Arpanet
Inertial Frame

The acronym Arpanet brings back to the obscured memory the primordial form of a digital network, but in this specific case, it is analogous to one of the multiple acoustic representations behind which the elusive Mr. Gerald Donald hides: a utopian, elusive, finely chiseling futuristic sound-textures, first alongside the equally audio-pioneer (for some years now, unfortunately, "no longer in the game") James Stinson, coining multiple and hardly liberatable electro-designs pre and post-Detroit era (Drexciya above all) starting from the dawn of the nineties.

After actively contributing to the re-animation of the indocile techno-electro & multiple derivatives scene, the inscrutable Geraldo creates in the last decade, in ascetic solitude and in complete isolationist isolation, a series of projects and related [some of which are simply indispensable] works under multiple and unusual pseudonyms: among the less unknown, we count for specific intrinsic qualities Japanese Telecom, Dopplereffekt, Der Zyklus, and indeed, Arpanet: entities completely refractory to any attempt and temptation of (impure) external sound contamination unless entirely "out" of the neo-electronic pseudo-contemporary panorama. In this integral direction, the work promoted at the conclusion of the just-past year should be interpreted: the Parisian Record Makers exposes to the solar light the third, so far hidden, satellite of the Arpanet galaxy, where Our protagonist perseveres in the "habitual," digital and elusive sound-innovative logic, formulating concretely and for the umpteenth time, a construct as sullenly futuristic and impermeable as it is solidly intriguing even for those who do not usually engage in such daring sound philosophies and unusual expressive types.

Totally anomalous in the chilling synthetic scansions and in the (often) unheard sound architectures undertaken: among the copious positronic sparks scattered in the very sharp "Zero Volume" and the antigravitational space-mirroring signed "Twin Paradox", one finds oneself in front of literally misleading splinters; fragments composed of unprecedented sound-logics yet solidly credible in their total self-referentiality ("Schwarzchild radium"). Paradoxical/grotesque voice manipulations ("Grossvater Paradoxon"), summarily attributable to a "Counter Geiger" of the fourth (so advanced is it) millennium, the piercing uncompromising ultra-robotic stance dramatized in the hissing and clangorous "Axis Of Rotation" and in the vivid industriality retained in "No Boundry Condition" as well as in the grumpy electrostatic discharges poured in "Chandrasekhars Limitfrattale", lead far beyond any artificial rosy-shadowy forecast.

Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider, subliminal adoptive fathers and principal inspirers of courageous works like the one in question, I wonder, will they persist undaunted in the evanescent muzaq-fetish electropop-revanchist of three years ago? In the meantime, let's strengthen the electro-hopes with this one: the future will tell.