Olaf Bender (Byetone) is co-founder of the Raster-Noton label, and this is his third release for the label. Death of a Typographer is meant to be a snapshot, recorded in a wintery week in Berlin. Only the pre-released single Plastic Star was created in sunny Athens, which is included in its original session version here. The music on Death of a Typographer carries the special sound of Raster-Noton, but with an important difference: the tracks act as focal points, as elegies to a latently-flowing stream, a stream that still moves on, even when the music has long faded away. The tracks do not necessarily move forward, they rather open up a dark abyss which seems deepest in "Capture This" parts I and II. Byetone manages to achieve a remarkable metamorphosis of the organic, with tracks that don't reveal any of the elements of conventional composition techniques, but which somehow seem to emerge from a static sound body. Weirdly danceable yet remote, and a big step for Raster. Death of a Typographer poses riddles. In fact, for the vigilant spectator, the ambiguous artwork will reveal the Death of a Typographer.
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