POPMATTERS ONLINE MAGAZINE

Jan 14 2009

In this day and age, it’s rare to find music of a kind one truly hasn’t heard before. Everything seems to be a synthesis of something, and genre names now reach four words just to come up with something new. For the truly open-eared, however, Raster-Noton performs the miraculous task of providing music you didn’t even know you wanted to hear. Aurally, the Raster-Noton “sound” could be loosely described as an assemblage of clicks, cuts and other sonic artifacts, with occasional forays into lush, minimal ambience. Each release crafts these sounds with an approach unlikely to be anything heard before. Enter Test Pattern, the latest full-length from Ryoji Ikeda. The pop-art bar codes adorning the cover are, in fact, part of the score of the music contained within. Test Pattern’s compositions come about through the feeding of data into Ikeda’s custom programs for conversion into audio form. The results, expectantly, prove of the experimental variety. When patterns of rhythm do arise, they are brief and not at all anchored in traditional structures from any branch of music that can be notated on a staff. All digital music classifies as data in origin; Ikeda just cuts out the middleman. An attempt of any kind to review the album track-by-track would prove pointless. Test Pattern captivates as a whole work unto itself, lacking any singles or other such familiar tropes to the world of popular music. Like label-mate Alva Noto, Ikeda inhabits the continuum of artists who blur the line between audio research and audio-listening product, recalling James Tenney’s groundbreaking work at Bell Labs. With the range in frequency and velocity of tones and noise bursts on Test Pattern, the album could even be used as a test record for audio equipment (a usage, in fact, suggested by Ikeda, probably not at all tongue-in-cheek). Further establishing supremacy of conceptual fruition over traditional listen-ability, copies of the album brandish a sticker that warns listeners of speaker and eardrum damage if played at high volumes. By comparison, the parental-advisory stickers Tipper Gore motioned for in the 1980s look tame. If anything’s missing, it’s a full-on treatise and/or documentary on Ikeda’s conversion process. Sources for data include text, photos, films and sounds converted to binary forms of data, then layered and manipulated to produce the results. Finally, the carbon-based life forms can empathize with the machines that read the raw data to produce our entertainment! The net effects are interesting enough, but a nagging curiosity persists as to how Ikeda performed the conversions to data, and, even more interestingly, to music. Careful listening reveals differences in deep bass tones across tracks, with identifiable impulses and noises of all colors skidding about. Revisiting the data-reading machine analogy, then, perhaps the inability to know what the data our ears are “reading” represents yet another effect of authenticity. Ikeda has worked with similar sounds before, with Test Pattern the latest entry in his ongoing Datamatics series, which includes both sound recordings and reportedly mind-bending live audiovisual performances. It’s difficult to definitively recommend this release, as a vast number of potential listeners will unquestionably be turned off by its relentlessly challenging structure. Acquiring Test Pattern is more like buying a work of art than a collection to be revisited in bite- (or byte-) sized chunks. Like many great works of experimental music, if you can convince your mind to forget everything you know about harmonic and rhythmic structures, it’s an unforgettable listen. by david abravanel

BODYSPACE.NET

Oct 07 2008

ryoji ikeda_test pattern_raster-noton Friedrich Nietzsche disse que sem música a vida seria um erro. Fosse necessário repensar essa afirmação à sombra do nome e trabalho de Ryoji Ikeda, e surgiriam certamente mais perguntas do que respostas: que esperança de vida tem a música fundada no erro? Pode residir no erro a vitalidade da música? O erro é obrigatoriamente terminal ou pode, em vez disso, ser o meio para alcançar um fim? Test Pattern, segundo disco inserido no projecto Datamatics, pode até ser a forma mais extensiva e intricada que o provocador esteta japonês encontrou para indicar que o sistema binário, enquanto raiz de toda a criação digital, enfrenta severo esgotamento assim que consome as suas possibilidades. O mesmo esgotamento é constatável no alinhamento de todas combinações possíveis de "0" e "1" nos quatro dígitos incluídos em cada uma das 16 faixas de Test Pattern. Mergulhando mais fundo no disco, percebe-se que Ikeda, submetendo sons puros a todo o tipo de manipulações (oscilações de frequência, tom e posição no esquema estéreo), solicita o erro digital como recurso evasivo para a estagnação do sistema binário. Test Pattern revela-se tão elaborado e efervescente nessa exaltação do erro que, no fim, os ouvidos encontram-se tão educados quanto doridos por efeito do convívio prolongado com este mind fuck digital. É sabido que durante década e meia Ryoji Ikeda foi acumulando reputação por ser incansável e ousado nas soluções que descobria para o som. Recentemente, a sua peça audiovisual Datamatics (que é também nome global do projecto) exibia num ecrã aquilo que parecia ser a ruína gradual de um processador electrónico, enquanto servia nas colunas um festim de blips e detritos em cadência praticamente impossível de ser processada pelo raciocínio humano (o alvo a abater de Ikeda). Na sua última fase, Datamatics usufruía da envolvência e hipnose acumuladas para tornar o ouvinte mais receptivo à dimensão quase galáctica da electrónica de génese errónea, contudo paradoxalmente equilibrada numa matemática que aproveita plenamente a capacidade esponjosa dos ouvidos (desafiando até os seus limites). Test Pattern não se encontra assim tão distante do conteúdo sonoro dessa exibição, recusando, em conformidade, a obrigação de produzir "música", voltando, mesmo assim, a apostar nos excessos digitais como coordenadas para as suas dimensões sempre mais preenchidas do que realmente parecem. São às dezenas os sons microscópicos que Test Pattern debita por segundo. O abalo e grau de exigência de Test Pattern chega a ser ilegal, ostensivamente ilegal (o disco traz colado um aviso que indica o perigo da última faixa para algumas colunas e aparelhos auditivos), mas os sobreviventes voltam à terra mais aptos para futuros desafios. Sem abandonar um estado de hiperconsciência em relação aos seus métodos (o que se traduz sempre em alguma repetição), Ryoji Ikeda permanece, todavia, num plano de experimentação e desafio que é caracteristicamente seu. Prova (uma vez mais) que o erro pode ser rendido num contexto estritamente rigoroso. Até porque um erro sem Ryoji Ikeda seria uma vida desperdiçada. Miguel Arsénio

ELECTRONIQUE.IT - ELECTRONIC.MUSIC.MAGAZINE

Sep 01 2008

ryoji ikeda_test pattern Ryoji Ikeda decide di darci il benvenuto tramite un messaggio quanto mai inusuale. Nella plastica che avvolge il digipack troviamo infatti applicato un piccolo avvertimento che recita: "Questo CD contiene specifiche waveform, impulsi di dati che forniscono un test di risposta per altoparlanti e cuffie. Ascoltare ad alto volume l'ultima traccia può causare danni al vostro equipment ed ai vostri timpani". I più avvezzi ai suoi suoni sanno benissimo di chi e cosa stiamo parlando, Ikeda è pur sempre l'uomo che distribuisce tappi per le orecchie prima dei suoi live set. Artista seminale per ciò che concerne la sperimentazione del suono legata in maniera indissolubile alle continue ricerche in ambito binario. Test pattern non è altro che l'evoluzione di quello che può essere definito un progetto sonoro unico e difficilmente replicabile. Il contenuto del supporto và infatti oltre l'immaginario della musica, arrivando a definire quelle coordinate fuori dallo spazio alle quali, ad oggi non sappiamo dare una classificazione. Tutte le tracce sono composte da una serie di impulsi scheletrici che si disperdono ad ondate, ora fittissime, poi rarefatte, poi di nuovo a grappoli densissimi. Ritmi rapidissimi fuori ed oltre il tempo. Assenza della melodia (intesa in senso tradizionale). Strati di suono moltiplicati in maniera esponenziale. Solo spingere l'immaginazione all'eccesso potrà portarvi nel luogo del nulla, un nulla fatto di estremismo puro e semplice, ultimo baluardo del minimalismo, eccesso mai sondato da chi di minimale si è ricamato il vestito. Punto di ritrovo per anime alla ricerca dell'essenza, suono oltre i suoni. Techno per chi della techno vuol conoscere la morte, analizzando le polveri di una decomposizione ormai consumata. Ikeda realizza tutto ciò prendendo una mole di dati di diversa natura in formato binario e tramutandoli in soluzioni sonore digitali che danno vita ad un microcosmo apocalittico. La Raster-Noton conferma la sua fama di label ormai oltre ogni eccesso, regalandoci in questa prima parte del 2008 due gioielli meravigliosi come Test Pattern ed il nuovo di Byetone del quale parleremo a breve. Se ritenete di appartenere a quella schiera di androidi alla ricerca di una risposta, riteniamo di avervi messo di fronte al vostro disco definitivo. p.s. abbiamo naturalmente ascoltato ad un volume bassissimo l'ultima traccia dal titolo: Test pattern #0000 ed il consiglio è di fare altrettanto. liquid

CHAINDLK_ONLINE MAG

Jul 31 2008

"Test Pattern" is the second audio release for Ikeda's "Datamatics" project, following 2005's "Dataplex" and 2004's video project called "C4I". Basically, all the sounds on those works are obtained by converting pure datas into a binary system, whether they'd be texts, photos, sounds or video files. It's a rare opportunity to listen to a pure data flow, and surprisingly the patterns throws in superbly knotty sound networks that he sometimes repeats to create a sort of rhythm. You must listen to "Test Pattern" as a whole and not by single tracks and you'll be blown away. In this one Ikeda uses such high frequencies and the sound bits are moving so fast that it's almost impossible to compress this album into mp3 without losing quality. As the title says it can be used as a test cd for audio equipments (I personally know people that used "Dataplex" as a test cd for discos and venues) and a sticker on the cd says that the last track can damage your equipment... so listen at your own risk! I don't want to spoil anything, but I saw him performing "C4I" twice in the past years (and many parts of "Test Pattern" are used in it), and I strongly hope that his next release will be a dvd of this jaw-dropping work. Highly recommended for Raster Noton maniacs, noise freaks and almost everyone into every different kind of electronic music. Rated: 4.5/5 Andrea Vercesi

THE WIRE MAGAZINE

Jun 01 2008

The Wire Magazine, # 292, june 2008, Ikeda's latest Datamatics release channels raw digital information into eardrum - bursting al By David Stubbs Ryoji Ikeda Test Patterns RASTER-NOTON CD The New Yorked based Japanese composer Ryoji Ikeda has always been concerned with the nature of sound, from its basic constitution to its outer limits, as well as testing the very act of listening itself. On his 1996 album +/- he took music to the threshold of inaudibility, culminating in a high frequency tone which, Ikeda stated in his sleevenotes, "the listener becomes aware of only upon its disappearance". Paradoxically, 'listening' is not exactly what one does to the sound data generated by Ikeda, with all the dumb envelopment that term implies, This is the second CD release as part of Ikeda's ongoing Datamatics project - the first was Dataplex, also released on Raster-Noton in 2005, Contemporary digital life is buoyed along on a vast, invisible wash and flow of data, in the form of texts, music, photos, films and so on. The idea of Test Patterns is to take extracts of this data and convert it into binary patterns, as demonstrated in the album's barcode cover artwork, and then into digital audio files. To listen to Test Patterns is to listen to the very stuff, the hitherto unheard chatter of the modern world. All of this is granular grist to Raster-Noton, many of whose releases deal in lower case minimal extremism, raw essences and music as numeracy, The results can be as dry as dead mathematicians' bones. Test Patterns is certainly not that. It is exhilarating, shocking, wholly satisfying. You are warned - a sticker on the album cover advises against high volume listening to Test Patterns, as this may cause damage both to your electronic equipment and your eardrums. There are 16 tracks. From opener "test pattern #0001" through to "test pattern #0000", their titles represent all the possible permutations of a four digit sequence using the numbers one and zero. Attempts to convey imagistically what is going on bounce off these frictionless sound surfaces: the likes of "test pattern 1111" spurt spider's kneecap-sized particles in a fury of straight lines and intricately patterned intervals, black, white, black, black, black, white, But what is going on, what struggles to go on, is quite astonishing. The rapidfire patter comes at you from an angle, at a pace, with an insistence that begs a new mode of listening. It's as if the very fur of the eardrum is being pricked upright for the very first time. That's down to the sheer velocity of these audio files, which proceed at a rate of some hundreds of frames per second. By the fourth track, "test pattern #0100", the seemingly irregular but mathematically determined sequences take on remotely funky properties, of riffs and loops. Momentarily, you could be listening to Autechre - the sound matter begins to make sense as music, and as the logical patterns emerge, they excite a cerebral equivalent of the butt twitch, This is at once warmly welcomed and a little disappointing: it's a relief, but you don't want these pieces to settle into precedent grooves, you want its pristine alienness to be preserved. One harbours similarly ambivalent feelings about "test pattern #1010", which threatens to fall into the clavichord funk mode of Steve Wonder's "Superstition". That it doesn't is all the better - one of the great joys of Test Patterns is that of pleasure glimpsed through the bars of digital code, but categorically and altogether denied. If this is not exactly music, then there are certainly parallels - the way the album accrues momentum as it carries through, culminating in the seismographic fury and granular whirlwind of "test pattern #1001" and the dousing frenzy of "test pattern #0000". But Test Patterns, in its own, scrupulous, methodical way does pose questions about the relationship between the listener and the listened-to. It's to be distinguished from certain extreme noiseniks, or the likes of Mattin, where the music is too often no more than a sado-masochistic test of endurance. Catch Test Patterns in the wrong frame of mind, or with inappropriate expectations, and it will probably seem waspishly, pointlessly dissonant, too intrusive to be Ambient, too lacking in obvious handles for it to serve any other function. This is not an album to be 'used' in that way. Rather, it asks to be contemplated. There are doubts as to what is sound art and what is not - Test Patterns undoubtedly is, and as such, its place (home? Headphones? Visual art gallery?) has not yet quite been found. But then, what does contemplation of Test Patterns yield? On one level it could be seen as a critique of digital sound. These tracks bring home the fundamental limitations of its binary system one and zero, that's your lot. No nuance, no shades of grey, no waste product, no arcs or bends, none. of the myth of grace or spheres, and, lower case god forbid, no tunes. However, what it does achieve in spite of those limitations is breathtaking. Following exposure to Test Patterns, you feel not only that your capacity to experience contemporary sonic ranges has been enlarged, but also that your capacity to take in sound has been encouraged to a pinpoint sharpness. You come away, immaterially, a little richer and wiser.

MUSIQUEMACHINE

May 01 2008

Ryoji Ikeda - Test Pattern [Raster-Noton - 2008] Test Pattern shows the Raster Noton label at their more cool, calculated and concept based end of their catalogue. As Ryoji Ikeda builds sometimes dense, sometimes stripped down tracks of cold clinical and often noisy electronics derived from converting different kinds of data (text, sounds, photos and movies) into barcodes & then into a sonic form. It's stripped out the funkier and more deviate facets of recent records on the label to a make a classic slice of cranial sonic exploitation and minimalistic electronics-this is classic Raster-Noton territory that brought their name and label into the spot light in the first place. But that's not to say this is not with out its rewards, surprises and often biting hypnotic clinical air as Ryoji builds complex rhythmic and textural structures from static, blips and blops. There's almost always present a feeling of tension and anticipation, with noise eruptions that raise there heads here and there in slight burst to grow more volatile and larger towards the end of the album. The tracks for the most part are fairly interchangeable because of the narrow sound textures used, with the pace also staying fairly consistently upbeat and brain frying. So this is best taken as one long flow instead of individual slices, as you get more hypnotised by the smaller textural and sonic patten shifts in it's full length- feeling like your become part of a complex machine or circuit board. It's fair to say this isn't for everyone you'll need to already enjoy the labels more trademark and clinical Sonics, but if you do you'll find this an enjoyable mind fry that will rewire your brain to its clinical rhythmic climate. 3/5