you always meet twice in life, according to an old wise saying, and without realizing that a decade had passed, no.nine recordings reopens its doors to once again delight the world with subtle electronica. with its 50th release and a rather quiet 25th anniversary, the label embarks on a new chapter in its engagement with contemporary music, albeit this time with one or two changes. a good fifteen years after the release of the highly influential album ‘and’, the producer, visual artist, and publisher of a people magazine martin eugen raabenstein aka slowceam once again engages with the rather intricate connection between dance and music. while in 2009 this referred to ballet, the multimedia virtuoso now turns to dance theater in order to explore how tonality affects individual movement and vice versa.
dance theater can draw on an immensely rich history of intercultural encounters with staged dance, whether in the realm of pure entertainment or in the cultic and ritual. raabenstein derives the sometimes hysterically overflowing energy of his album ‚dan/s’ from the diametrically opposed meaning between the medieval danse macabre and the mexican feast día de muertos. while the former is shaped as a memento mori, a reminder of human mortality that concerns all classes from peasant to emperor, the latter represents the fusion of indigenous and catholic rites into a joyful act that includes death as a natural part of life. situated in the freely interpretable space between admonition and exuberant joy at the same time, the berlin-based artist transforms his interactive idea of movement and dance into six videos accompanying the nine pieces.
raabenstein approaches the question of where and when movement becomes dance through those videos created in connection. with each track, examining the role sound — or music in general — plays in this transformation. the precise interlocking of elements is of crucial importance to the artist, and the resulting image/sound combinations directly feed into the process of subsequent works — whether as
animated photographs, edits of rare footage, or newly staged live-action scenes. originally conceived as a three-phase release, the remaining tracks not yet translated into visuals stand precisely for the openness of the audiovisual project, and it remains to be seen how the existing gaps will be filled with life.
BANDCAMP
all tracks written, produced and mixed by me raabenstein.
violins by chatschatur kanajan / track 01 and 09.
guitars by thejis louis / track 01 and 09.
mastered by frederik van de moortel, antwerp.
artwork by simonraabenstein.com
more @ nonine.com/non050-slowcream-dan-s/
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