Ambientrance (US)

Proving that less can indeed be more, Komet’s tiny bleeps and beats are strung together in patterns which evoke warmth. Oftentimes tropical zones are hinted at, as if Rausch were documenting a micro-excursion deep into the untamed depths within the silicon heart of a computer…

Syncopated blips are overlain with less-ordered, slightly off-kilter chimes as opening number licht gives a taste of things to come. Though spaciously placed, bass notes and sparse percussive hits intriguingly manage to eke out the ghost of a tribal ryhthm in “Plus” (7:17). A faint, continual haze extends behind the cymbal taps and electronic blits of rund, giving the impression of hovering in space while trickling notes bubble up outside in regularly repeating patterns.

Those self-replicating tones segue into the beginning of rausch where they slowly sink beneath a rhythmic (and slightly hissy) bed of clicks, pops, dinks and monotoned bass notes. With a perkier arrangement, “Blank” also achieves a technical-tribal feel, topped with gleaming, beeping tones. Thin wisps drifts behind the comparatively dense foreground matter of “Loop” (4:10); bassy thumps, squeaks, bloops and buzzes weave an electronic web of rhythmicated sound, which becomes…

“Band”, a direct continuation of the previous piece, then begins to slow and thin, variating into a different, fragilely hypnotic cycle, which extends into sog until only the highs and low remain, pulsing in afterlife; a twistedly blooping entity takes over and is joined by a more-mechanical counterpart. Echoing staccato notes and cymbal blits spiral out from hub, another example of minimalistic prescences adding up to a greater whole.

The warm-though-cold groove carries over into ring and then into “June”, by which time its fragmented even further, trailing away with a final round of hisses, bloops and clicks, until revitalized with phantasmal reggae-like pulsations.

Rausch‘s 11 tracks form a continuous 67:44-minute soundstream glistening with atom-sized silicon accents. Komet bridges a gap between “minimalism” and “microscopics”, maintaining an intriguing amount of semi-rhythmic interest while rendering spaced-out tableaus. 9.2 for warmly glittering subatomic soundscapes.

Of course, 12k is the home of those crispy miscrosounds and more.