Austrian contemporary music innovators Radian announce new album Distorted Rooms, out September 22nd. The album presents a dazzling new elevation of the trio’s sound, employing and manipulating microtones with a new emphasis on abstracted guitar motifs. Acoustic instruments are deconstructed and reassembled with surgical precision, microscopic sounds magnified into oceans of texture. Alongside the announcement the trio are sharing album opener and first single “Cold Suns”. Emerging from noctilucent ambience, “Cold Suns” traces out a fully three-dimensional sonic landscape from the speakers, spidery guitar architectures and gusts of weightless, skittering percussion arcing from amps while electronics blossom through the crack.
Vienna has a storied history as a ground-zero for new music. Radian, who calls Vienna home, embodies the city’s spirit of innovation. Martin Brandlmayr (drums, electronics), Martin Siewert (guitar, electronics) and John Norman (bass) are stalwarts of the European contemporary music community. Radian’s angular, expansive music delights in tension and contradiction, sound and silence, improvisation and composition. The trio employ a singular and wholly unique sense of microtonality. While their creation process is complex, the resulting music is emotionally affecting, creating an aura of suspense and at times unease. The trio’s collective experience finds an expansive and egoless outlet in Distorted Rooms, uncovering new sonic universes. After nearly 30 years of making music together, their excitement for sonic experimentation is palpable.
Radian’s visionary approach to composition speaks to lifetime working in contemporary music. Martin Brandlmayr’s uncanny approach to rhythm and sound have seen him perform and record with the likes of Otomo Yoshihide, John Tilbury, Christian Fennesz, David Sylvian and many more. His recent debut into radio art Vive les Fantômes was awarded the Karl Sczuka Prize for Works of Radio Art, with previous winners including John Cage, Luc Ferriari and Hanna Hartman. John Norman’s deep immersion in punk and metal, as well as more recently shoegaze outfit Snoww Crystal, are evident in the bite and groove he brings to the band’s low-end. Martin Siewert’s inspired approach to the guitar as an instrument has been honed over years of playing in improvised groups and combos – from Fake the Facts with fellow sonic explorer Mats Gustafsson and his longstanding group Trapist with Brandlmayr and Joe Williamson.
