Kangding Ray introduces Cory Arcane
Raster-Noton will release a fifth, conceptually-driven, album from the artist next month.
Although David Letellier has featured prominently on Luca Mortarello’s Stroboscopic Artefacts label over the past few years, the Berlin producer’s work as Kangding Ray will always be most readily associated with Raster-Noton. Debuting on the label back in 2006 with the first Kangding Ray album Stabil, Letellier has developed a cerebral style of techno over a smattering of 12″s and three subsequent albums for Raster-Noton with his most recent LP, Solens Arc, arriving in February last year.
Letellier’s penchant for concept was displayed on that album and rears its head on his newly announced fifth Kangding Ray album, Cory Arcane, due out on Raster-Noton in late October. Some nine tracks long, the new album would appear to depict the story of the titular individual with a press release from Raster-Noton featuring the following words from Letellier and not much else. A brief video teaser can be heard below and should offer some further insight into the sounds of Cory Arcane.
“Cory Arcane found her comfort zone in a constant state of crisis, and her liberation through love, sensuality, and high-speed internet access. As some might recall, she used to struggle with her own decay, navigating an intricate web of bureaucracy, endless social-media scrolling, 24-hour news channel feeds and marketed strategies of seduction.
Her intense and continuous obsession for surf, breakdancing and cat videos might have saved her from a silent decline, but it would be her first attempts at integrating a professional ballet company that provided the initial spark. Her unorthodox dance movements were often considered shocking, transgressive, and barely legal; and even though some recognised her genuine talent, it was clear she would never make it into this structure.
This is when she started her slow drift towards the outer limits of society, in search of the way to achieve the conditions for absolute freedom. Her emancipation was surely marked by different forms of excess: the inappropriate use of fireworks, the consumption of large quantities of alcohol and controlled substances, as well as the occasional blasts of kitchen appliances.
She bypassed the gender war and became an expert in advertising sabotage. Soon Cory would give academic courses on the true liberation of the mind, or, in her own words, the apotheosis of senses.
Lately, she could be seen squatting in the outskirts of different giant metropolises, embracing the mayhem, contemplating the crumbling of a system. The sound of the city, mixed with the music on her headphones, would weave complex rhythms and futuristic textures into a beautifully coloured, pixelated surface.
Looking out onto this fabulous chaos, she smiled.”
Raster-Noton will release Cory Arcane by Kangding Ray on October 30.
Tracklisting:
1. Acto
2. Dark Barker
3. Brume
4. These Are My Rivers
5. Safran
6. Burning Bridges
7. Bleu Oscillant
8. When We Were Queens
9. On Sleepless Roads
Raster-Noton on Juno