Before After

Description

'Black To Comm' masterfully manipulates sound, his alterations rendering sources unidentifiable and serving as a portal to new realities. Composer Marc Richter reduces the past, present, and future of recorded music into genre-transcending, detail-bristling kaleidoscopic pieces: an intense sonic-sensory experience. "Before After" offers a hallucinogenic journey to the fringes of sound. It is the perfect companion to the sumptuous 'Seven Horses For Seven Kings'. Richter's technical approach to music is deeply rooted in his philosophy of time. He quotes electronic pioneer Eliane Radigue: "Everything is an interval, we are always in between. And in that interval, between two states, there is a continual expression of invisible variations, of imperceptible transitions." "Before After" exists in this fluid, liminal space, drawing on past sounds and influences and using them to synthesize new futures. "They Said Sleep" applies contemporary studio techniques to ancient material to create a chopped 'n' screwed montage of an early medieval folk song. "The Seven Of Horses" expands the language of the Bulgarian people by adding new abrasive textures, processing piano sounds with analog filters. Even Richter's own works are ripe for reinvention, with "Etats-Unis" and "Perfume Sample" revisiting elements from the music of 'Seven Horses For Seven Kings' with entirely new results, revealing Richter's skills in composition and sound sculpting. "Before After" was written during the same sessions that produced 'Seven Horses For Seven Kings'. The intentionally conceived companion pieces extract similar raw sonic materials to yield radically different results. Where 'Seven Horses' was a dark work focused on anger and despair, 'Before After' finds faint glimmers of hope in the same sources. By re-evaluating the past, Richter imagines new futures, opening parallel timelines and sonic universes. The album encompasses the current phase of Richter's production as 'Black To Comm', a decisive statement that leaves the future of the project extremely open.