http://secretthirteen.org/secret-thirteen-mix-108-kangding-ray/The author of the mix is David Letellier (b. 1978), better known as Kangding Ray, a French electronic music producer and kinetic installation artist based in Berlin, Germany. Before moving into electronic music horizons, Letellier evolved as a guitarist and drummer in various projects influenced by genres ranging from rock, pop to jazz. In his current recordings Kangding Ray investigates assimilation between architectural beats and extensive, atmospheric soundscapes. He tactfully puts together guitar loops, abyssal bass lines, white noise, acoustic instruments and digital production modules to create fully textured works. His music has been released on authoritative labels including Raster-Noton and Stroboscopic Artefacts. Kangding Ray has also been developing his name and reputation as a skilled live-act by constantly touring all across the globe. The visitors of such famous festivals and venues as Unsound, Labyrinth, Decibel, Berghain, Centre Pompidou and others had a good opportunity to feel and hear the power and magic of his picturesque live performances. His recently released brilliant album “Solens Arc” on Raster-Noton definitely shows his musical sophistication, experience and ideology.“Secret Thirteen Mix 108” is a dynamic and deliberately measured mix that is a clear reflection of Kangding Ray’s current musical background and some of his early influences. In this conceptual selection the author of a mix is exploring a delicate connection between cultures of techno and popular music. However, in his mix Letellier professionally and smoothly incorporates a much wider palette of music styles ranging from industrial or glitch to experimental and world music. This makes his compilation richer, more flexible and compelling. The mix consists of 28 diverse records that were originally released between 1981 and 2013. However, fixed sound quality, exemplary beatmatching and extracted new formations break barriers of concrete time period that could be assigned to some of the records if they were played alone. Entire mix sounds relevant to nowadays subtle dance music scene, although Kangding Ray says that “the mix is not based on a super-actual stuff these days”. Emptyset, Ø, Rrose, AnD, Front 242, Jon Hassell, Autechre, D.A.F. are only a few names in this eclectic selection where works were creatively edited, adapted to every different sound expression and substantially mixed together. An accurate, complex, yet controversial or provocative layering of seemingly conflicting tracks gradually creates a complete, enduring and sometimes even slightly confusing wholeness that is quite similar to a multiplex Richard Sweeney’s abstract drawing “Untitled”. The basis of the mix stands on the intense, profound and progressively shifting rhythms, consistently developed repetitive digital percussions, immersing sound modulations and minimalistic melodies. Occasionally appearing hip-hop vocals, melancholic and polemic rhymes, sonorous sample cuts, various sound distortions and noises effectively turn this mix into a modern club music masterpiece. Wide, deep and lush sounding quality should leave no indifferent.