[Ostgut Ton]

Despite the Berghain and Panorama Bar mixes being fairly new titles in a commercial format that is close to twenty years old, they have nonetheless in a short time become indispensable. The success behind the series is directly linked to the success of the club itself, namely that of the DJs who compile and mix them are residents of said club and provide the best clubbing soundtracks in the world right now. The third installation in the Panorama Bar succession is placed in the care of Prosumer, whose focus here isn’t on profiling new and exclusive tracks (though there are of course some of those Ostgut Ton exclusives on here), but rather putting together a solid mix that pays no heed to release dates.

It is one of those keenly tipped exclusives that kicks off the mix, Steffi’s forlorn “Sadness” immediately creating a nostalgic atmosphere via its bitter-sweet piano house tristesse. While it’s a beautiful track to start with it does feel tacked on to the mix, with DJ Duke’s “Heard,” which follows, not sounding like the smoothest transition and feeling like the mix has started all over again from this point. Things flow more smoothly from here with another of the exclusives, Hunee’s incredible “A Leaf For Hand In Hand” seamlessly blended in, its loose percussion swinging around fluidly over the tubby Juno bass line and rising house chords. Through tracks like this, which lovingly eschew an old school vibe, coupled with the fact that the majority of the tracks on the mix are actually quite old, Prosumer pulls off a mix that is all at once steeped in history but still sounding box fresh.

That is in no small way helped along by the current resurgence in Chicago house and vintage synth sounds proliferating releases. His impeccable taste pulls together little known gems from Morgan Geist, Jeff Mills, Uwe Schmidt and DJ Iz with such ease you feel like he could have just been hanging out at home one day pulling records off his shelves and decided to record his efforts. Romanthony’s “House of God” also provides a strong point of the mix, the deeply religious feel to the track a clear pointer to the opinion many hold that house music is indeed a spiritual thing. Under his Circulation guise Joshua Michaels’ “Sincerely” slides in right alongside with its mirage-like, summery melodies and fired up vocal samples. It provides not just one of the highlights of the mix but also proves to be an axis, as it unfortunately gives way to the only contentious moment on the CD, Lil Silva’s “Pulse Vs. Flex,” a track so out of keeping with the vibe of the rest of the mix, it becomes an unwanted focus on repeat listens. UK bass music has been creeping into house and techno sets for several years now and having heard Prosumer drop “Let Me See What U Workin’ With” in a the middle of a similarly styled set recently I know it can work, however here it just doesn’t.

The taste of the garish-in-comparison track soon fades though with J.T. Melody’s “Prove It” warming things up again, before Prosumer heads into slightly harder territory and a fantastic run to the finish with the pulsing, hallucinatory “L.T.B.C.Y.B.” from Uwe Schmidt’s i alias, the mono-synth workout of T.S.O.S’ unreleased “Over And Over” and Jeff Mills’ banging “Let’s Swing It” under his one time alias Servo Unique. Smoothing out those harder edges, Prosumer finishes with the sublime, Fingers Inc.-sampling “Love Injection” from Mike Dunn’s QX-1 moniker, providing a fitting end to a mix that gives an accurate account of Prosumer’s tastes and abilities as a DJ. Panorama Bar 03 may not be immediately arresting, but like any great mix (or album for that matter) it sinks in deeper and deeper each time you hear it.

[Ostgut Ton]

For a label that’s only been around for five years, Ostgut Tonträger has done a fine job of canonizing itself at an alarming rate. At this point, if the almighty Ostgut isn’t mentally evoked at the very mention of techno, you must not be paying attention. As the official release outlet of the mythical Berghain/Panorama Bar club in Berlin, they’ve not only reinforced the club’s lofty reputation but have steered the gaze of an entire world of techno toward the doors of the abandoned power plant. In 2010, steely banging techno meant for the Berghain is the standard.

Ostgut Ton have always had a stoic austerity about them. Their music speaks for itself, and the stark, beautifully designed sleeves only add to the chilly indifference. Yet they’ve tried their hand at grand gestures as well, namely 2007′s ambitious Shut Up And Dance! Updated compilation. A ballet set to techno curated by the label, it made for a uniformly great accompanying CD but the performance itself engendered a mixed reception; safe to say, one of the few possible slip-ups the label has ever committed. It seems they’ve learned their lesson. The celebration of their fifth birthday (a few enticing celebratory club nights aside), Fünf is a purely musical affair, a 2-CD compilation containing all new material from nearly everyone ever associated with the Ostgut crew and then some. Each track on Fünf is built from a field recordings made by the Berlin-based UK producer Emika (“Cooling Room”), recordings of the very inner-workings of the club itself. It’s an enviably brilliant idea that audibly stitches the very character, the very essence of the Berghain into the music.

Two possible worries need to be dispelled before continuing. Label compilations like this are rarely cohesive and are often patchy collections of leftover rejects; not so here. Similarly, the idea of a 2-hour-plus album composed of the same palette of sounds seems a bit frightening — but thankfully, not so. Each producer imagines Emika’s field recordings as a blank slate on which to project themselves, taking a shared sound palette and constructing their own idiosyncratic grooves and sounds. Every tune is a neat little portrait of each artist painted with the same brush — like a casting call for the label’s growing cohort — in one fell swoop solving any issues of continuity or dullness.

While it’s a mammoth listen to digest in one go, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better collection of singular techno tracks. It’s difficult to pick highlights out of a collection so consistent, so varied, and so thoroughly impressive, but there are a few blinders. Label head, one half of MyMy, and hush-house producer Nick Höppner provides the compilation’s most fragile, transcendent moment with “I.S.P,” a syncopated house track that spills out delicate percussion, the sound of tube amps lightly knocking together. Marcel Fengler throws down one of his typically violent rhythms in “Shiraz” and Fiedel contorts the industrial noise into a thrashing raver characteristic of this year’s anthemic “Nous Sommes MMM.” Meanwhile the big names maintain their reputations: Herr Dettmann drops a track far more brutal than anything on his debut album in “Scourer,” which strips and polishes the source material into a typically sleek banger, while Ben Klock continues in his new hollowed-out house(ish) direction with “Bear.” Perhaps most surprisingly, Shed drops his most straightforward track since “That Beats Everything!” with “Boom Room,” the industrial sounds a natural match for his breaky techno.

The house quotient is well-represented — no one’s forgotten about Panorama Bar. Prosumer’s “Daybreak” sounds like it was dug up out of a time capsule, and Elif Bicer lays a lovely vocal on top of the pillowy production from Murat Tepeli on “Hold On.” Other producers find an encouraging middle ground between deep house and minimal; Cassy’s contribution features a haywire drum machine, Dinky wraps warm samples in fractured minimal arms, and Tama Sumo’s debut production “Iron Glance” is a gaunt, wiry thing. There are enough experiments to keep even the most jaded, fairweather dancers interested. Len Faki drops a downtrodden electro-ambient weeper with “Kraft Und Licht,” Norman Nodge provides a near-ambient thing that sounds more like a field recording than the actual field recording and SCB’s “Down Moment” is almost painfully sharp, kicks and snares refashioned into daggers. Soundstream even makes a hallowed appearance with “Wenn Meine Mutti Wüsste” where he fashions misty dub techno chords out of the industrial sounds, cutting his soft clouds with bits of metallic impurities and factory detritus.

In spite the kind of backward-looking introspection a birthday often instigates, Fünf has its eye firmly on the unknown and uncompromising future. It’s so very Ostgut of them to give us two whole discs of new material rather than a label best-of which itself could have been the best thing released this year anyway. But nothing less should be expected from the label that relentlessly pushes forward, the label that not only sets the trends but predicts them and then moves on while everyone is catching up. You might as well get used to the sounds of Fünf because you’re going to be hearing their influence ringing in the tinnitus-riddled ears of techno for years to come.

[Hotflush Recordings]

Clearly cognizant of Mount Kimbie’s cross-border appeal to techno/house heads, Hotflush wisely spends the second remix EP on the 4×4 axis with mixes from its head honcho, Paul Rose, and Panorama Bar residents Prosumer and Tama Sumo. Rose’s effort on “Vertical,” under his SCB guise, is the only track labeled as an edit, and fittingly it exploits the richness of the original without imposing too much Scuba. Basically re-imagining the moody original for the jacking techno crowd, its restless clink figures prominently, offset by a throbbing kick-and-woodblock rhythm section. Several breakdowns are employed alongside noisy washes, and with each the track grows more monstrous. It’s linear, as an edit should be, but not monotonous; SCB magnifies everything for peak-of-the-night intensity.

“William” found Mount Kimbie at their most seasick, a somber little number that develops into a distant, obscured future-shanty before its unexpected immersion in heavy, drunken bass. Tama Sumo & Prosumer’s mix retains many of the original’s qualities, extending them for dance floor consumption. They harness the power of its bass line for a driving rather than disorienting effect by chopping it up and placing it throughout the energetic structure. Midway through, dramatic strings emerge, setting the tone for the vocal, now slightly more intelligible. It’s not so far from the indie-house crossovers of Pantha du Prince or the Dial label, a streamlined take on sentimentalism. In summation, Mount Kimbie could not have selected a more formidable group of artists to rework their catalog. The results are split equally between exploiting their rhythmic and emotional capabilities, somewhere between the dance floor and the anxious rest-of-the-world. This is the split at the heart of Mount Kimbie as well.

If you ever have the immense pleasure of meeting Kerstin Egert, you won’t soon forget her radiant ebullience or her buoyant hugs. Her wide smile shines just as brightly in conversation as it does from behind the decks, where she can always be counted on to share a personal, variable, and downright bodacious mix of tunes that cut straight to your emotional core. Despite almost two decades of experience as a DJ and resident for some of the world’s most well-known and respected clubs (from Tresor to the old Ostgut to her current residence at Berghain/Panorama Bar), Egert — alias Tama Sumo — didn’t really step into the global spotlight until 2008 when her first release on appeared Ostgut Ton (produced in partnership with her dear friend and musical ally, Achim Brandenburg, known to most as Prosumer). A few months after the release of “Play Up” and “Brothers and Sisters,” her incredible DJ sounds first graced my ears in the form of her — in my opinion, legendarily awesome — LWE podcast (which, although archived, can be easily found on the Internet). After 16 years of spinning, Ms. Egert finally earned her due respect with the release of the much-anticipated Panorama Bar 02, a mix that would top the charts as the year drew to a close. Months after her popularity boom and the world tour that ensued shortly after, we checked in with Tama Sumo to get the scoop on the Panorama renovations, the state of the Berlin club scene, and where she’s heading next.

So let’s just start at the beginning — when exactly did you first realize that you might want to do this music thing for the rest of your life?

Kerstin Egert: Oooooh. Hmm, well, music was always important for me. I played guitar as a child, but I think it was more or less because it was cheap and it didn’t take much space — can’t really say it’s one of my favorite instruments. I would loved to have played drums or maybe bass guitar or something like that. I spent of lot of time as a child listening to music and spent all my pocket money for records. I think at this age, I thought everybody liked music, and I don’t remember exactly when it became really clear to me that it’s kinda defining my life. Maybe at the end of my twenties?

Did you have a career before you were a DJ?

I studied, and during university I started to DJ. Then I was working for a company doing personal management, a job that I liked a lot — I loved talking to people and it was something that I found quite interesting. But then it was too much to have the full time job and also DJ on the weekends. For 14 years it was a balancing act. So then in 2007 I finally thought, “Ok, maybe I have to make a decision.” And it’s pretty clear which way it went. [laughs]

Where you living in Berlin at that time? Where are you from originally?

Well, I was born in a little village in Bavaria called Mühlhausen, between Nuremberg and Munich. But I was living in Berlin since 1990. I started my first steps into DJing in 1993.

Germany is known for breeding some of music history’s most influential experimental electronic music acts. Did you grow up interested this vein of music, or did you stumble upon it later?

I wish I did, but I didn’t. I grew up in a very little village in Bavaria — and of course we had no computers in the 70′s, when I grew up. It was far away from growing up with cool soul and disco music! So I grew up with mostly mainstream music — what came on the radio, and there were only two radio stations. During my youth, I was more or less forced to listen to some rock music, [laughs] which I actually don’t really like, I don’t really have a feeling for it. But, you have what you have. We also had some Italo disco and some mainstream disco, and by the 80′s of course I got some things like Depeche Mode or whatever. But in the record stores it was all things that everyone knew — there wasn’t any underground.

So when were you first exposed to underground music?

It wasn’t until I left home for university that I first heard other kinds of music. I studied in Erlangen, near Nuremberg, for three years. At this time, Nuremberg had what I thought to be a quite good scene. I went to my first acid house party there and it was totally flashy — it was really so mindblowing to me, so completely different. Even before this, I had started to listen to some independent music. But this scene was totally in the electronic music direction, which was much more my thing, and I was [deep breath] — wow!

Can you think of a moment in those early days when you realized you wanted to be a performer, instead of just a someone in the crowd?

There was an old friend of mine named Holger whom I knew from Nuremberg, who came to Berlin a little after I did. I shared a lot of music with him, we went record buying all the time. He sometimes DJed in Nuremberg and later in Berlin. We talked a lot about music, listened to a lot of music. And then he played at Drama, a house bar in Kreuzberg [Berlin], in 1993. And he was the one who said, ‘Ah, Kerstin, why don’t you DJ?’ He would really insist, forcing me all the time, ‘You have to become a DJ! Music is so important for you.” Because often times I was recording music I liked for my friends, on cassettes — I always liked sharing things. He kept saying, ‘Think over it.’

I’m really more an introverted than an extroverted type. I just kept thinking, ‘No, no… this is such a stage for me, I don’t know if I feel comfortable with that.’ I was refusing this for a long, long time. And then he played at the Drama bar and he was like, ‘Kerstin, I play there regularly, and I would so love if we did it together.’ So he gave me his old record players and said, ‘Try to mix.’ Then, without my knowing, he confirmed a date for the two of us at this bar. If he didn’t, I think I wouldn’t be a DJ today. So it’s due to him that I do it.

So what was it like transitioning from Nuremberg to Berlin? How were the scenes in the two cities different?

I mean compared to Berlin, the clubs in Nuremberg were very nice and a bit chic. Then I came to Berlin, which was completely different, because it was right after the wall came down. There were immediately a lot empty spaces here, and it wasn’t clear to whom they belonged. It was possible for people to throw illegal parties there because nobody lived there, the space belonged to no one. As long as things were this way, people could bring in their sound systems, bring in their party, whatever. It was really weird, I liked that a lot.

It was a dirty atmosphere for sure because nothing was renovated — it was the former East, everything was abandoned. And you had some great locations, like Tresor or the Planet, which was at different locations. There wasn’t this big flier culture at that time, and no Internet, no place where you could go to look what’s going on. It was quite interesting because you had to know the people. So somebody tells you, ‘Oh, there’s a party on Koepenicker Straße! Go through the second door and then up to the third floor….’ It was really amazing, kind of an adventure game.

For me, who came from sober and nice Bavaria, it was a trip! I loved that. And the music was different, too. Whereas in Nuremberg it had been a lot of the nice, cozy acid-housey thing, here in Berlin, techno was the soundtrack to all the political and social things that were going on. At the beginning of the 90′s, there weren’t a lot of places where they’d play house music. It was a more like a really dirty, industrial sound that you could hear in every club — or at least that’s how I perceived it. So for me, at that time, I sometimes found it a bit too hard, because I wasn’t used to it.

In such a historically “techno” city, you have such a warm, housey sound. At what point did it become normal to play house music the way you play it? Or is Berlin still primarily a techno town?

I think Berlin is still more a techno town than a house town. But compared to the 90′s, or the beginning of the 90′s, the house sound has increased a lot. And of course the borders are a lot more fluid. At the beginning of the 90′s, it was more of a distinction if you’re a techno or a house DJ. This or that. This was a bit of a pity, because there was kind and attitude that if you’re cool you play techno, and if you’re “handbag” you play house. At Panorama Bar I love to do that — I love to go from techno to house to techno to disco — for me it’s about playing music that I like, that touches me in some way, and not to just have one genre that I have to fit into. At the beginning of the 90′s, I had the feeling that this was very unwritten rule, that you have to play either THIS or THAT, but not both. It wasn’t until the middle or the end of the 90′s that people started combining the two.

How do you feel like the the scene here in Berlin has changed in more recent history? Especially with the influx of the discount airlines and so-called techno tourism?

Well, I think it’s still a solid place. For sure there are lots more people coming from abroad for a weekend to party, and that does something with the scene. But I think it can get quite interesting. From the view of the DJ: at some point in the past the club scene became so familiar to a lot of people, they know what to expect. But now, because there are so many people coming from abroad, you always have a good mixture of people — some who are from Berlin, who you know (so there’s that family feeling) mixed with some people that nobody knows, who might be here for the first time. I think it can be a good exchange.

To be honest, I think it’s really great when I travel around the world and people have these glowing eyes as they say, “Oh I came to Berghain last month, it was so great!” Maybe this sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s in these moments when you see that music can be something combining, that you can celebrate together — that’s sweet! I’ve gotten to know so many people from all over, even when maybe we didn’t even share the same taste for music. So I guess, to answer the question, sure it changed the scene, but not in a bad way. As long as you stay open-minded and open-hearted! This is why I went to a big city instead of staying in a village where everything has to stay the same.

So you’d say it’s good to have this influx of new people?

It can have good and bad influences – it depends what you make out of the fact that a lot of tourists come to Berlin. Concerning exchanges, in many ways it’s great. But there can be bad influences as well. Not because of the new people that come, but because of the people who think they can make good money from these tourists by repeating the well-working concepts. It’s capitalism. If it’s only the money that motivates people of doing something instead of the heart for something and their interesting ideas, that means you are looking for concepts that fulfill the tastes of the masses, concepts that are easy to get… and this usually bores me to death.

On that note, how do you feel about refurbishments at Panorama Bar at the beginning of this year? Do you think it’s a good thing that the clubs are making enough money now to invest back into their spaces?

I like that they renovate, but at the same time they remain true to themselves as they develop. Berghain always did it. Before Berghain, there was Ostgut. And then when Berghain came, it was something different… but in a way there was something which combined the two clubs as well. I think life is changing, so if there are some changes in the club, why not? I am so happy about the new sound system, and I’m SUPER happy about the wooden dance floor — I could go down on my knees!

You know, it’s quite funny, because today I heard that there are many discussions about the how they changed the picture [in Panorama Bar]?

Oh yes, there are.

I guess there is one group who says, “We want the old picture back.” [laughs] But you have to do the same thing as a DJ as well. Try something new. I’ve been a DJ for 16 years, and I don’t play the same sound for 16 years. There’s still something around which everything new is defined. But the center stays the same.

Photo courtesy of Sven Marquardt

What are some of your favorite clubs and parties you’ve played as a DJ over the years?

There are so many. I love the Süd Electronic party in London a lot. Next to Berghain/Panorama Bar, which of course is my favorite [grinning]. This is a party that won my heart, due to a wonderful promoter, crowd and sound system. Also the party Club House I played in New York with the Underground Quality guys – Jus-Ed, Levon and Anthony I appreciate a lot for the same reasons. I’m really, really happy to know them and that they invited me.

Some other parties and places I’ve really like very very much are, hmm… La Villa in Oslo, Techstock at Reitschule (a kind of collective with a political background in Bern), Trouw in Amsterdam, Silo in Leuven, Pacotek in Jerusalem/Tel Aviv, Cassero in Bologna, Ego Club and Baalsaal in Hamburg, Robert Johnson in Offenbach, Inkonst in Malmö, Rex Club in Paris, Pulstar in Köln, and in Japan I like Unit and Module in Tokyo and Mago in Nagoya.

So now you’re a producer as well as a DJ. How do you feel about producing compared to DJing?

I like producing a lot. There were many years where I was a bit afraid of it, because I’m not very much into the technical stuff. But I have to say a big thank you to Prosumer. I think without him I wouldn’t have done it. He was the one who said, ‘Hey come to my house, let’s do it!’ And he forced me — he took away a lot of my fear about it — ‘Just try it!’

I always thought, ‘Oh, I have to know so many things,’ so his prodding was super helpful to me. At the moment we’re working on a new track for Ostgut Ton. I’ll try to work by myself as well. But I couldn’t at first because I didn’t have the knowledge, and I didn’t have the gear. I wanted to produce with machines, not just with a computer, but I didn’t have the money for it. But after the [Panorama Bar 02] CD came out I had a bit more bookings and I tried to spend some of this money on some gear, and now I can build up my own studio and work alone as well. At the end of last year I bought a synthesizer called Nord Lead 2 and a drum synthesizer, Pearls Syncussion. And finally some studio monitors! And I had a Roland 808 and 101 already – so I guess it’s a good basis now for making music that I like.

Despite all this, I always want to work with Achim because we’re good friends and it’s so much fun to work with him, so inspiring. So I think I’m getting more and more into the producing thing. But I have to say, I do NOT understand why in the music scene it’s such an expectation that if you want to be a DJ, you have to produce, and if you are a producer, you have to DJ. Because I think they’re two totally different things. One should have the chance to go without the other.

So when you go to a record store, can you describe what it is you’re looking for?

I prefer analog sounds — or a least analog sounding sounds. Because I know some producers can do a good job of sounding a bit analog but it’s still done digitally. I really like it if something is a bit dirty, maybe edgy or rough. I need some deepness. I need some funkiness. And sometimes, cheese for me is okay too. Or a bit of a pop attitude. Once in a while I need that. I think I’m looking more to old schoolish sounding things. I’m not really into minimal or much of the new minimal or loopy house sounds, for me, if it sounds very minimal it’s just not much an interest for me. I want some funk. Soul. Deepness. This is all what I like a lot. And some disco as well. And jacking things are always getting me!

What sounds turn you off? Ten seconds and you say NO?

Minimal, minimal house… everything which is only functional bores me to death. You know that it will work at the club when you play it, but there’s no really good idea behind it. It’s just working. And when something is too overloaded, I can’t stand it. I love minimal things in terms of what Robert Hood would do — focus on the important sounds in a track. I think there are a lot of tracks that sound as if they are made in two hours. I sometimes wish that people would spend more time in caring for the sounds, so something sounds more three dimensional, not two dimensional.

Are there some records you never leave home without? Any labels or artists that are always hiding somewhere in your crate?

OK, there is no record which I have always with me. But… It’s so funny. Maybe Marcus Mixx? I usually have one of his records with me. I often have a Soundstream record with me. And for sure records from Achim and Steffi, and I always have Shed with me — I never go anywhere without a Shed record. Shed or Wax or Equalized, one of them.

What else? Hmmm. Some of my most loved labels and producers that I would usually have with me for a set are Ostgut Ton, Uzuri Records, Madd Chaise Inc., Deconstruction/Novel Sound, Underground Quality, Third Ear, Restoration, UniRhythm, Sound Signature, Beautiful Granville, Rush Hour, Delsin, Metrolux, Strength, Soul People Music, Fachwerk, M-Plant, Purpose Maker, FXHE, Dolly, Dekmantel. And I never leave the house for a gig without a lot of old house and techno records from Chicago, Detroit and New York.

Obviously music is your main deal, but in a city like Berlin, I can’t help but wonder if there are any other artforms that inspire your work.

From all the different artforms, I guess movies or video installations inspire me the most. I like movies a lot, especially the small independent ones, and I’m sure that sometimes atmospheres or music in films are also an inspiration for me as a DJ and producer. Achim and I once worked for a documentary TV project and were asked to choose the music for it — we loved that, because it’s a different and very interesting approach to music. Just as well as our work for fashion shows for which we also choose music. Projects like this also have an influence on my DJ work — maybe less concerning the music selection itself, but more the way in which I’m looking for music.

So what’s on the horizon for you?

Prosumer and I did a remix for Mount Kimbie, the track “William,” for Hotflush [to be released April 26]. And then we’re working on a new Ostgut Ton release, a 12 inch, which includes a remix by the Oliverwho Factory from Detroit and which will be released 31 May. And then we have a Japanese gay pop group, they live here in Berlin, and we were asked to do a remix for them as well. They once gave me a CD, and I like what they are doing, so hopefully that will work out. And then there’s an Ostgut Ton compilation coming out later this year. Steffi was asking if I want to do something for her label, but I think, as I said, I’m quite slow. So maybe that’s not for this year. Let’s see.

[Diamonds & Pearls Music]

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.

For “Helix,” Dettmann spreads a base coat of flushed, waxy tone contoured by gnawing filters which scour the sides and define the track’s rugged shape. His monochrome pattern emphasizes each note’s attack, which varies from sudden and guitar-like to soft and pliable like pastels, leaving plenty of room for skittering counter-rhythms to streak in and out of view. Thoughtful yet unyieldingly direct, “Helix” is standard Dettmann — just how I like him. Prosumer and Tama Sumo’s “Alien Mutts” is similarly brawny and unambiguous in its aims, bulking up the vintage house sound the pair first mined on the Ostgut Ton-released “Play Up/Brothers Sisters.” Dusky pads glow hot beneath unwavering synth patterns and an equally vigorous battery of percussion, pushing dancers to sweat it out as sparing vocals samples are folded into the mix. Even as the melody grows restless and more suitably alien, Prosumer and Tama Sumo have anchored their track as firmly to the dance floor as their A-side companion’s. If you slept on the Phantasma series before, “Vol. 3″ is a potent alarm clock.

[Ostgut Ton]

With vintage gear, a love for early house singles and immense songwriting chops, Prosumer and Murat Tepeli have produced some of the most emotionally involved music released by Ostgut Ton. By threading deeply personal lyrics through the floor-friendly patterns of their singles and album, Serenity, the duo has revived the personal narrative approach once at the core of the house music tradition. Yet soul searching is only half of the Prosumer & Murat Tepeli experience, as evidenced once again by their first single since 2008, the rousing “U & I/The Jam.” Setting aside emotional themes to reach for their dancing shoes, Prosumer and Tepeli have crafted an irresistible call to the floor.

Shelving their troubles for another day has freed Prosumer and Tepeli to take a more muscular, assertive turn. There’s an edge to their relatively spare instrumentation, a firmer hand on the controls than the last we heard from the pair. The outward simplicity of “U & I” leaves plenty of room for essential details: Its clap fits the hi-hats’ fleeting folds like a gloved fist, socking home a beat flanked by clockwork oscillations and ridged runs. Synth patterns stab their way through the din with authority, parrying the organ’s glare. Both obscure a sublime hum below ground which seeps to the surface in the latter half, carrying Elif Biçer’s vocals cooing the song’s title. But an equally stellar vocal performance from Prosumer, who grows ever more adroit at arranging his multi-tracked harmonies, is the tune’s most distinctive feature. “You’ve gotta move your feet, your mind, your soul, just keep on dancing, you’ve gotta move your feet,” he chants with varying degrees of intensity, overdubbed twins carrying the tune and dancers to new heights. To be sure, “U & I” is the best floor-filler from the duo since “Makes Me Wanna Dance.” Percussion rather than personality is the guiding force of “The Jam,” putting a driving techno twist on the flipside’s palette. While DJs with a utilitarian bent will appreciate its tracky structure, the wealth of additional rhythmic elements can feel too busy at points, especially in context with the more deliberate pace of “U & I.” Given the great appeal of the whole record, however, this seems a minor quibble. With their first single together since 2008, Prosumer and Murat Tepeli have reminded listeners of their capacity to capture hearts and move bodies in equal measures.

This Saturday, June 7th, Francois K and Brendon Moeller are packing their gear into the spaceship to bring NYC’s Deep Space night to London club extraordinaire, Fabric. Moeller (as Beat Pharmacy) will be performing with MC Spaceape in anticipation of his forthcoming dub protest album. And if that wasn’t enough, Prosumer, Murat Tepeli and their muse, Elif will be performing live in room three, with DJ sets from Prosumer and Matthew Styles. If you would like a pair of tickets to this jam packed event, all you need to do is be the first to correctly answer a trivia question: What label put out Francois K’s first release? Email your answers to editor(at)littlewhiteearbuds.com by midnight (CST), Friday the 6th. The stumped should check discogs.com for more information. Good luck!

01. Prosumer & Murat Tepeli, Serenity
[Ostgut Tonträger] (buy CD)
On Serenity, Achim and Murat deftly avoid the pitfalls of making anachronistic music while crafting stylistically faithful floor jackers. I’m enthralled with its full-bodied, Chicago-styled intonation and true emotional depth; it’s all too rare to personally identify with a house track these days. Remind me to take those guys out for deep dish pizza when they finally make it to the Windy City.

02. Lee Jones, “Aria” (Tiger Stripes remix) [Aus Music] (buy)
So glad that one of my favorite producers is back and being remixed by another favorite. Jones taps into the minimalized deep palatte which made Gaiser’s “Withdrawal” such a winner, and dots this tune’s subtle ideas with perfect chiming pitches. Tiger Stripes streamlines “Aria” from there and the end results lands right in my crate. Why it’s taking so long for this gem to hit stores on our shores, I don’t know, but I’m absolutely clamoring for a copy.

03. Basic Soul Unit, “Tunnels” (Sebo K & Metro remix) [Mule Electronic] (buy)
Further confirming my suspicions that Sebo K’s remix and DJ skills greatly surpass original production skills, his and Metro’s tidying revision of “Tunnels” evokes subterranean deep house motifs with modern fixtures. Because the pair produces with the DJ in mind above all else, “Tunnels” glides perfectly in and out of mixes — a welcome balance of floor-filling melodies and utility. However Sebo K does it best, I’m with him.

04. Marcel Wave, “27 Holton” (Serafin’s Back To New York Re-interpretation)
[Freerange Records] (buy)
Whether as part of Mountain People or solo, Serafin has had quite a streak of powerful releases of late, and his remix of Marcel Wave is no exception. This one works a pumping house rhythm brushed in a muted tonal slate, reminding me of 2000 And One’s “Work” and Kerri Chandler, if a bit more warped. Now for him to release those tantalizing tracks up on the Mountain People Myspace.

05. DeepChord Presents Echospace, “Untitled” [Modern Love]
Leave it to Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell to put a spacey dub opus gleaming with only the edges of dulcet resonance on a single-sided 12″ limited to 500 copies. In a maelstrom of humid static clouds pulses amorphous dub patterns flush with warm tones. Its human touch stands out in delayed tambourine samples among Modell’s distorted field recordings. “Untitled” might not want to make much of its existence, but its aural embrace is hard to forget.

06. Matthew Dear, “Sunday Adventure Club” [unreleased]
Now that he’s shown his rocker side, Matthew Dear is ready to infuse minimal techno with a searing, highly filtered 303 vamp that recalls the blistering leads of Funkadelic visionary, Eddie Hazel. The Bar25-referencing “Sunday Adventure Club” is lean enough to be layered with other tracks and compelling enough to blaze its own trail. How long we’ll have to wait before it see official release is to be seen, but I’ll be wearing it out in the meantime.*

07. Brendon Moeller, “One Man’s Junk…”
[Third Ear Recordings] (buy)

08. Jimpster, “Dangly Panther” (Joris Voorn remix)
[Freerange Music] (buy)

09. Luke Hess, “Believe & Receive EP”
[Kontra-Musik] (buy)

10. Francesco Tristano, “The Melody” (Carl Craig remix)
[Infiné] (buy)
With pianos once again en vogue only a truly well written chord progression stands out from the pack of rudimentary exercises. Tristano’s rambunctious lead on “The Melody” is infectiously catchy while maintaining a sophisticated air. Carl Craig’s remix is shockingly gentle, its singular patterns and hushed drones simply adding texture for the sparkling chords to poke through. Bonus points for the beatless version as well, a tool I plan to employ often.*

*Borrowed from my Get the Curse playlist.

In part two of our conversation, Achim and Murat talk about their influences, the future of vinyl, and that geil gay crowd.

“What Makes You Go For It” was one of my favorite songs of last year. Can you tell me a little bit about how it came about?

Murat: That was the first time I played at Panoramabar — that was 2005, I won’t forget that. I made the EP on the Playhouse label and they invited us to play there live. I was so flashed by the place, by the crowd. And when I got back home I was like, “OK, I have to fix this moment somehow,” and I recorded the instrumental track and I introduced it to Achim.

Achim: It’s a Berghain track. You haven’t been there?

No, not yet.

Achim: It’s a very intense place, it’s very sexual place, it’s a very free place, which can be great, but can be totally intimidating. There are days when I go there and it’s the perfect place to be and there are days when I go there and I have to leave after half an hour. It happens rarely, but I think “I’m not really happy with myself tonight,” so this place can be very intimidating and show the dark side.

Murat: For me, this track has so many parts. It has some roughness, some hard parts, some romantic parts with the melodies and the backgrounds. That was Panoramabar for me.

Achim: For me it really reflects some nights in Berlin. You go out and you enjoy the attention you get. Sometimes you think, “I’m the hot guy, all the guys go for me,” but sometimes it leaves this shallow feeling. I’ve had dates with guys where I felt really empty afterwards. They just project something onto me, it’s not about me, and that’s what I tried to capture in the vocals.

Murat: It wouldn’t have been the same without the vocals for me. I was so happy when Michael from Ostgut said, “Let’s do it.” The track was already existing for one year.

Achim: We had a rough mix of it, but I did the vocals and didn’t record them right away, so I tried to record them in a very theoretical mood and it wasn’t right. It took a while for me to recapture the same emotion. It felt like giving back something to [Panoramabar/Berghain]. Personally, I’ve had so many great nights there. DJing there has given me so much confidence. I cry a lot while DJing there ‘cuz it’s so great.

So I gather that you, Achim, are gay. Are you gay as well, Murat?

Murat: Yes, I am.

OK, that makes this next question a little easier to ask. In America, my experience is that techno and house really have no role in the gay club scene. I was curious how you felt they fit into the gay scene in Germany, or maybe Berlin’s in particular.

Murat: Well I live in Cologne, so that’s totally different. I’m only here once every few months or so, but I used to be here every month.

Achim: I’m sick of the gays always being the ones who have the “good taste in music, ha ha.” Most gays [here] spend their days listening to the ABBA music or stuff like that. The same goes for Berlin in most parts of the gay district you have Madonna or ABBA playing constantly or you have this porn dance stuff, this pumping dance sound with no soul which goes perfectly as a background for a porn movie. It’s not that the gay scene in Berlin is one big, great influence on music, but if you take Berghain, Berghain started through gay sex parties. They still have the basement where they do sex parties four nights a week, they have the Snakes party where only men can enter and it’s all about sex. I think it effects the kind of audience goes there, the people who are very tight and stiff with themselves won’t go – a straight audience.

Murat: Besides the sex parties… on normal days.

Achim: You have an audience which is more open minded. At Berghain, most people running the club and working there and most DJs are gay. It’s not planned like that, these people just come together and being like a family.

Murat: I’d say it’s more 50/50.

Achim: Mmm, for Panoramabar upstairs the percentage of gay DJs is bigger. Downstairs at the techno floor it’s more straight. It has to do with the music, because the people running it, especially Michael, they’re really music lovers. They could have just made stupid gay parties and not care about the music at all. But they’re music lovers, so they mixed it. Berghain could do safer booking with bigger names, but they don’t.

Murat: Music comes first at this place and that what I love about it. It doesn’t matter what they play, the sound is so great there.

Achim: You enter the place and right away you know where the focus is. It’s
definitely not standing at the bar and being fabulous, it’s being on the dance floor.

So let’s switch gears for a bit. Who are some of your musical heroes?

Achim: For me it’s Prescription: Ron Trent, Abacus and releases on Balance. Prescription and Balance were the first two labels where I bought everything. I was really thirsty for new releases like that. Also, Relief from about the same time. Producers like Boo Williams and then discovering the earlier stuff, definitely like Mr. Fingers, Marshall Jefferson. His track with Kym Mazelle, “Taste My Love,” the first time I heard that I was really amazed. I really like Blake Baxter. Some Detroit guys I really go for.

Murat: For me, I don’t have specific producers because I listen to a lot of stuff, both hip-hop and house, there’s a lot to mention. There’s not one superhero. I always discover new old stuff, it’s always afterwards that it’s influencing me. A lot of hip-hop and new jack swing stuff meant a lot to me, in the late 80′s a lot of Soul 2 Soul and Diva. That was really my time, I listened to a lot of A Tribe Called Quest. That were my big influences, very funky, groovy stuff. Of course I also love the guys that Achim mentioned, but that was later and not really a part of my influences – not the roots. I also listen to a lot of Turkish stuff you wouldn’t know *laughs* so I won’t start talking about that, but it was also a big influence.

What contemporary artists do you admire?

Achim: To talk about Cassy now would be really obvious. We really love her. It’s hard to separate [the music] from the person. If you ever see her performing live, you will never be able to separate her music from the way she moves. It’s really worth it. She has this really subtle back and forth, very slow movements, very sexy, very groovy – I love it. I’m busy dancing when she DJs, but I could as well stand there and enjoy watching her. I really like this producer called Stephan Laubner, he’s releasing the name STL on his label called Something, I really like that. There’s this Italian guy called Lerosa in Dublin, I guess, he released on Real Soon and Enclave Recordings.

Murat: For me I only know Cassy well. I don’t know a lot of producers personally, a lot of producers don’t know me because I don’t have many releases. I’m not really into the scene because I have another job [as a surgeon], so making music is my part time job. But I know Cassy and I really love her.

Achim Brandenburg, the main Prosumer, belts it out live.

Based on Achim’s charts and your music in general, American dance music seems quite important to you two. And yet it seems like a lot of America is “over” dance music, especially in Chicago where being into house and techno is surprisingly rare. Why do you think this style still holds so much appeal in Europe/Germany while it dies out in its homeland?

Murat: A lot of people tell us this, especially about Chicago. They say, “You’re interested in Chicago music but you’ve never been there. There’s nothing there.” Of course I still want to come over and see that all. Of course it’s not ’85-86, it’s 2008, that’s also what counts. In Europe, electronic music has been huge for the last 15 years, it’s grown so much. My influences are of course the 80′s, those were the years that I grew up, especially the late 80′s.

Achim: For a lot of people electronic/dance music goes hand in hand with a party scene. I think it has a lot to do with that. If you look at Europe, Berlin is usually considered the party capitol nowadays. The reason is, in Berlin you can get away with so much stuff you can’t do in other cities. Berlin is really cheap in a lot of aspects, rents are low, to afford your basic stuff every day is easily done, so it’s easy to run a club.

I was doing an illegal club with some friends for some months. The first time the police came by we were so scared, we said, “Ahh! We’re going to jail,” it was obvious we were doing an illegal club there. They just said, “We had some complaints from a neighbor saying his pictures were falling from the walls, but now we hear what’s going on here so he must be exaggerating. We just have to show up here.” One of them gave us his business card with his contact and said, “If you have any problem with drug dealing here, let us know.” That was some years ago, but it’s still about the same vibe. You have authorities respecting and leaving alone a subculture. So we have a broad basis of things going on and it’s easy to get a license to open a club.

If you compare Berlin to New York, for many people for so many years New York has been the city, and now so many people move to Berlin from New York. If you look at what’s going on in New York, people are not allowed to dance, you have to have a license for people to dance – that’s killing a lot. I don’t know about cities like Chicago, but that’s one approach to explain why it’s like that. It’s very difficult for party organizers to just do something and here it’s very easy.

Murat: You have to have the opportunity to have a subculture, and if you don’t let people party, you don’t have a subculture.

As technology grows more advanced, the requirements for producing electronic music have shrunken dramatically. Some artists and critics have bemoaned this “over-democratization” of producing. How do you feel about these advancements?

Murat: We all have to try harder now!

Achim: Democratization is never something bad. I’m definitely not complaining about everyone having access to the production tools which are becoming the standard nowadays. New techniques, new devices, new programs, in the beginning when they come out a lot of people tend to use them blindly. A program like Ableton Live offers you so many possibilities and you can make a track from scratch and it all sounds very professional and impressive, but it offers you too much. You lose yourself in the options the program gives you, that’s more the problem, in my opinion. People tend to use it blindly and tend not to do something that has to do with themselves [and instead] tend to copy current production styles. It’s great when everybody can have access to stuff. It would be great if everyone would have 808s, it’s so much fun to play with it.

Murat: There’s a lot of fault in the music industry. People do have a lot of output nowadays, everybody can do music, everybody has this output, everyone makes releases and labels. You don’t know what anybody is doing. The music industry pushes the artist, saying, “You have to do a release because nobody will remember you, talk about you half a year later if you don’t do a release.” The artists are very pushed by the music industry. That’s what I like when we do music. Michael of Ostgut asked us if we wanted to do an album and of course we wanted to do that. We collected our ideas from all the years and we put it together and we did this album. I don’t know what’s coming next, but I’m not thinking about the next months to having this and this output.

Achim: The original contracts we were given from Playhouse included having to deliver them new tracks within a period of six months so they could have a follow up release. Both of never signed this contract because it’s…. Hello, I’m making music, what do you want from me? The problem that the music industry, especially the vinyl industry has at the moment, I don’t think it’s based in the people making the music, it’s based in the music industry. They’re all complaining about how bad everything is going. I mean, it is very bad and it makes me very sad that so little vinyl is sold nowadays and that so many tracks are just downloaded illegally. But they were over-professionalizing a lot, “We can do more, we can do more,” there’s so many labels… it’s just too much output. Nobody can follow that, so the market must collapse.

Murat: I never treated music when I was young like I do nowadays, and that’s what I really worry about. When I used to buy a CD, I remember my first CD was a De La Soul album and I listened to that record every day – every day for a fucking half a year. I wouldn’t do that nowadays. I treated music different in those days. It’s like everyone downloads it, listens to 10 seconds and then throws it away.

Achim: I think nowadays you are just trained more and more just to consume music. The aspect of valuing music definitely is fading. If you have a file you download from Beatport or something similar, you just have a name and an artist. It’s something very virtual somewhere on your computer. It doesn’t come with a package, it doesn’t come with any information; with a lot of tracks people have no idea who the actual producers were. So many techno artists don’t do shit, they have people producing it [for them] and the people buying it don’t even know about it because they read the small print on the record anymore. It’s just for blindly consuming, that’s what it’s made for. That’s why it’s so important for us to include – like with “What Makes You Go For It,” we were so happy when we found the artwork of Gaia [Zebellin] which became the artwork for the single because it fit perfectly. It’s important for us to find something we can link to our music.

Murat Tepeli’s smile lights up the room.

What do you think the industry can do to keep vinyl relevant for the mp3 generation? Is there anything it can do?

Achim: I don’t know if you heard about it in the States, about the Pro Vinyl Alliance?

Hmm, no.

Achim: All the German distributors got together and said, we don’t want to turn back the hands of time and mp3 is a reality, so we’re earning money from that. But vinyl comes with a package, usually you buy it at a record shop, you get a musical education and a social background, that’s why they really want to save vinyl, because it comes with all of that. They tried to figure out solutions to save the vinyl and they decided that all stuff from labels which joined this alliance the vinyl release is always two weeks before the digital release so it’s equal chances for a record shop and the mp3 websites. It’s really putting money and love in the artwork again. If I see a record with artwork that I love and I can feel the paint, smell the paint, I love that. I go for that immediately. Putting the focus on making something unique again and not just a mass product.

When it comes to DJing, what’s more important: the quality of the set or the set-up itself? That is, does the way a person DJs (laptop v. vinyl v. Serato et al.) impact how you feel about their set?

Achim: If I see somebody setting up Final Scratch, Serato, whatever, to be honest, I’m always suspicious. That reputation is definitely earned by people like Troy Pierce or somebody like that. It doesn’t do the job to me. I’ve heard people play with mp3 and it was a great set [even though] I was very anti-it. People who say they want to fully express themselves and it works better that way, if that’s how they feel that and I can hear it in the sound, I’m totally fine with it. There are DJs who do a good job and I can see they’re busy putting effects on it and stuff like that, I can see the point. I saw Claude Young DJ years and years ago and he was magic with vinyl. He was playing with three decks and it was amazing. I heard him not too long ago when he was doing a digital set and all the magic was gone. If the only reason you to do the mp3 set up is to save luggage, to be more healthy to your back then I have a hard time accepting it. If people put more into the set then I’m totally pro.

Murat: In my opinion it’s actually bullshit. I don’t mind what anybody is playing as long as it’s a really good set which pushes me. I am suspicious because of the way we treat mp3s nowadays. If I see someone is worrying about and collecting vinyl, he treats his music in a different way and that’s what counts.

Achim: You often get mp3 DJs who play really disposable, exchangeable music.

Murat: It’s very subjective to say someone has to push me and make me feel like dancing, but the DJ has to have a personality.

Achim: I have heard people expressing personality through mp3 set ups. If that comes across I like it. DJing with vinyl is always a challenge because something can go wrong.

The reason I ask is because I DJ with Traktor. Not because I don’t want to DJ with vinyl, but because it’s incredibly expensive for me to buy singles at $10-12 a pop, and I’m not willing to drop a couple grand just to have the opportunity. It’s also increasingly difficult to find stuff. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Murat: I can understand that.

Achim: You’re definitely right. If you go to places like Mexico, they have a luxury tax of I think 60% on top of vinyl, so you have to pay for shipping it plus the tax. If they all go for digital, I can totally understand it. Living here where they have the access to a lot of music for a decent price on vinyl I don’t see the point that much.

What can we expect from you two in 2008 and beyond?

Murat: We’re definitely going to tour and we’re going to release a 12″ with some remixes from the album. We don’t have a deadline now.

Achim: We do.

Murat: We did! *laughs*

Achim: We had one, we have a new one which is months later which feels much more relaxing. Now we’re going to play some live shows. My DJ schedule is busy. I hope we will make it to the States this year, it looks good, but it looked several times before. Till I have a signed contract I’m not going to be too excited about it. Going to Chicago would be… wow.

Well, don’t get your expectations too high. The audiences here…

Murat: Yeah, everyone is telling us this.

Achim: But I heard there’s still shops where you can find records you would never have a chance to get here.

Definitely a lot of dusty Chicago house records here, that much is true.

Achim: We’re coming to dust them all off!

How did you two meet and start making music together?

Achim: I’m from Saarbrücken in southwestern Germany and Murat was studying there. I spent most of my time in the Hard Wax record shop in Saarbrücken, so that’s where we originally met.

Murat: That was 10 years ago.

Achim: We hung out together at the record shop, but not too much. We didn’t really get to know each other until I moved to Berlin and Murat moved to Cologne.

Murat: Actually, we didn’t hear any [music] from each other. It was only the guys from [Hard Wax]…

Achim: They said, “You guys should hook up and do something together.”

Murat: So we sent each other our music. And then we fell in love… with the music we made *laughs*. We started doing music, he did some vocals; and I did the first record on Playhouse with Achim’s vocals. It was very quick. We really got the feeling that…

Achim: It’s a feeling of understanding. I hear his feelings in his music and that triggers something similar in me, so I can come up with vocals. He sings, representing what he’s doing and it all comes together – it fits.

How were each of you introduced to house/techno?

Murat: I started with a lot of hip-hop music. I have three elder sisters, and one of my sister’s best friend’s brother was a DJ and got all these mixtapes which she gave to me to listen to – a lot of hip-hop and R&B. Later I got into house mixes — I listened to a lot of jungle and drum ‘n bass — but I stuck on to house music.

Achim: Where I come from there were not good record shops before Hard Wax opened, so the only access to music I had was the radio. I always preferred the electronic, dancey stuff which was running on the radio, and I was really impressed by the first house tracks being played on the radio; all that acid stuff coming from England, but also stuff like Inner City’s “Big Fun,” I really liked that. I tried to buy these records but it was next to impossible. In 1994, Hard Wax opened in Saarbrücken, so it was easy to access all this wonderful music. When I first went there I didn’t dare to go in right away. I was very shy and it felt like the Promised Land even before entering. I was so shy it was like going to a porn shop or something. When I entered there was all this music and people who were really friendly and eager to show me new music. And Hanna, who started the shop, was really good about stocking all the essential stuff. When they were sold out everywhere else I could still get them there. The still sold sealed copies of Prescription records in 1999. I’m really thankful to Hanna for doing this wonderful job of making all this music available to me.

Murat: One important thing about both our backgrounds is that we grew up in small cities.

Achim: Yep, we’re small town boys.

What were your musical backgrounds prior to your current project?

Murat: I started by playing the Turkish guitar, my father brought me one from Turkey as a gift and he wanted me to play it. I started playing when I was five or six years. I still have the guitar, but I only played it for one or two years.

Achim: I’ve never heard him play it.

Murat: The sound I wasn’t really crazy for, so I dropped that and afterwards I got into the school band, playing the trumpet and trombone.

Can we expect any horn-playing on upcoming records?

*both laugh*

Murat: No, no…

Achim: I would actually like to hear this, it would be interesting.

Murat: He has never seen me play a real instrument *laughs*. I gave it up when 12 or 13 and then I got my first computer and got into the software. That was really interesting to me. I got a keyboard, but you couldn’t do much stuff, it was just presets. Later I got into programming computers and I started doing music, but that was really late, maybe eight or ten years ago. With DJing, I got started in 1994-95, which was when I started to get into electronic and house music especially. Now to you. What did you play?

Achim: I was playing the flute as a kid like everyone else.

Me too!

Achim: In Germany, everyone does it in primary school. I was really bad at this. I was singing in choirs. I was a cute kid, so I was always pushed on stage to sing old, smelly people Christmas songs.

*both laugh*

They came up to me and said [takes on an old lady voice] “Ahh, you’re such a cute boy, you sing so nicely!” I hated it, so I was traumatized. For me, starting to DJ was in 1995 or something like that. Starting producing music, well, the first time I really had money in my life was 1999, 2000, so that’s when I started to buy equipment.

Your productions are often marked by a signature sound that has vintage 808 feel to them. Why did you choose these tools to make your music?

Murat: Like Achim said, the first time I had money was also the late ‘90s, beginning of 2000 and I started with the computer and software. I knew when I had some money I had to have a drum computer and the first thing I was thinking about was an 808. It has such classy sounds and you can do a lot with them. For example with the bass drum, you can do a lot of stuff but putting it into a compressor or distortion. It’s very class, very simple, that’s what I liked most. That was the reason I started buying these classic computers.

Is it a challenge to use old tools in ways that are interesting?

Murat: In the heydays guys bought all this stuff because it was the cheapest to buy, so it was just a basic drum computer, synth and maybe a 303 and that’s it. Also, the recording quality was different from nowadays. Nowadays its’ no problem to have a really good recording quality. But that’s what I think makes it very different because it sounds different. Even though it’s the same gear, it sounded different 20 years ago. If you put it altogether and you record it very clearly, you still realize it’s all separated.

Achim: I would say we like some dirt. For me, I’m always happy when we have some device in our set up which bring in some roughness, some dirt. We recorded the album on old reel-to-reel tape, it makes it sound a bit dirtier, there’s always a bit of noise in the background. It brings a lot of warmth, also, and that’s what we go for. During the show yesterday we again used the Memory Man effect device and we were so happy with it.

Murat: It’s so simple!

Achim: It’s a simple, dirty device, and it makes it sound much more… human?

Murat: To come back to the sound quality of the recording, we don’t really try to sound new or fresh. That’s what we miss in the music nowadays. Like Achim said, it’s very technical the music nowadays. Anyone who makes electronic music can really get lost into making music by plug-ins and softwares and this and that. You really forget to really make music. We want to make music and party with the crowd when we are on stage, to be rough and real, that’s what we really want to do.

Serenity features more full-on songs than many other house/techno albums presently which often compile tracks. Did you set out to write in this style or does it come naturally?

Achim: When were thinking about making an album, we thought the tracks we can put out on EPs; but if we do an album, we want to really do something that feels like an album that has a story to tell, that has a storyline in itself — something you would want to listen to at home. At home I listen to dance music, but a lot of stuff I play in the club while DJing I don’t listen to at home. It’s perfect for the dance floor, but at home, I go for something which is more song-based.

I noticed that the CD is arranged so the first half is primarily instrumental tracks and the second is more song-based and lyrical. How much of this was planned and how much just came together that way?

Achim: It all came together, in a way. Very quickly we decided that “Serenity” would be the first and last track. The rest basically just happened. We did the short interlude with Elif, “Drama Baby.” We had been doing it during our live shows for a while, but it never had vocals. While we were rehearsing for a show, she started improvising this [sings] “Drama, baby,” so that’s how this happened. She really liked it, so it was her idea to put that on the album. When we were thinking, where do we put it in the story line, it was obvious it had to be in the beginning. It came nicely together that the first song was me singing about my depressions, the second one singing about my fucking boyfriend, and then she’s singing, “It ain’t no drama, baby,” and then the happy, more dancey/party side of the album starts.

Murat: I think a lot of stuff just happened. That’s what makes it so nice for us. “Turn Around,” for example: I made the beat, I introduced it Achim and Elif and everyone’s just jamming, we rearranged it and it was done. If I was on my own, I wouldn’t have the strength or confidence to do it. You have a dynamic if you have three persons and you, “Let’s do it. Let’s do some ‘bah bap bah!’”

Achim: That’s the great thing about working together [if] you are always shy about what you do. It’s good to have someone like Murat for when I’m not happy about something who says, “Hey, this is perfect like it is,” or the other way around, Murat often goes, “Ehh, I’m really not happy with this track, I want more vocals on top.” And sometimes I really have to stop him and say, “No, not more vocals on top. It says it all, just leave it like that.” Making music is so intimate, and with Murat, I found someone I can be open to and trust, that’s really perfect. Doing it on my own, I would probably never put out the lyrics for “Serenity.” It’s very personal; I had a hard year because I had to deal a lot with my depressions. With Murat by my side, I can be open about that.

Your lyrics are something I really wanted to ask you about. With a lot of contemporary house and techno, the few lyrics it has are often quite impersonal. Serenity is quite the opposite. What is it like to really put yourself into the lyrics, both personally and artistically?

Achim: Actually, that’s why we do it. For both of us, it’s some escapism from “real life.”

Murat: Not just escapism, it’s also to talk about real life, because that’s real life. That’s what we talk about. Not every word is meant to be that serious, like, let’s say “Butterfly.” What does the track mean? *laughs* It doesn’t mean anything if you listen to the words. It’s also the emotion in the way someone sings. The old tracks from the 80′s — back to Chicago house music — there were a lot of lyrics. You just didn’t listen to the lyrics, but also to the emotion that somebody was singing about.

Achim: The feeling which was transported through the music. For us, music is a lot about expressing ourselves. We could have a bigger output, but it would lose its quality then. We want to do something we’re happy with.

Murat: It was a bit difficult for us to think, “Well, what would the people say about this?” There was a lot of minimal stuff in the last few years and of course we were also listening to minimal, but we also got bored from it because everything was so technical. So cold.

Achim: It was theoretical, it was not physical. For me it was very empty. It could move my body but rarely touched deep inside. Listening to house music I can smile on the dance floor, I can cry on the dance floor. With minimal I can dance…

Tell me a little about how the song-writing duties are divided. How do songs come together?

Murat: There are a few tracks we produced separately. There’s more on the vinyl version [of the album] that were done that way. The CD…

Achim: Some tracks are by Murat, some tracks are by me. For the tracks we do together, it starts with Murat sending over the instrumentals.

Murat: I sent him all the ideas I had over the years and sometimes he had some vocals, other times he didn’t. We rearranged it, added more parts like a 303, for example.

Achim: A lot of it came together spontaneously while mixing the album. With “Butterfly,” we actually did the track the day before the mastering started.

Oh wow, that’s really late!

Murat: We had the instrumental for a while and had performed it with Elif together, and we knew we wanted one more track with her, so we decided, “Let’s do it.” We didn’t find the time until one day before the mastering started. We said, “OK, Elif, let’s record it.” “I don’t know what to sing,” she said. “I don’t know, just something about butterflies.”

Achim: We played for her a recording of one of our live shows and she was writing down lyrics. But at one point while she was recording she just started to improvise, and that’s when it got really, really interesting.

Murat: She just let herself go and sang and closed her eyes. And we were just so… fucking… blown away. We tried to stay still and not make any cracks or noises.

That sounds exciting and inspirational.

Achim: It was. It really was. Since we were all mixing it down through my big mixing counsel to the reel-to-reel, while playing the tracks from the computer I added spontaneous drum tracks with my 707. We had done that in our live performances, but we’d never tried it out. It was the second take. It’s always a thrill to work together. We know that we will come up with something we’re going to be totally excited about.

Murat: We don’t see each other so often, so we really enjoy our time.

Achim: Us making music is really selfish, it’s really about us enjoying making music. From a logical point of view, saying, “We’ll record a song one day before the mastering starts,” that can go awfully wrong. But we’re having so much fun doing this together and enjoying the moment. I think that’s what translates in the music. If we were to say, “Let’s work five more days on the song,” it might be produced more smoothly, perfectly, but I think a lot of the feeling we get out of that would be gone.

How did you start working with Elif Bicer?

Achim: She works at the bar at Panoramabar. And when Berghain started its booking agency in September 2006, it was clear they wanted to do booking for me as a DJ and for more live shows. I was doing shows alone but it was more fun to do it with Murat: so I decided that I wouldn’t play alone anymore. We had a show at Weekend Club in Berlin and Elif and our other booker came over and they were… I don’t know the word in English. Far more than drunk, really, really pissed. Nicole was coming over to me and saying, [takes on a female voice] “Ahh, she’s such a good singer, you have to have her singing.” I was drunk as well and I said, “Yeah! Why not, let’s have her sing.” *laughter* I said something to Murat but he didn’t realize, so I just passed the microphone to Elif at one point.

Murat: I was really concerned about the music because we hadn’t had that many live performances by that point, so I was concentrating on the computer and I knew that he was talking to me but I didn’t know what he was talking about. I just said, “Yeah, OK.” And then, suddenly, this voice appears. I looked to the left and the right, searching for the person who is singing and there was Elif.

Achim: That’s how we had our first night together – our first threesome *laughter*. If we listen back to it, there are definitely some moments where you think, “Oh, this is definitely improvised,” but there are moments where I think “wow, this really has potential.” We were really impressed, so it was clear we wanted to do more together.

Murat: It wasn’t just us, it was the whole place, the whole Weekend. Everybody was really enjoying it. We were having a big party and that was so great. People came up and asked said, “Hey that was great, who is she?” and I said, “I don’t know!” “You didn’t rehearse?” “No we just jammed.” [Achim] did some parts on the 707 and I rearranged some parts spontaneously…

Achim: It was really the first time we started improvising. We had room to improvise, but it was still an arrangement and with her coming in spontaneously we had to make some room for her voice. It was the first time we really just took bits and pieces of different tracks, put drums together to create something totally new and just follow her vibe.

Murat: For me, it was the first time I really felt like a band. You melt with the crowd. It’s so great to give something to the crowd and get something back, it was so great. I thought I really wanted to have that as much as I can.

Do you plan to include her in future projects?

Both: Definitely, of course.

[Go to Part 2 of LWE's interview with Prosumer & Murat Tepeli]