finetune artist: Rhythm And Sound

Rhythm & Sound is an alter ego for Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald aka Maurizio, the German musicians/producers behind the enigmatic Basic Channel, Chain Reaction, M, Main Street and Burial Mix labels. Notoriously, the duo (generally) refuse to be photographed in order to preserve their anonymity and eschew taped interviews since they claim their music is not easily defined in soundbites and tidy quotes. Equidistant between techno and reggae, the Rhythm & Sound recordings are often constructed around low-end bass loops and insistent hi-hat patterns. Although the duo have worked with a series of illustrious vocalists, including Cornell Campbell, Paul St. Hilaire (aka Tikiman), Shalom, the Chosen Brothers (aka Lloyd Barnes), Love Joy, Jennifer Lara and Jah Batta, and Rasta motifs litter their collaborators lyrical content, Rhythm & Sound productions are not mere replications of reggae. Rather, the music that they construct is an interpretation of Jamaican music that is distinctively infected with the European and American techno that Ernestus and Von Oswald clearly adore. As on their Basic Channel releases, Rhythm & Sound draw on dub's utilization of echo, reverberation and repetition, and emphasize post-dub processed crackles and hiss. This attachment to audio detritus is partially derived from an affinity to vinyl but (more than this) just occurs as a by-product of the duo's use of ancient equipment. As the music is mixed and processed this sonic debris acquires new qualities and to erase it would have the effect of unravelling the duo's creations.

Listen to Rhythm And Sound at Finetune.