[Kompakt]

Listening to Thora Vukk, Robag Wruhme’s second album, is not unlike wrapping up in an heirloom blanket. Hardly extravagant, it’s the kind of LP whose hopeful tones and organic textures are best absorbed during a quiet night in, a dutiful pet (or significant other) curled up at your feet. But those who expected Wruhme’s last single of 2011, Donnerkuppel, to trundle down a similarly easy going path were in for a big (albeit pleasant) surprise. A perfect fit for its home on Kompakt, the record’s title track (which translates as “thunder dome”) is as poppy and anthemic as they come.

Those of us who were first introduced to electronic dance music through progressive house might feel a little pang of nostalgia as the main hook of “Donnerkuppel” rounds the bend. Its cheerful chords gleam as they traipse down a staircase of click-clacking percussion, bursting forth with untrammeled joy when a harmonic bass line joins the parade. It recalls the pre-minimal period when techno wasn’t so self-conscious or serious — a period largely dominated by Kompakt, it’s worth noting. A track this big and euphoric is definitely open to a one-word dismissal — cheesy — but it’s arguably more of a refined cheese platter than a big bowl of nacho cheese. “Wemmel” is the title track’s quirky, sample-scarred younger brother, bearing muted traces of that signature riff encased in overcast pads and electro-compatible drum programming. The record concludes with the downtempo musings of “Polch Dutto,” but it’s like an after-dinner mint listeners will likely skip to flip the record back to side A. Wruhme is no stranger to unabashedly melodic fare, and “Donnerkuppel” is easily among his catchiest tracks.

It’s amusing to think that some of LWE’s readers may have no recollection of Michael Mayer releasing music on his own. In part that’s due to his status as a superstar DJ and his position as one of Kompakt’s three founders. But it also reflects how long it’s been since Mayer’s name alone graced a record’s label — five years to be exact. The 12th edition of Kompakt’s annual Total compilation series supposedly reflects the label’s renewed focus on its core family, and in kind, it features Mayer’s long awaited return to solo production. To call “That’s What I Told Sanchez” a departure from his past work is a complete understatement. Perhaps influenced by his label’s work with the unpredictable Mattias Aguayo, the tune is a disorienting tour of an amusement park led by a walking bass line and underpinned by crowd noise. Eventually an electro-compatible synth line emerges but has to battle for space with unfinessed tribal cries. In all honesty, we’re not sure what to think of it, but we’re glad Mayer has returned to the production game. Thanks to him and Kompakt for making this available.

Michael Mayer, “That’s What I Told Sanchez”

For many Americans, most electronic dance music lacks the overt personality they demand from music, as it carries on without an obvious beginning or ending and can be reduced to an easy to mock “oontz oontz oontz.” Aware of this popular perception, Amy Grill placed the focus of her documentary, Speaking In Code, on contemporary artists and important figures in techno and house scenes rather than examining their history or the finer points of sub-genres. Early on, Grill (who narrates the film) states that her hope is to rehabilitate electronic dance music in Americans’ eyes. But given the difficulty of their task, it’s easy to forgive them for doing more to contrast the tribulations of passionate American techno fans with the wealth of choices and opportunities open to artists and their fans across Europe.

Europe has taken on near mythical status for many American techno and house followers, a continent full of clubs, record shops, festivals, and most importantly people who are dedicated to that faithful, four to the floor beat. Knowing that this dance music Mecca looms across the Atlantic, many American fans find their own cities lacking and yearn to live the 24/7 techno lifestyle. Speaking In Code examines Europe’s allure through an unclouded lens, praising its acceptance of the form while acknowledging the drawbacks as well. Flitting between Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Cologne and Jena, its quick pacing imitates the “economy jet-set” experience. Through interviews with a handful of artists such as Modeselektor, the Wighnomy Brothers, Robert Henke, several members of the Kompakt family, and Ellen Allien, Grill gets a sense of what life is like for techno’s upper echelon.

She accompanies the two members Modeselektor on a trip to visit their mothers, who prove quite supportive of their sons’ quirky music and are even shown dancing at one of their gigs, and watches as they play to 20,000 people at the “After Dark” portion of the Sónar festival. The film depicts how labels like Kompakt and Freude Am Tanzen take a communal approach to creating, developing, marketing and selling music — their core artists and employees live together and treat each other as a sort of family — “a small communism” in the words of Gabor Schablitzki (aka Robag Wruhme, one half of the Wighnomy Brothers). In interviews with ranking dance music critic Philip Sherburne and Day, Grill’s then husband, each espouses the perception that Europe is dance music’s promised land, with the former opting to move to Barcelona for its club culture and the latter shown marveling at Kompakt’s in-house record shop, wishing aloud to be a part of that lifestyle. Even Grill’s many filming trips to Europe, framed as an escape from problems at home and the paltry Boston techno scene, paint Europe as an idyllic beacon for dance music’s obsessed masses.

The continent’s many positives come into stark relief with Day’s intrepid if fraught attempts to raise electronic dance music’s profile in Boston. At his then-day job as label manager/marketing director for Massachussets-based record distributor Forced Exposure, his cheerleading for house and techno records meant increased access to esoteric dance music for many American consumers. But Day’s devotion to the genre only begins at work; refusing to wait around for his favorite artists to announce a Boston date, he books his own shows and organizes local parties financed with a mounting tide of credit card debt.

Day’s devotion and willingness to risk his own skin is shared with many promoters across the U.S., but few clubbers grasp all the blood, sweat, tears and dollars that are poured into each big event and Speaking In Code offers vivid examples of how they play out. Modeselektor, who are accustomed to playing to thousands, are drafted to play the comically named Enormous Room in Cambridge on what appear to be studio monitors. Despite filling the room to capacity, Day walks away from the event eating $700 in losses, sustained only by the cheerful energy overflowing the club’s confines. Later, he and Grill take over a friend’s large loft space and turn it into Boston’s hotspot for electronic dance music parties. But after weeks full of after parties and other events, the sQuareone loft is shut down because of “complications” with the building’s owners. It’s only then that Day pulls back on the reigns and realizes how unsustainable his ambitions have become.

But despite outsiders’ rosy perceptions of Europe’s electronic dance music scene, the reality is not all it’s cracked up to be. Few who crave the opportunity to spend every waking moment in a club or record shop can grapple with what unlimited access is like in practice. Speaking In Code illuminates this truth best in how it covers Gabor Schablitzki and the Jena-based Freude Am Tanzen collective. When visiting the studio part of their compound, the usually jester-like Schablitzki admits to trouble with his girlfriend and grows sullen. Grit Sachse, one of FAT’s long time members, explains how their Jena home base provides their artists some much needed isolation from the partying scene, adding that Schablitzki has grown increasingly picky about his gigs in order to preserve his energy and enthusiasm. Not long after, he decides to deal with the intensifying pressure of popularity by withdrawing completely from touring, leaving the other Wighnomy Brother, Sören Bodner, to go it alone. When Grill interviews Kompakt’s Tobias Thomas, he begins by expressing his love for DJing and the dance music culture in which he’s intertwined, but concedes that the question of whether the motivation, the energy or the nerves are there to deal with the nightlife is never too far from his mind.

Viewed alongside Day’s relentless drive to build an American answer to Europe’s 24/7 club culture, it becomes clear that having too much of a good thing is indeed possible, and it’s not necessarily clear that’s the case until you’re in deep. As an American techno/house obsessive who often fantasizes about escaping America’s frustrating dearth of dance music culture for Europe’s many splendors, I could empathize with Sherburne, Day and Grill’s drive to more fully belong in a way their homeland couldn’t provide. And I especially appreciated that Grill did not sugarcoat artists’ experiences within that same idealized scene. Speaking In Code successfully personalizes the realities of music obsession, from packed stadium triumphs to tribulations that require self-sacrifice in pursuit of satisfaction.

Speaking In Code is available on DVD March 12th. Check out a deleted scene from Speaking In Code featuring Bryan Kasenic of Beyond Booking. Our thanks to David Day and Amy Grill for offering us this clip. Below that we have Baltimoroder’s SiC podcast #1, featuring tracks from the documentary.

Download the podcast here

01. Monolake, “Fragile” [Imbalance Computer Music]
02. The Wighnomy Brothers, “Wombat” [Kompakt Extra]
03. Steadycam, “In The Moog For Love” [K2 Records]
04. The Rice Twins, “For Penny and Alexis” [Kompakt Extra]
05. WB, “You Might Say Im Ruminativen” (Parfum rework) [WB Records]
06. Depeche Mode, “Enjoy The Silence” (Timo Maas Extended Remix)
[Reprise Records]
07. Philip Sherburne, “Milk & Honey” [Lan Muzic]
08. Ada, “Maps” (Michael Mayer & Tobias Thomas Mix) [Areal Records]
09. Markus Geuntner, “Regensburg” (Gas Mix) [Kompakt]
10. The Field, “Kappsta 2″ [Kompakt]
11. Modeselektor, “Vote or Die” [BPitch Control]
12. Ellen Allien & Apparat, “Way Out” [BPitch Control]
13. Modeselektor, “I Love You” [BPitch Control]
14. DJ Champion, “No 7-11′s” (Akufen’s Chill Em All Mix) [Saboteur]

[Kompakt]

Seasons come, seasons go, and with them Kompakt’s Pop Ambient series, where the label’s clockwork ticks much slower than usual. Not that Pop Ambient’s reliability has never been in question: every time a new installment filters through the opinion-maze of web- and music criticism, someone proclaims it’s not as good as the last one, or the series’ key idea is petering out, or maybe Kompakt should stick to making IKEA techno, or that it’s too much of the same thing, or whatever. Regardless of the occasional arcs in quality (I seem to recall 2006 to 2008 not grabbing my attention quite so strongly), the complaints are a tad confusing. Surely Pop Ambient’s brief is to be “too much of the same thing,” to essay myriad variations on that lovingly hazy, gaseous, oddly catchy, plastic ambient sound they’ve perfected, to take a relatively long time to say relatively the same thing at pretty much exactly the same time of year? Ragging on Pop Ambient for being stagnant is much like complaining that Phill Niblock plays the same note for a long time. It is kind of the point — well, not so much stagnancy, but certainly the careful exploration of a rather small patch of land. Sometimes Niblock plays two notes, too.

[zero r="Pop Ambient 2010" a="Bvdub" t="You Know Where To Find Me"]

Pop Ambient releases are set free into the deepest European winter. Certainly, there’s something of the chafing cold, of being rugged up against the elements, in the way things unfold: witness the geological rate of development in tracks like Brock Van Wey/Bvdub’s “Will You Know Where To Find Me,” which takes over fifteen minutes to slowly unwind itself. The overarching tenor here is misty and blurred, whether the aqueous repose of Mikkel Metal’s “Blue Items,” the gray lagoons of Triola’s “Schildergasse,” or the latticed ice-shards of opener “The Sound Of One Lip Kissing,” yet another of Marsen Jules’ attempts to make the world stop and start according to the power of his computer’s delay setting.

[zero r="Pop Ambient 2010" a="Marsen Jules" t="The Sound Of One Lip Kissing"]

But Pop Ambient 2010 turned up down here, in the Southern Hemisphere, in the midst of a blazing summer. I’ve already spent many long weekend days with it circling on repeat in my apartment, the audio streaking the air while sun floods the room, weaving its way through the Venetian blinds and illuminating dust particles swimming through the heat fug. All things are not the same, it seems. If anything suits the mood in Australia, it’s the oddly sluggish loops of Wolfgang Voigt’s “Zither Und Horn,” which suggest a folk band dosed on so many downers they can barely lift their fingers to play their instruments, or the queasy drones that flutter below and around the pointillist piano of DJ Koze’s “Bodenweich,” which for some reason recalls a spritely, happy-sad version of Japan’s “Ghosts.” Or maybe that’s just the heatstroke.

[zero r="Pop Ambient 2010" a="DJ Koze" t="Bodenweich"]

If Pop Ambient could do anything for its next installment, it would be to stretch its tentacles of community further, maybe call on figures like Andrew Chalk, William Basinski (who received a dedication on Pop Ambient 2009), Leyland Kirby, or Robert Haigh, whose delicate miniatures and hazy dronology isn’t actually too far removed from some of the more questioning moments on Pop Ambient 2010. But hey, alright — it’s still one of the loveliest things you’ll hear all year. And if you’re coming back from a long night out, it’s the perfect thing to tuck you in to bed in the morning. Comedowns for the post-club hours. Your lounge-room’s now the chill-out zone.

[zero a="Various Artists" r="Pop Ambient 2010"]

[Kompakt]

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.

Let’s start with the bad. Kompakt have always had a taste for in-jokes (“Sex Mit M.Mayer” for the most blatant example), but Jürgen Paape’s “Ofterschwang” is truly wretched. Like a low-rent “Fizheuer Zieheuer” trolleyed at Oktoberfest, its cheesy horns and schlager sensibilities might make some kind of (non)sense after a few rounds of Koelsch but the hangover really isn’t worth the party. Similarly Superpitcher’s collaboration with Matias Aguayo’s pal Rebolledo under the name Pachanga Boys is as irritatingly tongue-in-cheek as their moniker might suggest. Why Aguayo gets all the attention when his former Closer Musik bandmate Dirk Leyers languishes in relative obscurity is beyond anybody’s ken, and his previous single “Walter Neff” gets an entirely unwanted and unwarranted second airing here.

The good? Newcomers Coma offer hope for the “children of Kompakt” generation with a classy goth-house track; Shumi (more new blood) offers a similarly glossy take on the romantic techno sound of Cologne; and the much underrated Leyers provides a subtly brilliant rerub of Köhncke’s Pet Shop Boys-referencing “(It’s Gonna Be) Alright” that should have disco and house heads shimmying from Horse Meat Disco to Horst Kreuzberg. Tobias Thomas and Mayer’s self-referential “Total 9″ offers hope the veterans can still knock out a low-slung groove or two, while Koze continues his tradition of producing the best tracks of Total releases with the gloriously flawed experiment with a tennis ball, “40 Love.”

Regrettably, much else on Total 10 is merely mediocre, with efforts from Reinhard Voigt, Nicolas Stefan, Mugwump and Jonas Bering all falling under the catch-all category of fair to middling club fodder. The Supermayer remix of Gotye’s “Heart’s A Mess” tries to simultaneously wrest the emo-house crown from Superpitcher’s remix of “(This Is) The Ballad Of Evan and Chan” and bring schaffel back, but gallantly falls short on both counts. Gui Boratto’s remix of Sam Taylor Wood’s (produced by the aforementioned poet laureates of Euro-disco) “I’m In Love With A German Film Star” is destined to be damned with faint praise, as it merely plays to age old Kompakt strengths of pop culture references, bass pressure and shimmering melodies.

In a recent Pitchfork interview, Mayer suggested Kompakt’s relative decline in popularity was due to nothing more than the vagaries of fashion, and that their new status as the “opposition party” meant the label could take more risks. Total 10 belies both of these claims; it is one of the most lackluster and cloyingly conservative Totals in history. Heartbreaking as it is to report, Kompakt’s better days appear to be behind them. Mayer’s Pitchfork mix of early “unclassics” illustrates what heady days they were, and unwittingly reveals Total 10 to be barely more than a tacit acceptance of the decline of the Cologne empire.

[Kompakt]

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.

That’s not to say this is by any means a bad release, and certainly has a number of excellent songs, but it is perhaps an indication of the increasing conservatism of Kompakt’s output. In particular, DJ Koze’s Jay-Z baiting remix of “Eve” was conspicuous by it’s absence on his remix collection Reincarnations, so it’s a pleasure to have that here. Similarly, “Living It Up” from 2006 is a fantastically lithesome floor-filler, and the Cologne old guard of Michael Mayer and Tobias Thomas turn “Maps” into the end-of-night singalong it should always have been. It’s difficult to talk about Ada’s music without mentioning the f-word, but her music really does have an inviting, feminine touch to it, a more than welcome quality in the dick-swinging contest that the current vogue for colder and harder techno can occasionally turn into. Her remix of Tracey Thorn’s “Grand Canyon” is a case in point, as affectionate and comforting as a cuddle and a cup of tea after a long night’s raving. “Forty Winks”, from last year, ranks amongst the best things Ada has ever done, and illustrates her considerable compositional talents perfectly, outdoing pretty much anything on the last couple of Pop Ambient compilations.

However, Ada’s sentimental sensibilities are occasionally cloying, as on the closing “Our Blindhouse (Each and Everyone)”. While neatly bookending the record with a further EBTG reference to match the opening Tracey Thorn remix, the re-version of the Cologne classic that made her name may prove too syrupy for many ears. Likewise, her retouching of Alex Smoke’s self-pitying “Never Want To See You Again”, whilst a valiant effort at polishing a turd, cannot save the execrable source material. Ultimately, Adaptations is as lop-sided and wildly variable in quality as all your favourite mixtapes, but let’s hope there’s not another volume in this series — fingers crossed for an album proper instead.

[K2]

After eight years of relative silence, Jörg Burger returned to releasing music under his own name in 2007. His work as The Modernist, Stardiver, Triola Echo Club and many remixes flowed from the techno/ambient/trance legend’s Cologne residence over the last years, so that time was hardly idly spent. In addition to the tepidly-received “Bring Back Trance” 12″ with Wolfgang Voigt, last year Burger launched the” Polyform” series, including the year-capping “Polyform 2″ on Kompakt’s K2 off-shoot.

“Superpicture,” the dense and propulsive lead off, suggests trance may still be on Burger’s brain. Tightly threaded two and three note synth loops drive the focused track through a rapidly paced flurry of bittersweet tones. The serious mood and nimble, bordering on minimal aesthetic call to mind a more involved version of Jeff Samuel’s better work.

Listen to “Polyform 2″:

It’s b-side partner, “Polyform 2″ is a different beast altogether, and a proper bookend for either end of a set. Burger utilizes organic tones, like a softly plucked bass guitar, round and resonating marimba and an indistinct tinkle, to cycle through polyrhythms that warm the air around dancers. The arrival of vaporous pads borrowed from his Triola palatte soothes burning calves at the end of a night or coaxes clubbers to take off heavy winter wear. I would hasten to call “Polyform 2″ ambient-techno by any stretch, but its round edges do make it easier for dancers to get in and out of the pool.