Stefan Römer — ReCode SOUND

Is there a difference between electric and electronic when it comes to music? Maybe the former mostly refers to a mode of amplifying signals, whereas the latter names a means of production? It's axiomatic, but it works, especially if we dust ourselves off from the dirt of the digital and revisit a protean moment of electronic music as Stefan Römer does on his ReCode SOUND, a soundtrack for a movie that is loosely based on another movie, in which no less than the likes of William S. Burroughs and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge once acted alongside one another in the German cult hit, Decoder (1984). 

It feels strangely appropriate to be writing this on Halloween, as Römer's latest work is a haunted one, its business of reanimating the voices and characters of early electronic pioneers in the form of collaged tape music is the closest we come to a contemporary ghost tale. Römer's source material is both the fertile underground of the 80s and the arid landscape of conceptual art that preceded – possible even predicted – its arrival.

The tributary of Römer's work is acutely self-aware, borrowing equally from the recorded voice, field recordings of footsteps on Carl Andre's prosaic sculpture, and the now completely annihilated idea of a counter-culture out of which something like Decoder could come into being. I'm not sure if Römer shares my skepticism, but the revival of earlier moments feels forced at times, particularly in the two pieces in which the artist sings, "Reco Song", and "Sex Practice is Text Practice", the latter of which intentionally elides "praxis" and "practice" in the track's lyrics. This linguistic trick recalls the content of the album's first track, "Voice ReCoder", in which we hear the famous opening lines from "The Communist Manifesto" – "a spectre is haunting Europe" – this is our ghost, but it is entirely unclear if there is anything more than haunting – reality is much scarier than fiction. It is a clever substitution, reframing the means of production within the technologies of electronic music production, these devices are the new factories of alienated labour.

It helps to have this background into Römer's practice (praxis?), for without it, you might just be duped into thinking ReCode SOUND is as earnest as so many other electro-revivals. For fans of electronic music history, and for those sci-fi romantics who still believe a good haunting can scare the bejesus out of us. To find out more drop in here