Norbert M: _lat_nc_

For close to thirty years, Norbet Möslang has been part of the now defunct electronic duo Voice Crack with Andy Guhl, playing their brand of ”cracked everyday electronics,” and adding his guazy, raggedy textures to such improvising units as Poire_z. That group also featured the drummer, electronics experimenter and for4ears label founder Gunter Muller, who is known for augmenting his live drum kit with a host of electronic setups. It is only fitting then that Möslang’s first solo album, _lat_nc_, released on for4ears, combines Muller’s dual commitment to improvisation and electronic innovation.

To create the six tracks on _lat_nc_, Möslang first improvised in a studio, then manipulated the material at home. It took two years, but the result is an ultra-detailed collection of pieces that scintillate the ears with thickets of static, bubbling sine waves, slippery, almost sub-audible bass and a host of beeping pulses, liquid tones and beating frequencies.

”c11” explores the mid-to-low range frequencies. A creaking, damaged whirr serves as a motif, while looping static, bass rumbles and sharp clicking sounds punctuate the space. “c14,” the album’s longest, begins life as disembodied, drifting, wave-as-in-water type sounds. Insistent trance-like beeps then emerge in the deep background, joined by undulating bass. For the next ten minutes Möslang adds and subtracts texture, subtly altering the background as he goes. Evolution is Möslang’s method; details first appear in the foreground, then recede into the background, merging with the growing web of sound. In that sense, his structures feel literary, as they gradually accumulate meaning, each sound adding and enriching the ones around it.

If the pieces feel literary, then it is not novels, but short stories that Möslang is writing. The listener is constantly disoriented, not knowing how Möslang makes the sounds, and the pieces’ ends bring no definite conclusion. It is this abstract quality that keeps many people from engaging with electronica. If you’re not a fan of electronic music, _lat_nc_ won’t make you one, but for the converted, its earthy colors, strange depth and raw, untended shapes generate an engrossing listen.

Visit for4ears records and Norbert Möslang on the web.