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Roland Kayn (1933-2011) was a German composer who studied in Stuttgart at the “Hochschule fur Musik”, and at the “Technische Hochschule” with Max Bense. He was a pupil of of Boris Blacher at the “Hochschule fur Musik” in Berlin from 1956 to 1958 and he later worked in various music studios in Germany, Netherlands and Italy. Despite its relative obscurity in the last years of the 20th Century, Kayn’s work can be considered as one of the most emblematic in the realm of cybernetics and in the general contemporary art production related to the electronic medium.
Éliane Radigue was born in Paris, France. She studied electroacoustic music techniques at the Studio d’essai at the RTF, under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry (1957−1958). In 1967−1968 she worked again with Pierre Henry, as his assistant at the Studio Apsome. Her music, its source an Arp synthesizer and medium recording tape, attracted considerable attention for its sensitive, dappled purity. She was in residence at the electronic music studios of the University of Iowa and California Institute of the Arts in 1973.
In Kayn's Electronic Symphony series, the past and present continually encounter each other anew, each time casting new reflections on the given moment. Kayn's autonomous studio processes remove context from what he termed (markedly in the language of synthesis) the "carrier" material, for the most part music of the orchestral tradition at its most texturally oriented – even drone-like – but alternately seething and volcanic in its drama. These pieces were of great personal significance to the composer, perhaps due to the fashion in which they bridged his initial musical inspirations with the new sound world his friend and colleague Franco Evangelisti described as "something that can no longer be named music".
Reverberating recordings of sound artist Henning Christiansen riffing on the idea of “rock” music in homage to Ken Unsworth, recorded in Sydney, Australia, 1990. “Stone-song is a one-hour performance presented in 1990 at the 8th Biennale of Sydney (The Readymade Boomerang: Certain Relations in 20th Century Art) where time is being scanned and animated by matter and where the genius of Henning Christiansen (with fellow artist Bjørn Nørgaard and Ken Unsworth, to whom this performance is dedicated) establish a deep dialogue with the nature (of sound) watching the time, stone on stone, being at the same time actors and audience of its ephemeral and violent manifestations. What time is it? Is it what time? Time is it what? Released in collaboration with the Henning Christiansen Archive.”
A prismatic assembly with as many faces as the mythological beast which gives the piece its title, Sound-Hydra represents an endlessly regenerative encounter. An extended plunderphonic odyssey from a moment at which Kayn was acutely in touch with the music beginning to sprout up around his prior discoveries and innovations.
During World War II the Isle of Man was used as the primary site for the internment of "civilian enemy aliens", both male and female. Realisation: Reiger Recording Studio, Nieuwe Pekela, 2003.
Patrice Émery Lumumba was the first Prime Minister of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Republic of the Congo), but was murdered by his opponents, with the complicity of the Belgian government, the United States and the UN. Kayn first heard of these events from his friend, conductor Andrzej Markowski. He had never before written a requiem, and elected to make Lumumba his subject.
The latest première from the Kayn archives opens with the composer already several layers deep into the endless process of use-process-reuse that characterises so much of his work. Textural washes are stretched until taut into almost choral tones. Tape warble gives way to arrays of submerged granular shapes. Kayn's limitless fascination with the mutability of sound itself once again approaches its apotheosis.
The cloudy, sustained tones of ‘Spectral’ find Kayn in territory almost as weightless as that of ‘A Pan-Air Music’. In its opening minutes, dense flute-like timbres amass in an echoing plane of sound reminiscent at times of Luc Ferrari’s most disembodied audio surrealism. But this is no derivative (nor pastiche), as Kayn’s time spent amid the Staaplaat racks is soon also in evidence. As the work progresses, we find him locating, digesting – and perhaps even repurposing – the spiritual heirs of his earlier, uniquely groundbreaking work.
Denis Dufour. Born in Lyon in 1953, he took courses at the CNSM in Paris at Ivo Malec, Guy Reibel, and Pierre Schaeffer. He is the creator of numerous instrumental and electroacoustic works. He was a member of Ina-GRM until the year 2000. Creator, teacher, organizer of concerts and events, he founded and directed several instrumental ensembles: TM +, Les Temps Modernes, and in 2004 the ensemble Syntax in Perpignan. He is the main instigator of the Futura festival, and artistic director of Motus. He has been teaching acousmatic and instrumental composition for over 25 years.
In Kayn's Electronic Symphony series, the past and present continually encounter each other anew, each time casting new reflections on the given moment. Kayn's autonomous studio processes remove context from what he termed (markedly in the language of synthesis) the "carrier" material, for the most part music of the orchestral tradition at its most texturally oriented – even drone-like – but alternately seething and volcanic in its drama.
Chion began splicing together tape making musique concrete in France in the '70s. The title track to this collection of pieces is a 37 minute 16 second dark, mysterious, and at times demented version of the classic "Funeral Mass." "Funeral Mass" is the basis for all classical requiems. While such classic requiems glorify the suggestion of eternal life suggested by the religious interpretation of death, Chion's work probes the existential panic of those living under the threat of death. A dark, kaleidoscope collage of cruel whispers, snippets of choral works, and eerie, segmented sacred string music promote a feeling of uneasiness and abandonment.
The master tape of Roland Kayn's final composition was still present in the machine when he passed away on January 5th, 2011. 'Matego', the last piece in a 60-year puzzle, is a tense structure of modulated crystalline bursts. Far from conclusive in tone, it suggests that Kayn could well have continued fruitfully on his path of exploration and discovery for decades longer. To mark the 10th anniversary of Kayn's passing, and to celebrate the enthusiastic response to the new availability of his work, we are proud to offer this music as a free download, with the option of a donation to the Lydia and Roland Kayn Archive.
