Frank Bretschneider — Sinn + Form

Raster-Noton presents Sinn + Form, the full-length CD debut of Frank Bretschneider’s new project, Sinn + Form (Meaning and Form). Bretschneider is a long-running sound artist from Germany who also releases music under the name Komet. The album was recorded in July 2014 at EMS, Stockholm, using the Buchla and Serge Analog Synthesizer Systems.

Sinn + Form consists of 8 wonderful modular synth explorations. Each piece is a treasure trove of electronic goodies. I don’t pretend to have much knowledge of modular synthesizers, they just appear to be big boxes with a random assemblage of patch cables zig-zagging all over the place. I wouldn’t have the first inkling of what to do with one. However, the palette of sounds Bretschneider delivers through such a device is complete music to my ears. Take equal parts robot chatter and sci-fi nostalgia and you might begin to scratch the surface of what transpires here.

The album opens up with the 8 minute cut, “Pattern Recognition,” an assemblage of: pulsing synth tones, squelchy sonic blobs, delayed bleeps, and the pings of falling synthetic raindrops. Track 3 “Fehlfunktion” takes rapidly moving bleeps and twists them into aquatic sounding shifts. One of my favorite tracks on the disc is “Data Mining,” which doesn’t deviate too far from the previous tracks, but has a more playful sound. It transpires like a jovial mixture of spacey pings, and wibbly wobbly synth sounds. There’s certainly a connective thread that sonically ties all these pieces together, but each track has it’s own character and personality.

There’s a lot to be enjoyed on this album, which should equally appeal to those with a penchant for sci-fi-esque soundscapes and the synth nerds alike.