CD – Raster

By the early 1980s, many areas of European artistic research were already seeing how the idea of ​​the avant-garde—especially as a historical category—had run its course, becoming a style rather than a driving force for contemporaneity. At the same time, the old continent had been—and continued to be—a crucial laboratory for electronic music, thanks to institutions and research centers active since the 1950s, such as the RAI Phonology Studio, IRCAM, GRM, WDR in Cologne, and EMS in Stockholm. Today, in an age dominated by the communication, the term “avant-garde” is instead reduced to an immediate meaning – being “ahead of its time”, trying what “has not yet been heard” – as if sedimentations, consumption of models and institutionalizations had not already imposed themselves as unavoidable realities. Within this context, questioning what a new European electronic music might sound like means engaging with dry or expansive forms, fragmented or recomposed structures, or the freedom to combine different approaches. Raster, as part of Chemnitz 2025 – European Capital of Culture – has launched an international call for works that stand apart from established languages. The international jury’s selections were organized into five categories, including Elegiac, dedicated to an updated map of experimental timbres and atmospheres. The collection highlights diverse sensibilities united by a rigorous attention to the sound detail. CORGIAT’s opening track, “Inverse Nymphosis,” relies on slow layering and an internal evolution that avoids overly obvious variations. Joss Turnbull’s “Antenna” adopts a more minimal yet imaginative structure, based on signals, vibrations, and micro-gestures that seem to interrogate the sonic material at its root. With “Alkaline Steeped and Subdued,” Slowfoam builds an intense environment, supported by subtle progressions and a timbral control that fosters suspension. In “Kiik Tahab Kindaid,” the duo Maarja Nuut & Ruum introduces a dimension more closely tied to the voice and its ritual resonance, while “Binari” by Luca Rigat & Ale Giacchetta explores field recordings, pulsating trajectories, and restrained rhythmic interlocking. Andrea Cichecki, with “Alles ist Nacht,” delves into a sonic night of bass, outcroppings, and fades; Mélanie Frisoli, in the extended “About Strings,” reshapes acoustic sources in a flow that continually redefines the perception of space. In “Suq,” Gaio Ariani focuses on rapid modulations and a constantly shifting timbral phrasing. The closing track, “Orhon” by Mosaic Tapes, maintains a controlled atmospheric tension and a depth that seems to magically reconnect the entire journey. Elegiac thus presents itself as a complex panorama, reflecting a plurality of approaches and confirming that sound remains an open field of research, still capable of producing forms that are not entirely predictable.

 

raster. open call | soundtrack europe 2025 – 1: elegiac