound and work of profound and intoxicating power, Simultan stands among the best of all avant-garde electronic works of its era, yet, like its composer, has never received its rightful due. Die Schachtel’s lovingly produced boxed edition, produced with a booklet with liner notes exploring the composer’s work and ideas at length, takes great strides to rectifying this sin – bringing this seminal work back into print for the first time in CD + digital edition in more than 35 years. Its reemergence has been long awaited by many and should be celebrated by all. Totally essential and not to be missed.
38,00€
Out of stock
15 CD box
Roland KAYN
“The Ortho-Project”
Available early september october! 2024.
Returning to the unreleased oeuvre of the master of cybernetic sound Roland Kayn, frozen reeds hereby unveils a new high watermark for longform electroacoustic composition, unfolding across 15 CDs in a luxurious gold-stamped boxed set.
In 1970, Roland Kayn began a decades-long period of research, development and creation at the Instituut voor Sonologie in Utrecht. In the mid to late 90s, he retired, relocated to the Dutch countryside, and began to realise new electronic works at Reiger Recording Studio – his modest home facility. “I finally came to the conclusion,” Kayn would later point out, “that I no longer needed studios to construct my own electronic music.” The working methods Kayn arrived at individually – without the room-filling synthesisers, mixing desks and signal-processing equipment of Sonology at his disposal – saw him turning his own career into a cybernetic process. From the hours of recorded sound amassed in prior decades, he began processing and assembling a mountainous quantity of new music. His works of this period are focused on reabsorbing and recontextualising his life’s work to produce yet another series of utterly alien landscapes.
From his retirement until his death in 2011, Kayn was wildly prolific, leaving an archive of dozens of finished electronic pieces. Earlier source material is often re-sculpted using the technology Kayn had available to hand, while other techniques such as sampling radio broadcasts or the plunderphonic quotation of others’ works occasionally intercede. No notes accompany any of this music – no word of explanation or expression of intent. Only the works and their titles remain, the latter often simply deepening the mystery. Their durations range from around 20 minutes to almost 18 hours. ‘The Ortho-Project’, presented here in its 14-hour entirety, is among the longest. At this scale, Kayn’s music is perhaps at its most immersive; the listener senses they are being invited to envelope themselves in a rich environment of diverse timbral physicality rather than a programmatic work. This is simply electronic music as you have never experienced it before.
With Jim O’Rourke applying his signature restorative touch to the audio, and Robert Beatty taking his cryptic cybernetics-inspired artwork several steps beyond the label’s previous Kayn box, ‘The Ortho-Project’ (2007) – in its 14-hour entirety – finally sees a fitting release.
110,00€
Out of stock
3 CD box
Roland KAYN
“Infra (1978-79)”
Recent years have seen the release and reissue of dozens of hours of Roland Kayn's music, on several labels and in both physical and digital formats. Our interconnected yet chaotically imbued age seems to be the setting in which Kayn has truly found his audience. The scene is now set for one of the most momentous works in his oeuvre to return to the shelves. 'Infra'.
One of the titanic cybernetic works Kayn originally released on the Colosseum label in the late 70s and early 80s, 'Infra' (1978-79) has come to occupy a very special place in the hearts of fans lucky enough to have copies of the original vinyl box sets. Now lovingly remastered from the original archive masters by Kayn devotee Jim O'Rourke, 'Infra' has finally found its way to CD for a new generation of admirers to discover.
For the newcomer, it should be mentioned that Kayn's electronic music exists in a category all its own, bearing precious little resemblance to that of any of his composer peers. His work perhaps sits more naturally in today's non-idiomatic landscape of drones, field recordings, and modular synthesis, yet arrives accompanied by a poise and near-epic suggestion of natural phenomena simply found nowhere else. Stretching forwards across four decades to suggest new possibilities even now, 'Infra' represents a musical world ripe for rediscovery.
55,00€
Out of stock
5 CD box
Roland KAYN
“Tektra”
The last five years have seen the reemergence of a towering figure of electronic music. Through multiple boxed set releases, and a dedicated Bandcamp page releasing unheard works at an unfaltering pace, the work of pioneering cybernetic composer Roland Kayn has reached a wider audience than ever before.
Now, a bedrock work in establishing this reputation is available once more, as Tektra, his overarching landmark work of the early 1980s, is finally restored to availability after decades out of print.
Reissued by Reiger Records Reeks – the composer’s own label, now presided over by his daughter Ilse – Tektra here unfolds across 5 CDs. The new edition was mastered by Jim O’Rourke from a transfer of the original tapes present in the Lydia and Roland Kayn Archive. It implements Kayn’s directions on crossfades and edits as fully as possible, while also reincorporating almost 5 minutes of music previously
unavailable in digital format.
Kayn’s glacial, otherworldly electronic landscapes have always been somewhat at odds with the world of contemporary composition his background and training located him within. His rejection of compositional dogma and traditional musical structures eventually led him to discover a source of endless inspiration in the cybernetic generation of material, and the curatorial act of listening itself.
Perhaps this is why Kayn’s recognition is only approaching its zenith today: his work is far from the passive, unobtrusive world of “ambient”, but its embrace of extended duration, drone-like textures, and the exploration of space as timbre are undeniable shared attributes. Today’s most forward-looking musical practitioners – many of whom cite Kayn as a direct influence – have perhaps discovered a similar territory, at
the threshold point where mindblowing complexity approaches the overwhelming sensation of true immersion.
55,00€
Out of stock
10 CD box
Roland KAYN
“Scanning (1982-1983)”
A hitherto-unreleased electronic masterpiece from Roland Kayn, singular pioneer of cybernetic music.
Over a period spanning the late 70s through the early 80s, Kayn (1933–2011) issued a quintet of extended works that quietly but definitively redrew the map of electronic music. Informed by cybernetics and a desire to actualise analogue circuitry as an agency in the compositional process, this music adopted a form that can only be described as oceanic, as side after side of vinyl allowed a wholly new vocabulary of electronic sound to find its shape.
In the decades that followed, these multi-LP boxed-set releases became hallowed documents of contemporary music (as well as highly prized collectors' items). Kayn's initially subtle influence belied a gradual shift towards the widespread adoption of his ideas and practices in the 21st century, incorporating both the rise in popularity of modular synthesis as a music-making tool, and the huge advancements in machine learning and AI.
Following the recent reissue of 'Simultan' (1977) and the first-time release of late work 'A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound' (2009), it was clear that a new generation of listeners and musicians were eager to discover Kayn's vision in all its vastness.
Kayn's own label, Reiger Records Reeks, has been reawakened by his daughter Ilse, and her long-cherished dream of releasing this music is now finally a reality. Across 10 CDs of immersive audio, expertly remastered by Kayn aficionado Jim O'Rourke, listeners are now finally able to digest Kayn's little-known masterpiece, and to inhabit sonic territory that has waited unspoilt for decades.
CD 1: Sonagram, Nomogram, Polygram
CD 2: Cycloids I, Cycloids II
CD 3: Anisotropic Modulations I & II
CD 4: Anisotropic Modulations III & IV
CD 5: Anisotropic Modulations V, VI (Part 1) & VII (Part 2)
CD 6: Networks I, II & III
CD 7: Networks IV & V
CD 8: Radi, Intermodulation, Allotropic Radi
CD 9: Inverted Spaces, Counter Radi
CD 10: Array, Scanned Modulation
Recorded 1982-1983. This CD edition was mastered from the original archive tapes.
90,00€
Out of stock
16 CD
Roland KAYN
“A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound
Roland Kayn’s truly epic ‘A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound’ is both a major late opus and a summation of his vast contribution to the fields of electronic music and composition. Hearing the briefest passage of this piece, assembled in 2009 and totalling almost fourteen hours in length, is enough to date the material it is comprised of back to the era of his noteworthy LP boxed sets, released on the Colosseum label in the late 70s and early 80s.
Kayn’s so-called “cybernetic music”, to use the term he preferred, resolutely refuses to showcase the methods employed in its creation. The mass of logical interactions and correspondences underpinning the sounds we hear are submerged so deeply below the surface as to defy analysis. We are left only with the results, which grant the listener a profound and unique experience.
With ‘A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound’, Kayn provides both a vast sonic territory and the invitation to explore it. From glacial, drone-like vistas to violent staccato sequences, the piece’s twenty-two movements chart the length and breadth of electronic music in as comprehensive a manner as has ever been attempted.
The resurgence of the modular synthesizer as a popular musical tool in recent years belies the possibility that its boldest virtuosi may already lie in the instrument’s past. In his work in Europe’s electronic music studios alongside colleagues such as Leo Küpper and Jaap Vink, Kayn created sonic textures in such abundant variety as to make genre categorisation redundant. Photographs
of the one-off, hand-built systems upon which they were realised have inspired the awe of electronic-music connoisseurs for years, but their output has been all too little heard and appreciated.
In 2017, Roland Kayn represents perhaps one of the last titanic figures of 20th-century music to receive their due recognition, and to have their vital music restored to availability.
Sixteen-CD boxed set. Edition of 750. Audio restoration by Jim O’Rourke. Artwork by Robert Beatty.
Kayn’s so-called “cybernetic music”, to use the term he preferred, resolutely refuses to showcase the methods employed in its creation. The mass of logical interactions and correspondences underpinning the sounds we hear are submerged so deeply below the surface as to defy analysis. We are left only with the results, which grant the listener a profound and unique experience.
With ‘A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound’, Kayn provides both a vast sonic territory and the invitation to explore it. From glacial, drone-like vistas to violent staccato sequences, the piece’s twenty-two movements chart the length and breadth of electronic music in as comprehensive a manner as has ever been attempted.
The resurgence of the modular synthesizer as a popular musical tool in recent years belies the possibility that its boldest virtuosi may already lie in the instrument’s past. In his work in Europe’s electronic music studios alongside colleagues such as Leo Küpper and Jaap Vink, Kayn created sonic textures in such abundant variety as to make genre categorisation redundant. Photographs
of the one-off, hand-built systems upon which they were realised have inspired the awe of electronic-music connoisseurs for years, but their output has been all too little heard and appreciated.
In 2017, Roland Kayn represents perhaps one of the last titanic figures of 20th-century music to receive their due recognition, and to have their vital music restored to availability.
Sixteen-CD boxed set. Edition of 750. Audio restoration by Jim O’Rourke. Artwork by Robert Beatty.
100,00€