We’re happy to report that the subject of our latest interview is the spectacular Innervisions label. Born under the auspices of Sonar Kollektiv, Innervisions ventured off on its own with founder Steffen Berkhahn aka Dixon (and later Frank and Kristian of Âme as well) at the helm. Although there is no one Innervisions sound, it’s fair to say the label releases deep and innovative house music from a stable of in-house artists including Âme, Henrik Schwarz, Marcus Worgull and Tokyo Black Star. Forward-thinking 12″s from Laurent Garnier, Château Flight, Stefan Goldmann, and Culoe De Song are further signs of the label’s stringent quality control; compilations like Muting the Noise and the Innervisions-curated The Grandfather Paradox (for BBE) underline how their vision extends beyond the dance floor. And with the recent launch of the Innervisions web shop they’ve begun sharing their taste-making insights with fans directly. Dixon was kind enough to let LWE pick his brain about filters, how to best present a record and the label’s unusual birth before playing live at DEMF as part of A Critical Mass.
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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.
Henrik Schwarz, Âme & Dixon, D.P.O.M.B. EP
Photo by Maximilien Brice
[Innervisions] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s)
Any time Henrik Schwarz, Âme and Dixon all grace the same slab of vinyl, chances are it’s going to be a big deal. This precedent was set in 2006 with the quickly canonized “Where We At,” capturing the warily optimistic zeitgeist with a prescient Derrick Carter vocal sample [...]
Roland Appel, Unforgiven
[Sonar Kollektiv] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s)
Confounding audiences is something Roland Appel is quite good at. His highly rated solo debut, “Dark Soldier,” made more than a few dancers cock their heads in disbelief as its eerie vocal lines crept from the sound system, then again at the fractured and misplaced bridge which cheerily chimed [...]
LWE’s Top 50 Tracks of 2007
01. Matthew Dear, “Don & Sherri”
[Ghostly International] (buy)
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Picking my favorite track from Asa Breed was no small task, but “Don & Sherri” emerged as the winner because it combines all of Matthew Dear’s varied facets in one brief tune. He unabashedly revels in the weird (both aurally and [...]













