Noise of Cologne 3 (NOC-3) is the third in a series that started in 2010 from the label Mark e.V. It’s been compiled by local Koln genius Frank Dommert of A-Musik and Dirk Specht from Therapeutische Hörgruppe.
73 very short segments – each one 60 seconds or less in length – emanate from a remarkable array of talents, only a few names familiar to me, and they might not all be artists, even. I think the intention is not to survey the Koln techno or glitch “scenes” in yet another worthy but boring comp, rather there’s a plan to give us a glimpse of the pulsing heart of the city, through all forms of music (electronics and acoustic improvisation), sounds, voices, bizarre events, and maybe even field recordings – it’s very hard to say. The cumulative effect is what’s important, and mirrors the way I assume the modern tourist absorbs culture these days – always in a hurry, on the way to something else, pausing just long enough to snap something on their smartphone and post it on a TikTok.
It might make more sense to situate this hard-core marshmallow in the context of the wider reiheM project – which is mainly a concert series “for contemporary music, electronics, and new media”, and Mark e.V. is the organiser of it all. There’s already a 750 page book of texts and images surveying their achievements since 2009. Plenty of detail packed in the booklet too – the credit roster and instrument lists take longer to read than it does to listen to each track, plus there are oddly drab photos which can’t decide whether to foreground the urban wonders of motorways and blocks of flats, or the greenery that surrounds them. I assume we’re being deliberately positioned far away from the tourist spots of Cologne, in favour of these détournements. The booklet text also contains musings and philosophies on the “meaning” of noise in modern environments. (02/04/2024)