Klein:Rot

Thorny, brittle, highly unusual electronic brilliance by Hamburg enigma Ulrich Rehberg aka Ditterich von Euler-Donnersperg, a covert operator who may or may not be behind Werkbund’s near-mythical output.

Since the early ’80s Uli’s label Walter Ulbricht Schallfolien have hosted the curdled creme of industrial and post-industrial music such as Throbbing Gristle, S.P.K., Laibach, Asmus Tietchens, and The Hafler Trio, beside prized projects such as Werkbund and Mechthildt von Leusch - which may or may not be Rehberg’a aliases. For Nina and Good News’ reliably wayward V I S label, Rehberg slips into his occasional guise Ditterich von Euler-Donnerperg for a fractured mosaic of concrète shrapnel and electro-acoustic abstraction that speaks to the inimitable breadth and free-hand unpredictability of his aesthetic, sitting nicely alongside a killer new one for A Colourful Storm.

Working crisply detailed and persistently amorphous, allusive sounds with a sort of GRM-adjacent quality factored by a more playful, punkish freedom that’s rooted in Hamburg’s renowned counterculture, the 21 tracks on ‘Klein : ROT’ are among the most distinctive on V I S, resonating their elusive style with hallucinatory appeal from every inch of its chimeric, shapeshifting mass. They mostly say their piece succinctly and uncompromisingly, with only a few parts lasting over 3 minutes, and only one, the immersive ‘An Gott vertex’ taking up to five minutes to work its mind-warping magick.

It’s the sort of rarified electronic music that reaches places left untouched or unrealised by most of the contemporary field, utilising hardware and secretive tekkers in a way best compared with Parmegiani’s peerless, future-proof movements.