'Over the course
of five years, two albums, and numerous singles and remixes,
Berlin´s Rechenzentrum have
managed to carve out a niche of their own in the world of electronic
music. A symbiosis between the audio and the visual has inflected
their music with an atmosphere unparalleled within the genre.
On their latest release, 'The Director´s Cut', the trio
have surpassed all expectations and delivered what could quite
possibly be their best work to date. Epic in proportion, visionary
in execution, and piercingly evocative in intention, 'The Director´s
Cut' constitutes a daring creative achievement by even the highest
standards.
In an unprecedented move, Mille Plateaux is proud to present
the 'Director´s
Cut' DVD, a feature-length film. The film's sound and moving
imagery was created, produced, and directed by the band; images
fluctuate according to the rhythmic pulsations of the music,
and movement is directed according to shifting tonalities. A
synthesis occurs in the convergence between two otherwise exclusive
mediums results.
The Rechenzentrum modus operandi is an amalgam of reactionary
art movements. Within the overall design, traces of Lettrism,
Situationalism, Dadaism, Burrough´s cut-up techniques, and even punk can
be found. 'The common threads for us in these directions,' explains
Lillevän, 'were, on the one hand, the search for what lies
beneath the surface of music or the moving image (the samples
from film and music that we choose for their potentiality, not
for their hook-lines). On the other hand, we have always been
interested in taking communication of music and entertainment
to other levels, questioning the role of artist, the role of
public personality.'
In this sense, Rechenzentrum´s compositions extend beyond
the domain of simple appropriation, as viewed by sample-based
culture, and into a realm of redefinition and re-application,
a technological cross-pollination of contemporary media.
