Published by Alessandro Violante on May 23, 2023
It’s more than twenty years since Stefan Goldmann makes wide-ranging electronic music combining techno with avantgarde, house and many more. His discography is boundless and, besides his releases on his label Macro released since 2007, he has released music with labels such as Classic, Perlon, Innervisions, Ovum and many others.
He has also composed music for theater pieces, dance and movies. He releases a lot if music and plays in the whole world. He receives music requests by MaerzMusik, NyMusikk, the Mannheim National Theater and by the BASF cultural program. He has developed site-specific live performances for Berlin Philarmonie, Los Angeles LACMA and Kyoto Temple Hōnen-in (2012). He had the following residencies: Villa Kamogawa at Kyoto (2012) and Villa Aurora at Los Angeles (2017). He’s a host teacher at Berlin Universität der Künste and at Bern Hochschule der Künste.
He’s the author of the book Presets, he writes for Club Berghain Berlin where he plays since 2006 and he’s the artistic director of Festival Strom at Berlin Philarmonie.
With his label Macro, on 6th May he has released the Vector Rituals EP, containing six songs each showing one of the directions explored by the artist.
The common trademark of these different songs is surely the clearly perceivable uncommon sound research. Each song has multiple layers of interpretation. Each pattern and each sound have their meaning within the single songs.
That of Vector Rituals could be described as research music sometimes freed of fixed structures, sometimes filtered by syncopated beats, braindance, techno and house depending on the song.
The feeling the listener has about Goldmann’ music is that it is the product of an artist who perfectly knows his gear and how to put in communication the various sounds.
In Nayba we have a slow and constant minimalist rhythm upon which a universe made of synthesized sounds emerges, evoking the found sounds of concrete music. In Oyotung we find a fast and syncopated tribal rhythm, while in Lorino we find a syncopated braindance song with an experimental taste.
Yugakir and Ayon are the most complex and experimental songs, while Tiksi is close to tribal house and the ending song Valkumey is a techno song enriched by the already described range of synthesized particular sounds.
The format of the release makes Vector Rituals an enjoyable work never bothering the listener and highlighting the great skills of the artist.
Label: Macro
Rating: 8,5