Y-Ton-G - Klangspiegel (Raum 312)

In the midnight hour in the sound laboratories of Hamburg, you'll hear the strains of Raum 312. Their fourth release is by Y-Ton-G, what seems to be a one-man performance art spectacle that takes natural found sounds and sources and pushes them through a production process in search of the next level of ambient music. How can you not be even slightly curious of an album that states on the cover: "The music on this CD is made with stones, metal and wood. When these natural materials are touched they begin to vibrate immediately."... And you know he's not joking when you hear the finished result. Even more so when - believe it or not - you begin to recognise the musical feel of the stone, metal and wood vibrations. Yes, this album could sound very familiar to anyone that's visited crypts, wandered cathedral cloisters or - I would imagine - pot-holed through vast underground lakes and caverns! Y-Ton-G takes the natural atmospherics of the very life around us and places them on disc in away that field recordings never could. But what has all this got to do with dance music? Or should I really have to ask and answer that question? Truth is, if it hadn't been for the acid/house explosion ten years ago and all the splintered art-forms that emerged thereafter, an album as innovative as this could probably never have been released. 7/10


This review also published in: DJ magazine