r I e (2023_1)

“r | e” used to be the logo of the re:flexions sound-art festival, organised anually by attenuation circuit at their Augsburg homebase from 2016 to 2021. Every edition of the festival was accompanied by a CD compilation. The idea behind the festival was to bring together experimental musicians from all sorts of genres who had never collaborated before to create new material for the CD – and to play a live set at the festival. The festival no longer exists, but “r | e” continues as a compliation series that features exclusive new compositions.

The artists who have contributed to this album have been gathered through an ongoing open call by attenuation circuit, with label head Sascha Stadlmeier acting as the curator who brought together the virtual duos and trios. They include regular contributors to the label's output, such as Julien ASH, prOphecy, LDX#40, Lefterna, Toni Dimitrov, Circuitnoise, Gerald Fiebig, and SRVTR, as well as new names such as Nimbostrata (aka Linn Friberg) and John Brennan. Stefan Schulzki and halfdeep are long-time companions of attenuation circuit, but not very widely represented in the label's catalogue so far. Label head Sascha Stadlmeier has also used the opportunity to work in a new trio line-up.

As if all the artists had collectively planned it, the titles of the pieces (and occasionally, the project names) are full of contrasts: fire and frost, silence/hush and noise, dusk and midnight … and so is the music, which, in each piece, but also over the course of the whole album runs the gamut from introspective, hauntological drones with glockenspiel accents to ethereally processed field recordings to almost fully-fledged industrial rhythms and noise attacks – and back, as it were. We feel that this first “r | e” realised without the festival of the same name is no less a powerful expression of the collaborative spirit of the international experimental underground network. More instalments of the series are in preparation, or open for submission via emerge.bandcamp.com.