Runden is a collaboration by Martin Brugger (bass) and Simon Popp (drums), both of contemporary Jazz quintet Fazer, and neo-classical pianist Carlos Cipa. Their debut LP is a conceptual record reflecting on Minimal Music, Afrobeat, and Dub Techno of the late 90s/early 2000s.
While Cipa's solo works build on clear harmonies, for the recordings of Runden he prepared the piano to make it sound like a faintly tonal percussion instrument and his mechanical patterns contrast the syncopated drum grooves of Popp and the deep and sparse basslines of Brugger.
The musicians explore, over the course of seven tracks, the concept of circular music. Each piece is based on a four-bar-motif played in a loop and varied subtly but steadily over time, creating a sense of eternal recurrence and timelessness.
This makes Runden a meditative but demanding record, that only grows with every listen.
Search:techno pop
Will Saul, DJ/Producer and Aus Music label head primes the 150th release for the longstanding British label with a stellar cover of the 1990 seminal techno record of the same name by Yolanda on seminal label Underground Resistance.
With the original record being one of Saul's all time favorites and UR being a constant source of inspiration it was beyond a dream to get his version fully approved by Mike Banks to celebrate the landmark anniversary. Saul then worked with Berlin based vocalist Gilli.jpg - who has recently worked with Cinthie - to re-vocal Yolanda’s song.
As a former intern at Skint in the late 90s heyday, this up-streamed anthem feels extra special finally landing digitally on the label where Saul began learning his trade over twenty years ago. The vinyl will be released on Aus. There is also a version expected later this year which see's Saul collaborate with Paul Woolford and additional remixes by Move D and Space Dimension Controller that will land shortly. The release features artwork by Trevor Jackson, the man behind the Output label, who’s releases launched careers for huge artists like Four Tet and LCD Soundsystem to name just a few. His iconic, pop art influenced work has been seen on releases including the undisputable 80’s dance classic, Raze ‘Break 4 Love’ and S'Express 'Theme from S'Express'.
Jori Hulkkonen was born and raised in a small town named Kemi with a population of 20,000, in the north of Finland. Since the early 80s, his musical influences have been on the side of electronic music, quite eclectic style for a 10-year-old boy who grew up in this period still marked by the seal of the Cold War. At the end of the 1980s, Jori's passion for electronic music was reinforced when he discovered its most abstract and minimal part: techno from Detroit and House Music from Chicago. Excellent DJ, he played in the best clubs and festivals in Europe. Jori Hulkkonen is an artist well known and extremely respected in the Nordic countries for his pioneering status, with his love of music and his involvement in making it known.
AD and Worldline deliver Toy Opulent’s third release - and it’s first vinyl imprint.
Soft Serve Angel projects a clear and present sense of techno drive and a delightful symphony of melodic synths. The beginning is minimal and evolves into a full cacophony of beauty and craftsmanship, layered with the vocals of the mysterious Crisis Luxury. Here, meanderings of childhood tones echo from an East L.A. ice cream truck. From the hailed vehicle emerges the soft serve angel - with a vanilla cake cone prepared, just for you, on a sunny California day. This track is incredibly versatile.
A Soft Serve Angel remix is presented to us by a master of his art, Persuader. He shows us, once again, that minimal drive that we can all count on to provoke thought and movement with modern engineering skills and a familiar old school flair.
Bubble Gum Eyes is minimal perfectly pitched protocol of TR-909 love with a morphing bassline and epic-scale science-synth work. The track addresses both a question and an answer.
Rocket POP! I mean, who don’t love a good rocket pop? This dubby dub dub mix contains fragments of the entire release that sums it up, and finishes it off perfectly - the cherry on top of the soft-serve angel.
Tropical psych outfit, Lola’s Dice, return with an exhilarating double AA side 45 on “Cacri 'e Playa” b/w “Señor Cartujo” . Venezuelan strains of Caribbean rhythms blend with South American grit and humour; aided and abetted by studio maverick and renown bandleader Alex Figueira ( Fumaça Preta, Conjunto Papa Upa).
Lola’s Dice, an ensemble born and battle-tested by years of punk and hard rock before fusing into its current form, a consolidated tropical-psych quartet. The band’s evolution has resulted in music that is a pure body-moving delight — a fuzzy blend of guitars, synths and musical sabor that is very much rooted in the percussive sounds of Latin America, where all band members hail from, yet still comfortable in its punk-ethos.
One such fusion of sounds took place at the Barracão Sound studio in Amsterdam where they first asked rhythm sensei Alex Figueira (who currently joins them on stage whenever his agenda allows him) to help them twist their sound and bring it into the incendiary tropical realm his production work was known for.
Together they vandalized all sorts of rhythmic traditions. The resulting 4-track EP, “Viaje al Centro de Ritmo”, was a perfect match of genre-defying psychedelic madness and Caribbean cool and was duly signed and released by on-the-pulse NY based Names You Can Trust label.
After two years and a plethora of stages Lola’s Dice returned to Figueira's Barracão Sound for another dose of experimentation, diving deeper into their Caribbean roots and twisting them even further. The first fruits are now offered for release jointly by Names You Can Trust (later this year) and Figueira’s own Music With Soul.
The African Caribbean vibrations of “Cacri 'e Playa” tell a story of a stray dog whose sole habitat consists of the beach. A common phenomenon all across the Caribbean coastline shared by Venezuela and Colombia. Wonky synths and surf guitars interplay over a stomping extra syncopated drum beat. All things collide towards the end into a 1970’s style Salsa street party, the relentless cowbell driving everyone forward.
On the flip, “Señor Cartujo” contains a humorous tale about the most popular brand of anise liquor in Venezuela ("Cartujo") and a shameless ode to the glory days of "Techno Merengue", when Latino rappers in the US started making Dominican Merengue with hip hop influenced vocals and house production techniques and equipment. Lola’s Dice, however, take a more psychedelic approach to this merengue, oozing with funky guitars and percussion.
Of course, Dubblestandart have been keeping a version of the dub flame alive for the last two decades. Formed in 1988 as a reaction to the stagnant Austrian pop scene, the group was heavily inspired by the Black Ark, On-U Sound and Jah Shaka, infusing such dub influences within their heady blend of hardcore reggae and new wave, which soon brought them into the European public's consciousness and as a kind of "European" version of the famous DUB SYNDICATE. Soon, they were so in demand as to be backing Lee Scratch Perry, dub poet Lilian Allen, Dillinger, Ari Up, Ken Boothe, Marcia Griffiths, Chezere and orthers. Well, Austria's / Viennas's finest moments in dub working and collaborating with the new technological dimension of modern dub : Paolo Baldini from Italy. Baldini's stunning excursion into deep dub, chilling dub and dubble-tough dub will reach the DubFiles into perfection @ DUB ME CRAZY. Paolo Baldini's handling of this mission has been exemplary: his production and remixing skills are pleasingly individualistic, retaining plenty of originality and professionalism without seeming stoic, dull or contrived. His collaborations with Mellow Mood, Hempress Sativa, Dub Fx and others are showing faith of what DUB is living for. Since 2007 Paolo Baldini works under the top level name "Alambic Conspiracy" and became world class dub extraordinary performer, bass player, mixologist, producer and provocateur!
Suction Records welcomes Roger Semsroth back to the label - having previously released 2 full-length albums with us under his retired electro-pop alias, Skanfrom. “Grøndal” (suction051) is the debut vinyl release under a new alias, Nordvest.
These days, Semsroth is best-known for his stark and minimalist techno project, Sleeparchive. The material on Grøndal - icy, melodic, and mostly beatless - is comprised of tracks that were originally released digitally as Sleeparchive, via Bandcamp. The releases were met with general disinterest from Sleeparchive fans, prompting Semsroth to re-brand them as Nordvest, before removing them from Bandcamp altogether.
We’ve chosen 11 highlights from 3 of those digital albums, “Rooftops & Chaotic Streets”, “Scribbles”, and “Sleepless”, for a cohesive 11-track LP of austere, synthetic ambience. Think Tangerine Dream as reinterpreted by Incunabula-era Autechre, and you might be getting somewhere close. While “Rooftops & Chaotic Streets Seven” recalls Sleeparchive, and “Sleepless Six” could very well be a lost Skanfrom track, the rest of the LP clearly warrants a new alias - Nordvest is a new side of Semsroth that we haven’t heard before.
Siegmar Fricke has made a name for himself in the tape culture since 1981 - with a mixture of Musique-Concrète and Post-Industrial. As a former label owner of "Bestattungsinstitut" he released numerous works that went beyond EBM, Electro, Techno and Ambient. In the heyday of the netlabels he focused mainly on his own productions, which he then made available as free downloads. Since 2002 Siegmar has been active with clinical sound experiments under the pseudonym "Pharmakustik". In 2005 he started his collaboration with Maurizio Bianchi from Milan, who has dedicated himself to "industrial decomposition" since 1979. For his Time Compression EP on Infoline, Siegmar Fricke has unearthed compositions from the period 1992-1994 and curated them anew. A phase in which he listened to the radio day and night and connected his sampler to the stereo to record material around the clock. He listened to many radio shows from England or Holland, which often broadcasted techno, trance and acid. At that time those sounds were new territory for him. He recorded inspiring sequences at first go, edited them and then let them flow into his own productions. The result was "future-pop collages mixed with sequencer-controlled trance and sampled voices", to put it in the words of Siegmar Fricke.
Emotional Rescue is proud to reissue a collection of global music band, International Noise Orchestra, presented across 4 special EPs.
Founded when Berlin based musician Ulrich Hornberg mixed a newly acquired Commodore 64 with visiting Algerian drummer Jol Allouche's tablas "old culture meets new technology" the fundamentals were laid. Simple, maybe naive, with a curiosity to combine and inspire. 'The means of production must belong to the workers', investing in a studio, label and publishing house allowed INO the adventure to record what they wanted, a project via 'gastes', taking their influences and culture, in a melting pot of eastern melodies, african percussion, jazz, soul, dub, and pop an orchestra not of size, but of different playing styles and idiosyncratic interpretations.
Old meets new starts with their cover of Gimme Your Lovin, taking Winwood's classic and molding a white funk, pop, rock, dance hybrid, with enigmatic actor / singer Richard Strange's distinctive poetic delivery. Following Dr. Sarmaz, released under INO's alias - Internationales Gerauschorchester - the global dance vibrations begin.
Feel It Flow is pure 80's dance pop, with Glynnis Thomas (Savage Progress) distinctive tones leading to the jazz fusion of Atai, before closing with the guitar / synth / tabla rhythms of Culture Rescue Service.
Theresa Stroetges has and always will be a traveler. Under the name Golden Diskó Ship or as a member of bands like Soft Grid or the improv collective Epiphany Now!, the Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist has continuously been moving through the fringes of experimental music, but also extensively explored the possibilities of tried and tested formulas - whether folk, rock, techno or pop. With her fourth solo album, her first for the Karaoke Kalk label, the Golden Diskó Ship is yet again venturing into unknown territory. »Araceae« is inspired by environmental changes and the eerie feelings that arise when faced with natural beauty - when everything seems perfect on the surface but something feels off underneath it all. As a whole, it is notably more focused on electronic grooves that provide the foundation for Stroetges’s poetic long-form storytelling.
Partially conceived during a residency in India, »Araceae« is the first Golden Diskó Ship record to feature two guest musicians. For »Wildly Floral, Slightly Damp,« Stroetges collaborated with percussionist Dripta Samajder who with his Sri Khol contributes complex rhythms to a driving beat that wouldn’t be out of place in the record bags of daring DJs. Sophia Trollmann takes over saxophone duties for »Ortolan,« a riveting coming-together of intricate, IDM-flavoured techno and jazz-inspired improvisation. Both are integral standout tracks on an album that clearly follows a holistic plan. Already the opener »Clouds of Neon Limelight« dips into anthemic synth pop territory, but unfolds into a great saga full of ominous undertones and Stroetges’s trademark: layered vocals that at once evoke feelings of uncanniness and intimacy.
It’s a juxtaposition that runs throughout »Araceae,« thus enforcing the album’s overall themes of sensual experience and alienation. »Game of Biryani« for example lends some of its musical structures from pop music, calling into question traditional songwriting conventions which here reappear as irritating echo effects rather than recycled old tropes. With the lush »Limping over the Prairies« and the adventurous »Glow-in-the-Dark Gloves,« Stroetges further challenges her audience by applying noise and a heavy dose of autotune respectively to disorientating effect.
The couple makes for an impressive finale of an album that scrutinises our ideas of what is natural - whether in music or the world around us. »Araceae« was inspired by the travels of its creator, but also sets out to ascertain what lies beyond everything that eyes or ears can perceive.
Sludge machine music slapped through the infinite mixing desk by SRS - the combined mind of Sunun and Robin Stewart. At any pointData Fossil'sgiddy industrial riddims could collapse under their own weight. There are Sunun inputs and there are Robin Stewart inputs - but everything is offered up to their machines gladly for an output of nu-human-beat. Voices drift through the mix in hushed Italian and Robin's gruff roboticized drawl, floating dub chords left hanging for cavernous subs and rattled bones, distant harps and arps, a sudden blast of trills. 'Spit Fossil' itself is a clipped noise-pop wonder - the aural equivalent of a lights-on Avon dancefloor with only the weirdest left standing.
Recorded on the rooftop of a housing project called Camelot in 2018, the two Bristol locals debuted the live / unplanned collaboration in an inflatable arena called 'Toldo' in the Brunswick Club ballroom (RIP). Then again at Young Echo at the Cube Microplex - a night where it's said anything is possible (Sunun even dubbed Guest's live human heartbeat there recently….). IfData Fossilis hard to describe - it's just the sound of the musical freedom of a city that will never run dry.
It's a high Bokeh honour to welcome Sunun back after we helped release her 2018 debut,Ooid EP. Her live show continues to be the most inspiring re-use of dub principles we've witnessed (again and again). Time only grows her music outwards causing the Young Echo collective to demand she join them. SinceOoid,she's released a 12" of MPC wonders with close Bristol pals Cold Light.
Recently bearing his dub-side to all that didn't know on Trilogy Tapes'Time Travel EP, Robin Stewart is half of world conquering techno-cult Giant Swan. Also a veteran of Rwdfwd stable of imprints (Fuckpunk and NoCorner) - his music DNA is equal parts shoegaze and steppas. In 2020 he was officially recognised for having the largest collection of Bokeh t shirts.
Delsin turns its attention to the archives of one of the great early pioneers of Dutch techno - Eevo Lute Muzique. The label was founded in 1991 by Wladimir Manshanden and Stefan Robbers (who was already recording seminal early techno records as Terrace for Djax-Up-Beats). Channeling the inspiration of the Detroit originators and mixing it up with their own synth pop and new wave influences, Manshanden and Robbers (adopting the Florence alias) forged a bold aesthetic with Eevo Lute, both musically and visually. This was an early iteration of techno as listening music, with an emphasis on expression and narrative over dancefloor functionality, helped in no small part by Manshanden's striking poetry. This double set of remastered, reissued tracks gathers together the earliest Florence and Wladimir M. material, largely recorded between 1991 and 1994, across five discs - the definitive document of a treasured piece of Dutch techno history. Comes with inlay and liner notes by Oliver Warwick.
Long-time collaborators, longer-time best friends, lifelong analog appreciators; the German duo Iron Curtis & Johannes Albert join cosmic forces once again for another LP mission 'Moon II', a heartfelt voyage through the sounds, movements, styles and machines that created this music in the first place.
Think late 80s New York, early 90s Sheffield and the perennial sounds of Italo and Detroit, 'Moon II' is a lunar safari that celebrates the deepest foundations of house, techno and electronic soul while resolutely refusing to get nostalgic. Written and recorded during an intense two-and-a-half month session in Berlin last autumn, there's a consistency and tangible narrative running throughout as the pair play inspiration ping-pong over the course of 10 tracks.
A little Drexcyian glacial nod here, a hazy Boards Of Canada wink there. The Other People Place, Kerrier District, Environ Records, the Hacienda, Sub Club, Heaven 17, classic electro… All these ingredients are constantly bubbling in the mix for both Curtis and Albert (as individuals and even more so as a duo) and the end result is an album that works as a proper album should. Peaks, troughs, dreamy departures and all beautiful things in between.
Taking off where their debut collaborative album 'Industrie & Zärtlichkeit' (soon to be retitled 'Moon I') left us three years ago, the opening modem sounds on the intro track 'Canggu Laundry Club' dial us into a special sense of time and space.
It's a space where anything feels possible; Visual-inspired acid lines on 'Tiger Trek', lino-spinning body pops and windmills to the street sounds electro style of 'The Ultimate Seduction', the club-focused, Traxx-style Cutie Schamuthie collaboration 'Hurting', the melancholy plucks and struts of 'Feingold', the provocative, slinky, smoky finale piece 'Nektar'… The list of intergenerational and cross-genre landmarks on this adventurous body of work go and on, each track complementing the last as they fuse to create a bigger collective picture. A picture that's charmed together through the consistent use of key classic studio machines.
They call it Introverted Electronic Body Music, we call it warm, free-spirited and ultimately timeless. Perfect for your sets, your afterhours or your headphones alike; it's time to let Iron Curtis and Johannes Albert take you to the Moon and back… Once again.
2x12"
since long, chilean/swiss producer and dj luciano is a prominent figure in the global electron-ic club music circle. already from a young age on he was exposed to music profoundly, as his father worked as a jukebox repairman and possessed a large record collection.
when he was twelve, his mother gifted him a guitar, that turned luciano shortly into a mem-ber of a school punk rock band. soon after, his passion for electronic music rose. infected by detroit techno and engaged by close friends like producer dandy jack, he started to play rec-ords in local santiago de chile dance clubs and became involved in the minimal techno scene around friends like ricardo villalobos.
when luciano moved back from chile to switzerland in 2000, he established a residency at weetamix club in geneva, started releasing his own productions on labels like mental groove and joining the cocoon team in ibiza to play at the famous monday night at club amnesia.
since then he is a regular on the balearic island, holding residencies at clubs like dc10 or, with his “vagabundos” serial, at ushuaïa. besides playing around the globe with the likes of carl craig, richie hawtin or loco dice, he is releasing groundbreaking minimal techno and house on his label cadenza since 2003, featuring music by artists like nsi, ricardo villalobos, pikaya, reboot, maayan nidam and himself.
his very own music, so far issued on three albums and countless eps, was always ambiguous. there is his club leaning creativity that can dance slightly into pop spheres while never for-getting the power of precise sliced rhythms and subtle bass sensations.
and then there is a calmer luciano, that displays his love for “music to listen at home, done for a spiritual travel, an inner universe and a moment paralyzed in ether”, as he describes it.
on his first ever mule musiq album release “luci neu house”, luciano now delivers meditative journey music full of repetitive patterns that slowly playing tricks on the listeners subcon-sciousness. “i love music that has a dimension more than music designed for the radio or tv format. mu-sic, that is designed to bring you a higher level of energy and creativity.
so, there is no pretentious things in it ... more just sounds and dimension that will lead your head into the fall of jupiter” he reveals about the one-hour long composition “luci neu house”, whose esoteric deepness reminds on the intensely meditative class of his older pro-ductions like “behind my soul” from 2010.
an epic tune cut on vinyl into four 15-minute long pieces, who shift slowly, almost unper-ceived, whilst absorbing the mind of close observers into a micro-sliced world of moving gen-tleness.
maelstrom magnetism against the gravity of time, that also can be found on the additional mule musiq 257 12inch, which functions as a soothing footnote to luciano’s album.
the almost 13 minutes long trip “flags of himalaya” opens with restful percussions that unhur-riedly start to dance with soft string, piano and horn melodies. on the opposite, the nine-minute long “the evasion of the spiritual soldier” grooves laidback with jazzy rhythms and italo leaning melodies.
a perfect tune for slow dance sensations and endless sunset seaside drives. at a total length of almost 90 minutes, all new mule musiq music composed by luciano distributes a mesmer-izing healing spirit, that grounds organically, even if it is totally rooted in the digital, soft-ware driven world of composing music. “check your buddha” tunes, that somehow sound novel during each new listening circle.
This Spring, Life And Death hits a half century of releases with a suitably standout album from leftfield innovator Autarkic. Terms and Conditions is a 10 track window into the Tel Aviv artist's rich, wildly-infused electronica.
Critical acclaim has followed Nadav Spiegel's every move since he debuted in 2015. He is impossibly hard to pin down, and brings real songwriting ability to club tracks that colour far outside the usual lines. Weird dub, psychedelic rock, all forms of wave, sideways pop, swampy techno, Middle Eastern subtleties and plenty experimental in-between sounds all inform his work. It defies convention in ways many cannot, and has come on labels like Disco Halal and Turbo, as well as Life And Death with the Heavy Dreamer EP in 2018.
2016 and 2017 brought his first two albums, Can You Pass The Knife? and I Love You, So Go Away, both on Disco Halal. Both were full of intensely emotional wave, synth and lo-fi sounds that fizzed with innovation. Says the artist of its follow up, "Terms and Conditions was created to celebrate the moment in time that is now. The moment we became peasants in a new digital-feudal world, happily giving away our privacy for the privilege of owning a smart phone."
Terms and Conditions is a unique melting pot, a reimagining of familiar sounds in unfamiliar ways, and is another standalone record from Autarkic.
GLOK is the electronic solo project from Andy Bell of shoegaze legends RIDE (formerly of Oasis/Beady Eye/Hurricane #1). His debut album under the moniker, Dissident, was originally released last year on a limited edition cassette by Bytes, an offshoot of Ransom Note Records. That sold out in 24 hours, and was followed by a vinyl pressing of 500 copies, on transparent green vinyl, sold via Bandcamp and two online shops. However, with that edition now sold out pretty much on word of mouth, due to popular demand, Dissident is being repressed and is this time being made available to a wider audience via a partnership between Bytes and Republic of Music/K7. The name GLOK is a misspelling of the German word for Bell. The German connection fits well as there is a strong Krautrock influence in the music, especially on the title track, 'Dissident', an epic clocking in just shy of the 20-minute mark, which blends synthwave, minimalism, trance, Detroit techno and John Carpenter soundtracks, with Andy even dropping in some killer John Squire-esque guitar licks.
Iconic cultural engineer and prolific music pioneer Daniel Miller, aka The Normal responsible for the timeless post-punk / wave classic “Warm Leatherette” and founder of Mute Records, collaborates with avant-techno artist Nicolas Bougaïeff to instigate another revolution with the inaugural release as Populist on Avi Caspi’s newly founded imprint The Temple and The Low Dive. Miller and Bougaïeff provide four purist modular techno explorations that are prepared to carry the listener into stellar dimensions. Introductory A1 track “Center” is a sophisticated, minimalist, stripped down piece with dynamic elements and a cinematic aesthetic that introduces the mood of the entire EP, defined by spectral micro movements and a touch of liquid textures.
Further navigation through the EP reveals more of the aesthetic intent while, at the same time, retaining a specific uniqueness found in each track. There is a definitive interstellar cosmic feeling throughout that brings the future back to the present and with B2 track “Temple” we discover that Miller and Bougaïeff are no strangers to a provocative and discerning dancefloor. “Temple” guarantees ecstatic dance floor moments that define experience. The digital bonus track “Dogma” continues to keep up the pace and here is what will be imminently essential for any serious purveyor of explorative techno to include in their repertoire.
This first installment on The Temple And The Low Dive gives us something that is as special as it is unique, paying homage to one of electronic music culture’s most admired artists and icons, and introducing the world to new artists and proponents of the global electronic scene, Caspi and Bougaïeff. TIP!
The Advent (Cisco Ferreira) delivers his first full-length Electro album in 17 years. Released this May on Sync 24's burgeoning Cultivated Electronics label, 'Life Cycles' finds the past meeting the future. Because, to get a truer feel for this new long-player, we should head back even further to a 1995 classic - The Advent's debut album, 'Elements Of Life'. In fact, fans will recognise a nod to the original artwork of that seminal release, as 'Life Cycles' takes us full circle, containing unreleased Electro gems from the '90s, available for the first time.
"I have been making electro music for nearly 3 decades now and excited to see that it is in demand with this new wave of talented producers out there. 'Life Cycles' is an album where I explore my older past and connect with the future, 2020 and this new electro generation," says Cisco. Ever since Cisco Ferreira discovered Acid House in the London clubs he frequented, his journey has been about making his mark on the electronic music scene.
Fresh from college he landed a job as assistant sound-engineer in several recording studios where he learned the art of translating feelings to frequencies, recording high profile artists from the world of Rock, Pop, Dance and Reggae. When acid label, Jack Trax moved in next-door, Cisco started recording for the likes of Adonis, Fingers Inc, Marshall Jefferson and Derrick May.
These rendezvous sparked the inspiration for his first EPs on R&S and Fragile. By 1994 Ferreira had signed a record deal for 12 EPs and 3 albums together with Colin McBean. This was the beginning of an era during which the duo set a worldwide standard for high quality underground Electro and Techno.
They hit the world with a refreshing sound, both as The Advent, and G Flame (Cisco) and Mr G (the alias Colin still uses today). Nowadays The Advent is a solo project for Cisco as he bombards crowds around the world with his trademark raw, energetic sound.
As much as The Advent is known for uncompromising Techno, so his Electro has been a huge influence for a lot of young Electro artists today (including his own son and sometime Electro collaborator, Zein) and when you listen to 'Life Cycles' you'll understand why. From the moment the beats kick in on track 1, 'Music Is Life' we're met with full on Advent power. The album explores classic old-school Electro vibes from the tough machine funk of tracks like 'This Is Not' and 'Vast' to the acid excursions on 'Panda', via some the ghetto boogie of 'L.U.' or 'Stasis V2'. And lest we forget what an amazing live performer The Advent is, there's even the deeply hypnotic 'Live@Motor 1998'.
OKTEMBER is the second EP release under Wolfgang Voigt’s mythical GAS project. Originally released in 1999 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS “BOX”, OKTEMBER is now released on his own label KOMPAKT on 180 gram LP vinyl in its original artwork. This reissue features the single “Tal ‘90“ – originally released as a part of the Pop Ambient 2002 collection.
This two-track long player starts with A-Side “Tal 90”. Sampled strings and guitars soundtrack a more uplifting side to what is typically accustomed to being the sound of GAS. The title track “Oktember” is a dense, hypnotic affair that conjures a unique vision of dub techno that few have been able to replicate.
A monumental soundtrack to uncertain times.
You learned that there are genres. Everything separated into categories with their own canon and rules: Major, minor, 4/4, 6/8, highs, lows, high head, butt end. Techno here, Disco there. You learned that art and music are two different things. Visually auditory, audio-visual, optically acoustic, not to mention the surface feel. Listen to me, look at me, touch me. But everything in that order please! You have learned that understanding takes you further. Night / life, rhythm / dancing, substance / excess, water / holding out, sleep / rest, headache / not good. But what would it be if all of that wasn't just right? If all of our knowledge is based on the mistake of having to put everything in relation? To classify it, to make it responsive. What do we do with something that doesn't follow the rules of this logic? That is not based on 0 and 1 and therefore not bound to our binary systems? Is this all at once? After all, what if the whole thing has no limits?
Jens-Uwe Beyer recently released the Yellow Book with Albert Oehlen on Gagosian and on his own label Magazine. He also runs PNN and Schalen. His 4th album „Horizons“ as Popnoname is the very first long player to be released on Cologne based label Feines Tier.




















