In 2009 Kynan Tan released his first EP Two Clouds to coincide with a self-funded tour to Japan. The EP was an interesting amalgamation of Tan’s free sound aesthetic, a pleasant combination of rock ideas mixed with pulpy digital textures. Three years later and Kynan Tan has covered a lot of professional ground. He has completed a large scale electro-acoustic chamber work (Lucidity), contributed to the critically acclaimed sound art installation Sound Chamber, and honed his live performance and improvisation skills as a laptop performer while living in Germany for the past year. So with these influences in mind it was always going to be interesting to see what shape Raetina, Tan’s first full length LP, was going to take.
Raetina is a rock album, bent, twisted and manipulated as only Kynan Tan knows how. Listening to Raetina you can hear the influences to Tan’s work (the Alva Noto glitch beats, the Radiohead-esque guitar lines), and yet Tan manages to take these elements and truly own them. The entire album is more structured than any other release of Tan’s to date, and yet this seems to help him funnel these influences into something truly unique and expressive. From the evolving dark drones and noise bursts of ‘Gleichzeitig’ to the skittering textures of ‘Sleepy Solemn’, everything feels deliberately crafted, the product of an artists vision while exploring the possibilities of sound.
Ultimately, Raetina is a valid next step for Tan. It consolidates the free-sound experimentalism of his early works into something more focused and rewarding of attentive listening. There is a lot happening in this album as Tan disguises dense sonic layering and extended song structures with easily discernible rhythmic ideas. There is something wonderfully understated about this album. It is clever without trying to sell itself as such. At a time when many artists struggle to differentiate themselves from the background noise of pop, it’s nice when you find an Australian artist that succeeds in making their own sound so unique, so effortlessly.
Sam Gillies
