Here’s a proposition, possibly reductive, probably true: the German duo Cluster (Dieter Moebius and Hans Joachim Roedelius) were the only Krautrock act to make the usual artistic trajectory, from incipient experimentalism to more approachable, populist moves, without trading in one iota of their humour or their peculiar genius. Can and Tangerine Dream lost it; Faust and Ash Ra Tempel watered down most of their ideas (Faust’s “Krautrock” and Manuel Gottsching’s E2-E4 notwithstanding); Amon Duul II aren’t worth mentioning; perhaps only the other great Krautrock duo NEU!, of Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger, made it to the late 1970s with their aesthetics intact. Tracing Cluster’s history is a grand thing to do. Starting as Kluster, with third member Conrad Schnitzler, they released several albums of hard-nailed, formless analogue electronics, Klopfzeichen (Schwann, 1970), Zwei-Osterei (Schwann, 1971) and Eruption (1971), which were as vast and cold as the Arctic tundra, forbidding and steely in their gravity. After losing Schnitzler, the first two duo Cluster albums, 71 (Phillips, 1971) and Cluster II (Brain, 1972), explored similar terrain — an improvised meta-music that satellites out from the big bang of late ’60s counter-cultural disruption, where academic electronic music and the freedoms of rock at its most structurally footloose met on even terrain.
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BBH: Cluster & Eno, Cluster & Eno/Eno, Moebius & Roedelius, After the Heat
Various Artists, The First Wave
With the sad passing of James Stinson of Drexciya some years ago, the dark aquatic electro sound of Detroit looked to be in decline, though in reality that has hardly been the case. Gerald Donald, the other half of Drexciya has kept busy with Dopplereffekt, Der Zyklus, and recording most recently under the name Heinrich Mueller. Sherard Ingram, aka DJ Stingray, sometime DJ for the mysterious outfit and member of Detroit techno supergroup Urban Tribe, has maintained the deep sea dwellers’ legacy through his own productions and now via his new Micron Audio label, which showcases a global community of like minded electro resistance fighters. The First Wave sampler throws up only one familiar name (apart from Stingray himself who features under the moniker DJS 313) in the shape of Aaron Atkins, nephew of Juan, who appears here under the name DJ XRAY. Other contributors include protégés from Greece, Italy, Belgium and Spain, all heavily reared on transmissions from the 313 area, which is surprising and heartening in equal parts given that some are barely out of their teens.
Various Artists, Total 10
It’s astonishing to think Kompakt is a mere ten years old. The shadow they have cast over the contemporary house and techno scene, not least through their distribution, never mind label releases, is gigantic. For younger DJs and fans, it’s hard to think of a world without the dotted imprint. Their Total series is a case in point: a summer without the compilation and accompanying party is difficult to contemplate. For casual fans, the CD issue offers the opportunity to catch up on the year’s hits, while the double, and now triple vinyl packs satisfy DJs with exclusives cuts and some venerable smashes of their own (Superpitcher’s “Mushroom,” DJ Koze’s “Mariposa,” and Jürgen Paape’s “So Weit Wie Noch Nie” for starters). They also illustrate the broad taste of the Kompakt collective, with tracks ranging from campy electro pop (Justus Köhncke, most likely) to teeth-grindingly hard techno (step forward Reinhard Voigt). This eclecticism is both Kompakt’s greatest strength and their weakness. Their determined and democratic stance that if any one of the label heads (Michael Mayer, Paape and Wolfgang Voigt) likes a track enough they will release it, means occasionally real stinkers can slip through the door that ruin things for everyone. Throughout Total 10, the suspicion that this hardly stringent quality control is set to an all time low is hard to shift. When Total 10 is bad, it is very bad. And when it is good, it is still far from producing any classics to rival those listed above.
Tin Man, Cool Wave
Since 2004, California-born and Vienna-based Johannes Auvinen has been issuing melancholy, droning homages to acid house, ambient, and brittle synth-wave for Sähkö’s Keys of Life imprint and his own Global A label as Tin Man. But it took four years for Auvinen’s mélange of classic influences to congeal into something timeless in its own right. Chillingly beautiful, his “Wasteland” mini-album from 2008 stands as one of the most carefully constructed electronic records and subtly satisfying song cycles of the decade, a rare sort of 12″ whose six tracks — despite club-slaying potential in the hands of adventurous jocks — play better in succession than sandwiched within DJ sets.
Bodycode, Immune
Alan Abrahams has the rare gift, at least in house and techno circles, of making music that sounds like no other. As Portable or Bodycode, his sound is instantly recognizable. A unique and often thrilling fusion that embraces 80s Chicago, 90s rave and 00s clicks ‘n’ cuts, Abrahams’ albums have nonetheless often struggled to produce the adrenaline rush that accompanies his jackhammer live show (ably documented in LWE Podcast 22). Indeed, having such an individual signature sound brings its own problems; once you’ve heard one track, you may feel you’ve heard them all. Familiarity breeds contempt, and his last album as Bodycode, The Conservation Of Electric Charge, and as Portable with Powers Of Ten, both sounded uncharacteristically flat. Abrahams’ solution to this malaise was to take to the microphone, and reinvent himself as a latter-day Jamie Principle. The move obviously worked, as last summer brought the veritable smash “Release” on Perlon, followed by the similarly provocative “The Emerald Life” for Musik Krause. Both were released under his nominally less floor-orientated Portable alias (tell that to the people dancing), but evidently the introduction of vocals has also reinvigorated his Bodycode moniker, as Immune is the finest record of his career.
BBH: Various Artists, The Airbag Craftworks Compilation
With Workshop’s thin run of singular tech-house releases really blossoming into something special over the last couple years, I suspect I wasn’t the only person who hit up the Discogs and MySpace info pools to figure out just how long Lowtec had been so weird sounding, precisely who Da Halz was and how much more Move D the hard drive could hold. Fortunately, Leipzig’s now-dormant Out To Lunch offers insight on all those inquiries and more. Effectively a “pre-Workshop,” there’s a sizable overlap in roster, which might be because they happen to be operated by the same dudes. In this discography, you’ll find records by the likes of Lowtec, Even Tuell, Alex Cortex, and Seidensticker, as well as a handful star-studded compilations. The most invaluable of these is 1999’s Airbag Craftworks Compilation, so named for Paul-David Rollmann’s line of bags and shirts.
Planetary Assault Systems, Temporary Suspension
A few years back, you couldn’t go to a club without seeing a “Rave Strikes Back” sticker on a DJ’s record box. An initiative set up by Freude-am-Tanzen, the idea was to revolt against the ahistorical “mnml” of the time and bring back “rough, unpolished techno,” in the words of its creators. On the website, they invited a number of Germany’s pre-eminent DJs (Robert Johnson’s Ata, Michael Mayer, DJ Koze) to chart their favorite rave anthems. Superficially, the planned revival appeared to have little tangible effect, save the unconnected splutterings of a D.O.A. scene in the less salubrious parts of south-east London (thanks, Klaxons).
BBH: Monoton, Blau, Monotonprodukt 02 26y++ & Eight Lost Tracks
In 2003 and 2006, two early-80s minimal electronic records resurfaced on the Montréal-based label Oral Records. The long out-of-print, limited-release Monotonprodukt albums are the work of Konrad Becker, a multidisciplinary artist who now writes and conducts research about media. While Becker is currently busy doing work for the Institute for New Culture Technologies/t0, Public Netbase, World-Information.Org, and the Global-Security-Alliance.Com project, he was once, as if in another life, the inspired mind behind Monoton, an art project he started in 1979.
Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Vertical Ascent
“Live” is a tricky word in electronic music. Live sets, even by favorite producers, are too often disappointing. In reducing performance to a traditional recital mode, selections are limited to the artist in question’s own tracks, a sense of flow can get lost in the shuffle, and worst of all, the performer is frequently seen doing little more than staring at a computer screen, occasionally clicking. The effects of this approach — not naming any names, but I’ve heard laptop sets which featured a sound uncannily reminiscent of the “you’ve got mail” tone — can be frustrating at best, depressing at worst. Part of what’s exciting about electronic dance music is the spontaneous flux, the dispersed authorship, the paradoxical live-ness of a great DJ set. So what’s the point of “live” performance, anyway?
Ada, Adaptations Mixtape #1
Back in 2004, Ada’s Blondie was the go-to album to persuade your girlfriend or boyfriend that techno really was “okay.” Borrowing from pop-house veterans Everything But The Girl (via a cover of “Each and Everyone”) and indie-rockers Yeah Yeah Yeahs (“Maps”), Michaela Dippel broke out of the Cologne techno ghetto to achieve crossover critical, if not commercial, success. That’s not to say that she left behind her Rhineland roots — every one of Ada’s solo releases has been on a hometown label; and with frequent remixes from the cream of the Kompakt label, it was inevitable that one day she would release on the venerable imprint. Her music is a perfect fit for Kompakt with it’s emphasis on somehow euphoric and melancholic melodies, pastel-coloured but chunky bass-lines and cute pop-culture references. It’s a move that should ensure her the wider audience she deserves, and, as the title intimates, Adaptations Mixtape #1 is intended as an introduction from a trusted friend, but it’s a shame it’s such a collection of warmed-over odds and ends.
Black Jazz Consortium, Structure
As “deep house” overtook “minimal” these past couple years as dance music’s catch-phrase du jour, a certain formula has become apparent. Slow down the tempo, loop a bass line, throw some jazzy pads on top, and add an intermittent sample of an African-American male voice saying “yeah.” Though there are some great tracks fitting the stereotype, it is hard not to crave some greater inventiveness. Fortunately, Fred P, a.k.a. Black Jazz Consortium, brings precisely this to his production work, of which 11 remarkable examples are collected on Structure. Throughout this CD, rhythms are complex, instrumental elements shift and alter themselves, and tracks otherwise develop over their durations.
Luke Hess, Light In The Dark
Luke Hess is apparently determined to escape any and all pigeonholing that may come with his being a techno producer from the fabled city of Detroit. By infusing his streamlined Detroit techno with various elements of dub, field recordings, and, ahem, Jesus, Hess shows it’s possible to emerge and flourish from under the mighty shadow (and baggage) of the Motor City.
Various Artists, In Loving Memory 4:4
The title of Styrax’s In Loving Memory series is both intriguing and provocative. Is the compilation intended as the final epitaph on techno’s gravestone? A nostalgic tribute to the pioneers of all things deep and dubby? A signpost to the mournful nature of much of the music contained in the four volumes? Or just a Moodymann reference?
Various Artists, Enjoy the Silence Vol. 1
Back in the summer of 2007, Chris Mann began his review of the Soul Jazz Box of Dub with the following statement: “Most compilations are like group photos: someone always has their eyes closed.” I find this usually tends to be true, and never more so than on Mule Electronic’s Enjoy The Silence Vol. 1. This collection of ambient music by house and techno producers ranges from excellent to completely boring, with typically impressive names falling into both camps. All in all, it is a pretty dull release, despite a few strong moments.
Stimming, Reflections
Martin Stimming doesn’t sound anything like Villalobos or Ben Klock. None of the records in his increasingly label-diverse discography evoke frozen tundras, k-holes or the post-industrial cathedral of Berghain on Sunday morning. His distinctively unmechanized house grooves are neither a vintage call to jack nor a dive into the depths. The longer I’ve sat on Reflections, Stimming’s debut full-length, the more I’ve realized what an awesome anomaly this young producer’s music is in 2009: his sound decidedly skirts the zeitgeist, but the undeniable quality and sensitivity of his handiwork renders him a perennial must-listen in a dance music scene moving more and more away from the organic tech-house that earns him his living.
Various Artists, Pespectiv Family Tree 2
Ripperton and Sam K have run a pretty tight ship the past couple of years with the Perspectiv label. They’ve given exposure to the audible charms of their Swiss compatriots and helped push a deep, emotive flavor of techno at the same time. Family Tree II is the second full length artist sampler for the label and with any luck it will become an annual event.
Martyn, Great Lengths
After notching up a slew of killer cuts last year and an equally impressive array of remixes, ears have been pricked in anticipation of Martyn’s full length debut. Originally a drum and bass producer, it seems the Dutchman (real name Martijn Deykers) has all but defected to dubstep, rapidly cultivating himself a sterling reputation over the last year and a half for his impeccably turned out sound. Alongside Romanian peer TRG, Martyn’s productions map some of the most easily assailable crossover points between the dubstep and techno divide. Typically more clubby than the likes of Shackleton and Pangaea, yet no where near the raved up wonk of pundits like Skream, Benga et al., Martyn has managed to forge himself a neat little niche in the dubstep realm.
Ben Klock, One
The early bird hype on One hinted it was very self-consciously an “album.” Some suggested Ben Klock had discarded the Berghain-tested stompers that made his name for a more mature sound, perhaps even an attempt at a grand artistic statement. Alarm bells rang: What this often means is an album with a couple of killer tracks at best and a lot of filler. Surely Klock hadn’t gone soft and released an album of downbeat noodlings and scrappy experiments?
Henrik Schwarz/Âme/Dixon, The Grandfather Paradox
This seems to be the learned lesson of the Innervision team’s stunning 2-disc comp The Grandfather Paradox. Their laser-focused curatorial skills deftly traverse a musical history so broad that we’re left with a series of epiphanies about form and genre that taken together read: we were minimal, even when we didn’t know it.