Producer
Robert Henke is better known as one-half of
Monolake, the popular minimal techno group associated with Berlin's Chain Reaction label. While that project has brought
Henke more notoriety, his most evolved and studied work to date has appeared eponymously, on his own Imbalance Computer Music label. Forsaking, for the most part, the rhythmic pulse of
Monolake, solo releases such as
Piercing Music and Floating.Point have focused on the expressive capacity of wholly digitally produced sonic environments, combining crashing waves of FM synthesis with slight clicks, buzzes, drones, and thin, computer-bred noise. Closely related to the comparitively more esoteric works of academic composers such as
Francois Bayle,
John Chowning, and
Bernard Parmegiani (who number among his primary influences),
Henke's solo work combines aesthetic aspects of electro-acoustic and acousmatic musics with the less aggravated atmospheres of ambient and experimental post-techno, including him among such company as
Terre Thaemlitz,
Kim Cascone, and
Oval. ~ Sean Cooper