Black To Comm - At Zeenath Parallel Heavens '2023

Tracks list

Over the course of 20 years, German artist Black To Comm aka Marc Richter has
pushed the limits of and merged the aesthetics of art, conceptual installations
and music, coming in a wave of innovation alongside his peers Pita, Fennesz,
Felicia Atkinson and later Sarah Davachi to name a few. His list of
collaborations and commissions is long and impressive. Through it all Richter as
Black to Comm has challenged assumptions, explored identity and confronted the
concept of authorship itself. Black to Comm’s work investigating the
bounds of originality, reinvention and recontextualizing sounds of the past, in
tandem with the growth and complications of AI, becomes ever more apropos and
potent.

At Zeenath Parallel Heavens finds Black to Comm contemplating the hybridity
within each and every one of us, be it sexual, racial, cultural, language, and
beyond. Richter mirrors personal dualities by employing a combination of sounds
he created and manipulated samples, blurring their boundaries. This time these
sources were pushed to the extremes as he explored contrasts of these combined
sonic pallets. “It was created by a combination of sampling and doing my
own recordings and then a lot of studio work, editing and collage, which is the
main process. I always try to blur the line between sampling and my own
recordings, also between ‘real’ instruments, MIDI, electronics,
editing, between authenticity and theatrics/artificiality.” As Richter
worked on the album, he became aware of how AI text programs processing
resembles his own methods. “I had the realization recently that the way I
compose is not too dissimilar to what AI software is doing nowadays - especially
when the AI is hallucinating (this is the term used when the AI is
overloaded/overcharged/inundated and comes up with made-up results).”
Human behavior reflected in a computer facsimile of human intelligence appealed
to the ethos of Black to Comm, whose titles and concepts are often oblique and
tongue-in-cheek. Song titles drawn from epic poetry and ancient mythology
explore a duality between the serious and ridiculous, mimicking the
multi-layered meanings of the music itself; “I love the pathos, the
flowery baroque language, the ambiguity (especially with regards to erotic
innuendo),” Richter elaborates.

At Zeenath Parallel Heavens pushes Richter’s audio occultism into even
more divine, transcendent territory. Across the album’s dazzling expanse,
Richter assembles an arresting sonic narrative that blossoms from primeval
creation myths to ominous, shadowy expanses and radiant heavenly vistas,
exploring the existence of alternative realities. It is as astounding in the
scope of its vision as it is immediately enthralling, as inviting as it is
subtly unnerving. 



Tracklist:
1.01 - Black To Comm - Then Began the Harp to Fashion (4:56)
1.02 - Black To Comm - Steep Thy Plumage in His Sweetness (4:16)
1.03 - Black To Comm - Never Heed the Tongues of Wooers (8:01)
1.04 - Black To Comm - Time Will Fly on Equal Pinions (2:35)
1.05 - Black To Comm - La société des rêves (7:55)
1.06 - Black To Comm - Musik im Schatten (4:06)
1.07 - Black To Comm - Schleim des Nichtwissens (5:34)
1.08 - Black To Comm - On the Grass Her Shoes of Deer-Skin (3:20)

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