Oasy

The cassette is wrapped in a custom-designed 70 x 50 cm silk paper with artwork by Zin Taylor, released in an edition of 150 copies.

Circuits reveal a curious syntax on “OASY”, where Stefan Schneider unravels the irregular regularities of machines. Under his intuition, diverging rhythms coalesce under a cohesive cadence.

Synthesized thought-loops emerge from a random access memory, appearing in various forms from jittery blips and rumbling haptics to whirring drones. His approach draws from cities such as Lisbon, Accra, and Osaka, where sonic streams come all at once from unpredictable directions. The polyrhythms coursing throughout this record likewise evoke a flurry of activity, animated and wholly alive.

Rarely following a premeditated course of action, Stefan senses out frequencies by exploring the possibilities and limits of hardware synthesizers. An intentional improvisation underpins his method as a self-taught musician and sound engineer: “Nowadays, it is quite difficult or even obsolete to separate composing, playing, recording, and mixing from one another, as they are all part of a consistent but non-linear process.”

The eight tracks on this record are each units unto themselves, flickering in a self-generated Morse code. Some are laid under an austere fluorescent light, while others are warmly wrapped in a dense tangle of cables and wires serving as conduits. As if we are observing a schematic being deftly drafted, “OASY” reverse engineers speculative machines through sound.

By design, the industrial and incidental become exquisitely intertwined. Stefan magnifies the fractals hidden in mechanical sequences, where disparate patterns find resonant frequencies. Before order cements itself, “OASY” offers a fleeting mind space—a moment to find speculation in perception.