Kangding Ray

Another elegantly packaged release in Raster-Noton’s "Limited” series; an auspicious introduction for Berliner David Letellier under the Kanding Ray moniker. The sound is a snug fit with founder/bosses Frank Bretschneider and Carsten Nicolai’s chilled and pixelated electronic minimalism. Letellier’s work is more subtly open to emotion, as on "Sub.Res” with its thinly sliced guitar and keyboard lines that retain an elusive melancholy. While the sound spectrum skews to greyscale, tracks like "Dadaist” reveal spare tableaux that are actually dense and intricately shaded. In fact there is seldom "nothing” going on in terms of the blank space usually associated with this field. "Status + Light” verges on jaunty with its revealed and repeated piano chords over digital glitches that border on rolling drum fills. The partially unmasked source instruments also go along way towards melting the iciness of the digital palate. While it’s not exactly Moby, it still is an interesting step towards melody within the microbe.