Rouilleux: The Fold

Rouilleux has released a new record on Klang-und-Krach and Letmo Productions labels. It exists primarily as an online stream which changes each time it’s played.

Luboš Rezek’s project Rouilleux holds an unusual position on the Czech music scene. It has gained attention mainly through its song-oriented creations which were from the very beginning shaped by close collaborations with musicians around the Klang-und-Krach label whose domain is experimental electronics and free improvisation. These connections manifested themselves among others in the No Pavarotti duo (est. 2009) as well as in the records of Rezek’s solo-collaborative project: emphasis on sound and exploring the possibilities of musical presentation.

New album The Fold (lengthwise an EP) is without doubt Rezek’s most experimental work: it’s an open shape which in its primary form exists as an online stream controlled by an author-defined algorithm which generates the EP from a multitude of audio files. The runtime varies between fifteen and twenty minutes with tens of thousands of possible variants. Aside from the stream which also contains video and fragments of lyrics the record also exists on CD-R and cassette. Each medium contains two different randomly-generated versions.

In spite of its generative nature the basis of the record lies in acoustic songs peppered with a bit of ambient music. All tracks were recorded in a large room on a single stereo microphone giving it its naturally spatial sound. It’s a unique experience from listener’s point of view: with repeated listens they will find patterns and recurring motifs – each playthrough is singular yet more and more familiar. It shows that the absence of final shape, both of the whole album and individual compositions, can be liberating for both the author and the listener.