Experimental electronics from deep in left field.
Robert Lippok, lately of To Rococo Rot, collaborations with other Berlin-based musicians like 2005’s Tesri (with Barbara Morgenstern) and numerous multimedia installations, turns in an introspective and uneven album with Applied Autonomy.
The press from Raster provides some context: these tracks were “sketches specifically made for a club performance. Rather than meticulously devising each and every detail, Lippok focused instead on recording as many fragments as possible in a short period of time.” These sketches provided the raw material for live recombination and improvisation, but putting them into static, permanent form on the album makes for some odd recontextualization.
For example, after a minute-long metallic drone that gradually rises in pitch (“Scene 1”) opens the album, the title track brings a trance-inducing three tone motif that repeats with microscopic variations in rhythm and backing layers over six and a half minutes. The movement that occurs is deep in the mix, layers of looped grains and samples that mount ever so slowly, until they’re stripped away suddenly and a throbbing 4/4 tock appears for all of twenty seconds. It’s very mysterious and a bit frustrating as it confounds your expectations of song development and structure.
This pattern continues through the release, where brief “scenes” interpenetrate long-form tracks whose progression occasionally advances traditional techno-rooted forms but more often feel like experiments and works in progress from a massive talent. A close reference point were the early releases from The Field, whose A/B-into-infinity vibe required the listener to abandon hope of a breakdown or a drop and just surrender oneself to the eternal beat. A notable exception is the superb “All Objects Are Moving,” whose propulsive foundation gets overlaid with fuzzed out guitar stylings and eventually a female voice counting down to ecstatic liftoff.
Also of interest is the album’s fourteen-minute closer, “Samtal,” a collaboration with Klara Lewis. According to the Raster notes: “During the session, both musicians played and performed simultaneously, yet not explicitly together, lost in their own thoughts and ideas, only subconsciously taking in what the other one was coming up with.” I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I enjoy the output; it’s a slow ambient evolution that combines some open-air field recording sounds like thunder and rain with gently swelling strings and looped, lurching synthesizers.
Overall this is an interesting release from a wildly creative mind. Not every track is a banger, but from someone whose CV prominently features audio for video installations and experimental theatre, for me the most impressive thing about Lippok’s work here are the moments of focus, where the craft leads to a hook and a beat you can dance to.
Applied Autonomy is available on from Raster
