Black To Comm

German experimental musician Marc Richter issues the bulk of his work under the Black to Comm alias, probing the murkiest zones of drone and abstract sound construction. His eerie, dreamlike pieces merge acoustic playing, found samples, and electronic processing drawn from sources that stretch from scratched vintage discs to sustained organ tones, occasionally folding in breakbeats or isolated techno pulses. The results remain unpredictable and frequently unsettling yet consistently enchanting and immersive. Early appearances came via multiple titles on his own Dekorder imprint, among them 2006’s Rückwärts Backwards, before Black to Comm placed acclaimed full-lengths on experimental imprints such as Type and De Stijl and later reached Thrill Jockey with the 2020 release Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens. At Zeenath Parallel Heavens, framed as a response to the expansion and complexities of artificial intelligence, arrived in 2023.

Black to Comm’s debut was the self-titled 2003 EP on Dekorder. Three years afterward came the sample-laden drone album Rückwärts Backwards. The double-LP Wir Können Leider Nicht Etwas Mehr Zu Tun... together with a split LP alongside Aosuke both surfaced in 2007, steering the project toward denser, more abrasive terrain. The increasingly hallucinatory and at times rhythm-oriented Fractal Hair Geometry arrived the following year. Two non-Dekorder albums in 2009 elevated Black to Comm’s visibility: Alphabet 1968 on Type and the single-track CD Charlemagne & Pippin on Digitalis. That year also saw the 7" single Incidents on Trensmat and the double-7" Wave UFO on Dekorder. A limited LP titled Coldplay, Elvis & John Cage appeared on the art label En/Of in 2011. Earth, a De Stijl full-length carrying unsettling vocals by David Aird reminiscent of Scott Walker, followed in 2012.

Black to Comm revisited Type for a self-titled double-LP in 2014, while the one-sided single Providence emerged on Dekorder the same year. After pausing to issue comparatively lighter experimental electronic material as Jemh Circs, Richter revived the Black to Comm name with 2019’s Seven Horses for Seven Kings, his debut Thrill Jockey outing; Before After, the follow-up, surfaced in July. In 2020 he launched the Mouchoir Étanche side project via the one-sided 12" Kommuniqué Zéro and the LP Une Fille Pétrifiée. Black to Comm resurfaced in October with the cassette A C of M and the Thrill Jockey album Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens.

Alkisah Versi Hitam, a reworked edition of the Indonesian post-industrial outfit Senyawa’s Alkisah, appeared in 2021; Dekorder issued one of numerous distinctive pressings of the record. The limited album Drag Acid #10 followed in 2022. Black to Comm returned to Thrill Jockey in 2023 with At Zeenath Parallel Heavens, shaped by Richter’s observation of parallels between AI tools and his own compositional processes.