Rediscovering the Work of Roland Kayn, Overlooked Electronic Music Pioneer 

Source: Bandcamp Daily.

The Dutch composer Roland Kayn occupies a somewhat liminal space in experimental electronic composition. Having worked in a variety of legendary early electronic studios, most notably Utrecht’s Institute of Sonology, Kayn was operating in the same world as well-known composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono. Yet, his work sounds nothing like theirs, and his rejection from that same world of composers cast him into relative obscurity. His music was rarely performed, and much of it went unreleased during his lifetime. But for the last two years, an ongoing project has uncovered large swathes of Kayn’s unreleased material, and thanks to the efforts of his daughter Ilse, there may now be more available recordings of Kayn’s music than many other composers of his era. Yet still, Kayn remains shrouded in mystery.