If Luke Slater’s Temporary Suspension reminded us anything, it’s that the rough techno waves being made by your Dettmanns and Levons are not without precedent, and that techno veterans are keen to be still be part of the sound they, in many ways, defined. For every Delta Funktionen or Frozen Border looking to offer their new take on techno there’s a Regis, Robert Hood or James Ruskin picking up the 909 again and getting back to work. Ostgut Ton chose Hood and Kenny Larkin to remix Ben Klock; and so, in a sort of antisymmetry, they choose some of the most influential producers of the past couple years to remix one of the 90’s more influential figures.
marcel dettmann
Marcel Dettmann/Prosumer & Tama Sumo, Phantasma Vol. 3
November 12, 2009 – 10:01 PM
When you’re a label as well respected as Diamonds & Pearls, audiences tend to expect a lot from each new platter. Add boldfaced names like Tobias Freund and Efdemin, the pair responsible for the first of D&P’s Phantasma series, and expectations could’ve burst through the ceiling. Yet after “Vol. 1″ struggled to satisfy as anticipated (largely down to a surprisingly lackluster Efdemin cut), the Phantasma series took a dip into relative obscurity. To be sure, this was listeners’ loss as “Vol.2″ offered “Choices,” a resplendent Matthew Styles and Dinky collaboration and “Machupichu,” a Pier Bucci joint of nearly equal quality. “Vol. 3,” however, is unlikely to suffer a similar fate with Marcel Dettmann on one side and a Prosumer/Tama Sumo collaboration on the other. As the latter has already evinced in the mix (Panorama Bar 02, to be specific), this is a record many DJs won’t want to leave home without.
Fever Ray, Seven Remixes
October 26, 2009 – 10:01 PM
There’s a certain beauty to more commercially viable artists putting their songs up for remixes, especially when the artists are already teetering on the outer edges of said commercialism and the remixers in question are firmly ensconced in decidedly more underground musical pursuits. A house producer, for example, will largely stick to calling in similar artists to re-rub their tracks, while a slightly more mainstream act will generally gather together a more diverse range of producers to reinterpret their original compositions. Fever Ray haven’t necessarily traveled through every genre of dance music to assign remix duties for “Seven,” but they have chosen an interesting ensemble of talent to perform these duties.
Marcel Dettmann, MDR 06
October 20, 2009 – 10:01 PM
After a banner year in 2008, releasing his first mix CD to widespread acclaim and seeing his profile rise a hundred-fold, Marcel Dettmann has let none of his newfound fame go to his head. He is still innovating, which means that he’s still doing things according to his own rules. The summer’s Deuce record with Shed largely ignored trends and instead demolished them, roughing techno up to a point beyond what many were familiar with. “MDR 06″ is his first solo record since the last contribution to his own shadowy Hardwax-distributed label. Following an extremely stripped back and paranoid (not to mention flat out devastating) remix of Fever Ray’s “Seven,” “MDR 06″ doesn’t so much continue Marcel’s sound as refine it.
LWE Interviews Marcel Dettmann
September 18, 2009 – 10:01 AM
In discussions of his solo and collaborative productions for Ostgut Ton and his own MDR label, his biting remixes for folks as disparate as Modeselektor and Sandwell District, and his infamously expansive DJ sets, club music commentators invariably accuse Marcel Dettmann of being a purist. But purism — as a stance on techno — implies pretension, and you’d be hard pressed to meet a man who puts on fewer airs about this music than Dettmann. At his headlining appearance at New York’s famed Bunker party, he may have threaded the needle from Tan-Ru’s “Assembly” (his fitting tribute to the late Ian Loveday, who passed away in June) to Newworldaquarium’s “Trespassers” and touched on countless rare techno sides in between. But if Dettmann — casually clad in jeans and an MDR t-shirt and handing out high-fives to all who approached him — played professor in any regard that night, it was only delineating how one brings down the house and keep revelers enraptured straight through 6 a.m. A few hours before all this madness commenced, I sat down with the famed Berghain resident for a chat on dubstep, Deuce, and what this whole techno thing means to the man who has lately come to personify it.
N/A, Variance Edits
July 15, 2009 – 11:16 PM
Where is the original version of “Variance”? What about “Variance II”? Who is N/A (or is the artist’s name just “not available”)? Thing is, the original artist’s name doesn’t really matter; the only name that does is Sandwell District. They’ve always had a penchant for facelessness, and with the recent release of the “Variance Edits” over two pieces of vinyl they’ve gone a step further into anonymity. But you always know where you stand with Sandwell District, and here they give you exactly what you ordered: “True. Techno. Music.”
Deuce, Deuce EP
June 2, 2009 – 8:22 AM
So far in 2009, Ostgut Tonträger has charted a course favoring harder, more aggressive sounds than in previous years. As the label arm of Berlin’s preeminent Berghain club, whose name has become synonymous with dark and uncompromising techno, this isn’t entirely surprising. Prominent resident DJs/producers Marcel Dettmann and Ben Klock have also seen their stock skyrocket since the label launched in late 2005, furthering the case for harder stuff. And while a discography notched with several releases from Prosumer & Murat Tepeli, 12″s from MyMy and Âme, and the Shut Up and Dance! Updated compilation evinces diverse tastes, one wonders if Ostgut Ton’s recent focus portends a broader shift. If commissioning an EP and album from Luke Slater’s ferocious Planetary Assault Systems project was the tipping point, the “Deuce EP,” a collaborative effort from Dettmann and Shed, lays bare how astringent and foreboding the path ahead may be.
Loco Dice, 7 Dunham Place Remixed Part 2
March 8, 2009 – 8:23 PM
[Desolat] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s)
Apparently the star power on call to remix tracks from Loco Dice’s 7 Dunham Place couldn’t be contained across just one double pack; a second double has just surfaced with a lineup just as strong as the first. While Part 1 found Luciano, Cassy, DJ Sneak, and Mike Huckaby taking cracks [...]
Scuba, A Mutual Antipathy Remixes 3
January 19, 2009 – 9:50 PM
[Hotflush Recordings] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s)
With only a small handful of releases to his name previously, Paul Rose aka Scuba stepped up in 2008 with a somewhat slept-on masterwork of an album, A Mutual Antipathy. The remix packages (of which there are now four) have been serving to convert any late comers to the Scuba [...]
Pigon/Marcel Dettmann, Kamm/Plain
October 13, 2008 – 8:13 PM
Art by Liu Bolin
[Beatstreet] (buy vinyl) (buy mp3s tk)
In Marcel Dettmann’s rather enigmatic Discogs bio, we read that he sees techno as “a determination of both his life and music” which continually leads him on a “quest for the optimal track.” It’s a touch ridiculous in its overstatement, but it’s the kind of hyperbole that [...]