Robert Henke

by Sean CooperProducer Robert Henke is better known as one-half of Monolake, the popular minimal techno group associated with Berlins Chain Reaction label. While that project has brought Henke more notoriety, his most evolved and studied work to date has appeared eponymously, on his own Imbalance Computer Music label. Forsaking, for the most part, the rhythmic pulse of Monolake, solo releases such as Piercing Music and Floating.Point have focused on the expressive capacity of wholly digitally produced sonic environments, combining crashing waves of FM synthesis with slight clicks, buzzes, drones, and thin, computer-bred noise. Closely related to the comparitively more esoteric works of academic composers such as Francois Bayle, John Chowning, and Bernard Parmegiani (who number among his primary influences), Henkes solo work combines aesthetic aspects of electro-acoustic and acousmatic musics with the less aggravated atmospheres of ambient and experimental post-techno, including him among such company as Terre Thaemlitz, Kim Cascone, and Oval.