Thomas Köner, DAIKAN, Germany, Mille Plateaux, MP49 CD digipak / double vinyl LP (2022)
Twenty years after its original release on Mille Plateaux as a CD digipak, the label has seen fit to reissue Thomas Köner’s “DAIKAN” on both CD and vinyl LP formats, though for the vinyl release the 54-minute dronescape work has been divided into three parts. Those of you TSP readers who already have the original work (and have worn it down or got scratches all over it) can also rejoice that the reissue includes a bonus track “Banlieue du Vide” which comes from a video installation Köner made for the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 2013.
I can see why Mille Plateaux reissued the work and can only wonder why the label didn’t do it earlier: despite the lengthy playing time, “DAIKAN” (depending on the context in which it is used, the word can mean “the coldest” or “the coldest part of the year” in Japanese) is a beautiful and serene track, massive and spacious, and very blissful and hypnotic in its soothing, droning dark minimalism. Even at its darkest and most menacing, “DAIKAN” never actually sounds evil or hostile: it is always in a state of “being”, never in a state of actively “doing”, though when you listen to it carefully, there is indeed considerable “doing” going on as the track may step up in tone or change key, and the entire mood of the sound can change. Past the thirteenth or fourteenth minute of “DAIKAN” – on the vinyl recording, this is on the first part – a fair bit starts to happen: it seems one drone replaces another, and the mood lightens a little as well. This “changing of the guard” in which one drone is superseded by another and so on, is a regular and steady feature of the entire piece. At the same time there may be a second drone that rhythmically comes and goes, and which adds sonic and atmospheric depth to the original drone. For a long track that at first appears to be an endless stream of drone, severely minimal in its style, once you become immersed in it you will discover a rich treasure trove of sonic textures, variations in light and darkness, and changes in mood.
The bonus track “Banlieue du Vide” (“Suburb of the Void”) is as far from “DAIKAN” in its source material as can be, yet it is equally cold and massive, and in its own way trance-inducing. The source material includes field recordings of train noises and other urban traffic, and snippets of conversation and children at play. Actual melodies seem to rise out of the intersections between the drone noises and the field recordings. As the track progresses, it becomes busier and more active, yet for all that the track seems a bit remote, as though the sentient presence that was behind “DAIKAN” has gone, and nothing has come to replace it.
Just as journeying to the far polar regions is not for everyone, so voyaging with Köner into the far recesses of “DAIKAN” over nearly an hour can be a daunting experience – but at the end of it, you’ll be glad you made this adventure.