[Ostgut Ton]

It’s no easy task beginning to provide commentary on the work of a producer whose career in music carries the magnitude of Tobias Freund’s. With a career that spans four decades, the German producer fits more ably into the role of artist rather than as something as thinly defined as producer, particularly within an age where anyone with a computer and a sound card can label themselves as such. His first solo album under his tobias. moniker befits that role of artist with the revered Freund exploring the structures and rhythms of his musical experiments, paying no heed to trends, dance floor pay-offs or expectations from an instant-gratification prone consumer. Leaning Over Backwards, then, is an album that gracefully sidesteps expectation, revealing the work of an artist interested only in expounding his theories through working practice. That practice is worked through with a largely analog aesthetic, Freund dismissing the easy advantages of using systems such as Ableton as being too formulaic and essentially emotionless, choosing instead the mechanical thrum of analog gear to patch together more varied results.

These results start with the low-end, pulsing murmur of “Girts,” its muddied percussion trying to push through — but existing somewhere just below the surface of a vaporous swell of white noise and bass. Freund moves into more upbeat territory with “Party Town,” a track based around a single, throbbing, off-beat chord and a bare minimum of percussion to accent the atmospheric, nocturnal sounds that add texture to the track. Like “Skippy,” it is driven by a circuitous groove rather than by progressive melodies and arrangements. The latter track though swaps out the incessant chord stab for a repetitive vocal snippet, the word becoming more ambiguous as the track goes on, one of those tunes that seriously mess with your brain when you hear it out at a club. The only other real floor cut on the album is “We Stick To The Plan,” which, though similarly understated, possesses more of a feeling of organic movement rather than the mechanical kinetics of “Party Town” and “Skippy.” Slight synth chords detach themselves from the steady, undulating bass line, releasing complimentary metallic reverberations that are accented by such light touches of percussion they work almost subliminally. The title track, although driven by a 4/4 beat, doesn’t really qualify as serious dance floor material, its hollow kick drum not forceful enough to create anything more than a surge in the atmospheric nature of the track. That atmosphere sounds very much like an ethereal stay in an airport transit terminal, the sounds of jet engines tuned to a haunted timbre, the PA system crackling with incoherent vocoded messages.

As experimental as these tracks are, the rest of the album diverges even further into empirical territory, Freund coaxing out an unsettling, arpeggiated beauty from “Voices Told Me To Do That” that sounds like off-cut melodies from an Aphex Twin Analogue Bubblebath work married with muffled, mud splattered drums. “Zero Tolerance” charts a tension-filled four-and-a-half minutes of passive aggressive relationship monologue bubbling up under a palpitating rhythm that plays out like the internal pulse of blood pressure, increasing to the point where it is an audible cadence in the ears and temples. “Free No.1″ is a slow-mo electro cut wired with gently evolving synth lines that sounds like Drexciya on temazepam. Freund further explores electro on “The Key,” this time with even more obvious Detroit overtones, sounding like a close relative to Carl Craig’s classic “Televised Green Smoke.” It is these free-form excursions that really give weight to the album, but will no doubt also divide potential consumers on whether they will purchase an Ostgut Ton release that is primarily made for home listening. When considering the quality and the scope of the album however, this shouldn’t really factor into that decision. As Freund has said himself on its making, he wanted to create a classic album that was a listening experience, something you would still want to listen to in 10 years. And with all the intricacies and buried details of Leaning Over Backwards, tobias. has done just that.

In our interview with Uwe Schmidt, the venerable producer noted that Tobias Freund was one of the few producers with whom he’d shared a stage. “It’s perfect musical communication on stage, which most importantly is great fun with him,” he asserted. Together the pair have made several records, all without ever entering a studio. Their latest was likewise recorded live, this time at Berlin’s techno palace, Berghain, and released on Pomelo. This week’s download is an excerpt from that record, nearly 13 minutes of grimy, improvised techno that begins to burn with acidic arpeggios and hi-hat flurries as it progresses. Our thanks to Pomelo, Schmidt and Freund for offering up this inimitable piece.

Atom™ + Pink Elln, “Live At Berghain — Side B”

After a week of recuperation, LWE’s Jordan Rothlein and Chris Miller offer their thoughts on this year’s Unsound Festival New York.

Festivals have never really been North America’s strong suit, at least for house and techno. Yes, DEMF and Mutek have been providing those of us on this side of the Atlantic with expertly curated and executed festivals for over a decade now, but when contrasted with the glut of festivals over in Europe it hardly seems fair. New York, perhaps most unfairly, has always had problems putting on any kind of techno festival (surely no one needs to be reminded of Minitek). And yet, in the past couple years, the festival scene in New York has improved dramatically, to the surprise of pretty much everyone. Electric Zoo has managed to be wildly successful, but in terms of booking seems to become less attractive to dance music fans of more discerning taste each year.

Enter one of the most inspired developments in New York’s festival scene in quite some time: last year’s inauguration of the Unsound Festival’s New York edition. Unsound has been long respected as one of Europe’s premier festivals when it comes to heady and experimental electronic music, and last year’s events went off without a hitch (aside from the ever-present visa problems, which this year’s edition was not spared from either). For 2011, Unsound New York was consolidated into five intense days of chamber music, dance music, and practically everything in between. With so much going on it was near impossible to catch all of the riches on offer, especially with ever-present work and school concerns, so what follows in less a thorough review of everything that happened and more the reflections of two LWE writers on a truly massive couple of days of music.

Before the festival itself began in earnest, five days of small events known as the Unsound Labs took place at scattered locations around New York. I was lucky enough to catch the last of these labs, Cinema for the Ear, presented by ((audience)) at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center. Taking place in a pitch-black movie theater without any visuals, the program consisted of works by numerous electronic artists in 5.1 surround sound, all exploring the theme of horror. Raime, the hotly tipped UK duo whose two debut releases have been very well received, provided the highlight of the evening with a genuinely frightening piece full of disquieting panting and sinister noises. They also used the 5.1 sound better than anyone else, panning sounds around the room to an eerie and disorienting effect. Felix Kubin’s piece contained snippets of noises recorded at night and fragments of narration in German (the words “extrem dunkel” struck me as particularly appropriate), while Demdike Stare’s contribution was short but sweet, using some of the themes found on their previous work in a new context.

Steve Reich. Photo by Stephen Cardinale

The festival proper kicked off on Wednesday night with the official opening at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, seeing New York’s techno denizens (attempt to) mix with higher society. Sinfonietta Cracovia started things on their own with performances of pieces by Krzysztof Penderecki and Steve Reich. The ominous and chilling moods that are the hallmark of Penderecki’s compositions, combined with projections of birds flying around at dusk, sent quite a chill down the audience’s collective spine, whereas the following two pieces by Steve Reich (both exclusively for stringed instruments) lightened things up a bit. After a short break Sinfonietta Cracovia came back with Daníel Bjarnason and Ben Frost for the main event: “We Don’t Need Other Worlds. We Need Mirrors – Music For Solaris.” Given the intensity, loudness, and sheer physicality of Ben Frost’s music I was eager to see how it would translate once backed by prepared piano and a full orchestra in one of the most upper class venues in all of New York. Instead, Frost and Bjarnarson’s piece opted for extreme subtlety.

Ben Frost. Photo by Stephen Cardinale

Sinfonietta Cracovia. Photo by Stephen Cardinale

Sinfonetta Cracovia played throughout as if they were their own delay units, issuing haunting swells of sound while Bjarnarson played the role of conductor as he contributed stirring notes from his prepared piano. Frost, who quickly removed his shoes, used two guitars and a laptop with Ableton Live to transmit otherworldly drones that, at certain critical moments, grew until the whole of Alice Tully Hall was submerged in sub-bass. Accompanying the music were “film manipulations” from Brian Eno, which turned out to be pretty unnecessary. The opening part of the visuals featured the face of an older man that transformed slowly into that of a younger one (which ran in reverse at the end), and it was a nice effect, but on the whole I was happy when the visuals ended and my mind was left to concentrate solely on the music, which was extraordinary.

Morton Subotnick. Photo by Stephen Cardinale

Thursday saw the arrival of LWE editor-in-chief Steve Mizek, and after catching up we headed back up to Lincoln Center for “Modular Dreams.” This event was at the David Rubenstein Atrium, an intriguing indoor venue with great sound as well as sandwiches from ‘Wichcraft, should you get hungry. Morton Subotnick played the first hour from behind a seriously impressive modular synth setup. The first half of his performance was characterized by chaotic, unmistakably modular sounds that layered and wormed inside each other, always with a rhythmic intensity underlying the whole thing. His set then slowly drifted into more laid-back sections, continuously impressing with his mastery over the machines in front of him. Lillevan provided the visuals and, unlike the night before, they were engaging and complimented Subotnick’s music perfectly.

Atom™. Photo by Stephen Cardinale

David Rubenstein Atrium. Photo by Stephen Cardinale

After a short pause the man born Uwe Schmidt but billed as Atom™ stepped up in his sharpest jacket/turtleneck combo and stood behind an MPC. Schmidt’s visuals were split-screened, with his MPC display screen on the left side and more aesthetic ones on the right. The beats came quickly, and it was a real joy to watch, in real time, as Schmidt switched patterns, changed effects parameters and even altered time signatures. While I stayed seated primarily because that seemed to be the “proper” thing to do, Atom™’s set made me want to stand up and jerk my body around to his addictive, jacking rhythms. His set was occasionally interrupted by videos of various Uwe Schmidt ventures (the first of Señor Coconut and the second from 2009′s Liedgut album), and during his final segment the pattern on the MPC read “Good Night!” and, with the feedback on the delay pushed up, Schmidt simply walked right out of the building. Always a showman, Atom™’s set was one of the festival’s true highlights, a display of an artist at the height of his talents.

Badawi. Photo by Zach Dilgard

Friday night saw us head to Public Assembly for the first of the Bunker parties, this one being the much-anticipated Bass Mutations party. We walked in to find one of New York’s finest, Dave Q, slaying the back room with junglist vibes. Low-end oozed out of the subs and seemingly transported us to the seedier alleys of London. Dave Q was followed by Raz Mesinai, whose music as Badawi is as involved in the project of bass mutation as anyone. Obscured by sunglasses, hoodie, and gigantic hair, Mesinai was a playfully menacing presence on the back room stage, and his set similarly combined the low-end of dubstep with compositional strategies that would feel at home in more academic musical quarters. Though it lacked the electricity that Shackleton (an artist he’s worked with and with whom he shares a certain gloominess) brings to live performance, Badawi’s set was deeply considered: themes would appear and reappear, time signatures would shift, and high energy proved a fleeting but seductive presence.

Lone. Photo by Seze Devres

One of the most anticipated performances of the week for us was Lone’s. Now synonymous with a brand of house that’s equal parts raved-up and wistfully dreamy, the man born Matt Cutler may have been a strange fit after Badawi’s doom-laden set, but he very quickly filled the room with a welcome glow. While the tunes — selections pulled straight from his excellent Emerald Fantasy Tracks album and other compositions that are obviously from the same era — were great and the crowd still had their early evening enthusiasm, Lone’s set felt like it was only halfway there. Beyond the occasional chop-up and stutter, the music didn’t feel particularly transformed by the live setting, and we weren’t sure Cutler has enough depth to his discography to let the tracks carry themselves. And Cutler, suffering from severe laptop captivation, wasn’t really doing much in the way of selling the tracks. It was by no means awful, but we all agreed that the Lone live PA was still in its infancy.

Badawi. Photo by Zach Dilgard

The contrast with Sepalcure, the Brooklyn-based duo of Praveen Sharma and Travis “Machinedrum” Stewart, was pretty extreme. High up on the front room stage, they were having as much fun as anyone in the crowd. Their mood was contagious, but regardless, their live set is difficult to argue with. It’s their chops as electronic musicians that allows them to be as animated as they are on stage, so even amidst the veritable dance contest taking place on stage, their chunky beats and simmering synth textures stayed well within the pocket. Their material from their two Hotflush EPs continues to sound fresh, and the multitude of new sounds that provided glue for the set has us very excited both for the next Sepalcure transmission and the high-profile solo material each member has on the way this summer. But we’re making the educated guess that one of the set’s most unexpected highlights, the chorus of Corona’s “Rhythm of the Night” sitting seamlessly in the mix with a humid Sepalcure riddim, probably won’t be getting pressed to vinyl anytime soon.

Kode9. Photo by Seze Devres

Appleblim. Photo by Seze Devres

After quickly grabbing some drinks we rushed back to the back room to catch the beginning of Kode9′s set, perhaps unsurprisingly starting with Burial’s recent “Street Halo.” His short, hour and a half set managed to encompass most forms of modern bass music, hitting some recent favorites (cuts from Pearson Sound and Addison Groove were highlights) as well as plenty of tracks we hadn’t heard before. After Kode9 finished it was Appleblim’s turn to man the decks and remind everyone why his name is so revered. A couple of minutes of dubbed out, fathoms-deep techno kicked things off and soon we were navigating from the dry and jacking (Kowton’s “She Don’t Jack”) to the melodic and glorious heights of SCB’s “Loss.” Having been on our must-see list for quite some time and just narrowly missing him on numerous occasions, Appleblim’s set made up for all of those missed opportunities by being supremely focused and, in a word, transcendent. The dude has a knowledge and flow that few equal. Every point of his set seemed to have a purpose and point towards what was coming next, and even tracks about which we’re rather lukewarm (his “Void 23″ collaboration with Ramadanman) worked wonders. A tempting live set from Spatial loomed, but our tired legs refused to let us continue, so it was time to hit the sack and prepare for Saturday.

Tin Man. Photo by Seze Devres

When we arrived at Public Assembly on Saturday night, DJ Olive of New York’s thinking-man’s dance imprint The Agriculture was laying a thick shmear of dreamy bass on the front room. It was difficult to concentrate on much other than Tin Man’s impending live PA, however. When the man otherwise known as Johannes Auvinen stepped up to his laptop, microphone, and 707 on the front room stage, the crowd — small at first, but growing with each 12-bit handclap — was immediately pulled into whatever warmly bleak world this guy comes from. Combining recent hits (the massive “Nonneo,” the perhaps massive-er “Lost In L.A.” from his forthcoming Perfume long-player) with wholly unfamiliar acid jams seemingly built just for his live show, Auvinen gave us the best of both worlds — a recitation of what’s made this guy awesome so far, and goose-pimply reminder that he’s likely to continue his awesome streak for quite some time. Our one complaint was how low those signature Tin Man vocals sat in the mix, but something tells me Auvinen, who in crisp white shirt and dark slacks could have been mistaken for a wayward management consultant, wanted to keep them as mysterious and un-bombastic as possible. Sultry yet subtly jacking, the set was a festival highlight from a producer whose prolific output has thus far been 2011′s highlight.

Octave One. Photo by Zach Dilgard

We quickly shuffled into the back room to catch the second half of Octave One’s live set. Barely visible behind the mountain of analog gear that has become the staple of their blistering live set, the duo were already pretty far along in methodically slaying all in attendance. Something about the vibe told me that they hadn’t played “Blackwater” yet, and low and behold, about ten minutes after we got situated, they let it drop. Not that such a track ever really gets old, but I was thrilled to note that their classic hasn’t stood still: though still anchored by Ann Saunderson’s vocals, subtly updated sonics make today’s “Blackwater” no straight copy of 2000′s “Blackwater.” The techno onslaught continued with Samuli Kemppi, who delivered just the kind of intense set of anonymous floor-fillers the Bunker is known for. We danced until we couldn’t stand anymore and then briefly sought refuge in the chillout cove in the front room, knowing we’d need to summon the energy for Atom™ and Pink Elln.

Atom™ & Pink Elln. Photo by Seze Devres

Tobias Freund seems to exist for the sole purpose of reminding us how techno should be done. Likewise, Uwe Schmidt teaches us to expect more out of electronic music than a soundtrack for grinding and/or drug-taking. How the two combine in a live setting as Atom™ & Pink Elln has been well documented, so we had some idea of the sort of wild acid ride we’d be taken on in their first North American performance together. But while techno was in full effect as the duo perched over their gear, Schmidt and Freund stayed firmly in control, never letting their beats bulk up too much. Likewise, a warmth — that swelling, room-filling rumble only an analog drum machine can properly deliver — permeated their set, effectively de-icing their brand of minimalism. We stood somewhat in awe of these guys and these sounds for quite a few moments, but we quickly realized their set was very much something we should be dancing to. We summoned some strength, busted some moves on the still-packed back room dance floor, and gave our Unsound weekend a proper sending-off.

Though we didn’t attend every event, and while the festival seemed to be somewhat pared down from last year, Unsound remains overwhelming. Fortunately, though, the festival inundates with quality, not quantity. Rather than spend a day bouncing between outdoor stages or tents, or choosing between millions of disparate showcases, Unsound puts some of the most exciting players in contemporary electronic music in awesomely curated lineups and well-suited venues. We techno nerds are so spoiled for choice here in New York most weekends that it often feels like no party is truly unmissable; if you can’t make it out to one, there will surely be another that eclipses it within a month. But between Tin Man and Atom™, Kode9 and Sepalcure, Ben Frost and Appleblim, and the countless others who filled some of the city’s best venues over a long early spring weekend, Unsound this year felt pretty damn essential.

[Non Standard Productions]

“Korg, EML, Roland, Eventide, Doepfer, MFB, Apple.” Sound gurus Max Loderbauer and Tobias Freund may have composed the pieces that comprise Sync, their latest nsi. album, but the conspicuous credit they give on the back cover to some of the most lauded names in electronics makes me think coordinated might be the better verb. Indeed, the names of these “pieces for drummachine and sequencer” are all written in a code that corresponds to the specific hardware used to create them, metal boxes ranging from the canonical (the Korg MS-20) to the idiosyncratic (the Make Noise MATHS). And while nsi.’s genius is the obvious spark that got this gear on its grind, and while these bleeps and bloops will sound familiar to anyone who’s been following their collaboration, Sync doesn’t feel like the group’s next logical step so much as a blatant restatement of purpose: these are nsi.’s machines, and this is everything they can do.

Their range is undeniably impressive. From downtrodden stutterings and twitches of aggression to surprisingly supple etudes that under less stringent conditions might have developed into club jams for Freund’s solo project tobias., these 24 fleeting interactions are a testament to the myriad possibilities a sharp producer can derived from very little. They also hammer home how much personality actual circuitry can exude. As the heirloom clicks of a veritable synth museum wheeze through a blanket of weirdly beautiful hiss and hum, a kind of creaky simulacrum of minimal techno emerges, sometimes maintaining a regular pulse and sometimes stripped of any sort of rhythmic center. If you played T++ or Alva Noto for a bunch of sentient pre-MIDI synths and asked them to imitate what they just heard, Sync very well might be the result. Loderbauer and Freund are nothing if not thorough in squeezing all the juice out of their gear: they’ve covered their bases so well that it’s honestly hard to imagine how they could have created a 25th track.

Whether they’ve been too thorough, however, depends entirely on how much their concept grabs you. By about halfway through, you may start having a hard time differentiating what you’re hearing now from what you heard ten minutes ago, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to wonder whether nsi. is still proving its point or just trying to make you drool over sick hardware. I think this album works best when you ignore any inherent vanity in the project and approach it instead as a kind of analog spa treatment: I pop on my headphones, shut my eyes, and let myself get poked and prodded for a quick fifty minutes. Because for all of its formalism and exactitude (and utter nerdiness), Sync has a curious warmth you may find yourself being drawn back to.

In this interview we chat with Uwe Schmidt about his recent work and his observations on the challenges surrounding contemporary music. The prolific musician’s discography and list of aliases are but a trace of his sundry activities that juggle multiple processes and concepts. Schmidt started making acid house and techno in Frankfurt in the 1980s under a number of aliases including Atom Heart. As the years went on, he navigated various forms of electronic music through his recordings for Pete Namlook’s FAX label and his own Rather Interesting. Relocating to Santiago in 1997, Schmidt has since incorporated into his repertoire a number of projects fusing electronics with Latin instrumentation and rhythm, most notably as Señor Coconut. His generous responses to our questions and the insightful observations he makes indicate a grizzled mind and creative force who remains thoroughly engaged with the changing structures that are radically reshaping music today. (Schmidt is playing two shows at Unsound Festival NYC this week, click here for more info.)

Seemingly like a backlash against minimal techno, there is now a widespread revisitation of various forms of “classic” electronic dance music. It deals with building consensus on what are electronic dance music’s histories, their conventions, their characters, their hallmarks, their sounds, then repeating or celebrating them, much like in a neo-classical manner. How do you feel about this?

Uwe Schmidt: My problem with what’s still called “electronic music” today, and which sadly only means “dance music,” is the fact that it appears to be and is marketed as “progressive” music, while truth is that it has not developed in any significant form for the last 20 years or so. The “no-progress” in itself is not a bad thing, I just think that label, which “electronic dance music” is carrying, is misleading and wrong. What I miss is this type of music coming to its true essence instead of promoting it under a false pretext. “Electronic dance music” is as “new” or “progressive” as my TV set. I think it is necessary to strip that label “progressive/innovative” off that type of music in order to be able to re-initiate a process of real musical progress. The so-called “minimal techno,” in my opinion, is just the tip of the ridiculous iceberg. The name “minimal techno” itself I never fully understood and somehow see it as practical joke of some sort. I mean, “acid” in 1988 was already minimal techno. Most electronic dance music I have heard in clubs for the last 20-25 years already WAS minimal techno. I honestly don’t get it, how one can seriously label contemporary music that way — AGAIN — and somehow think that it describes anything different from what there was. Maybe you can help me out?

Going back and forth between different historical types of electronic dance music, as you described, is certainly a step forward, in the sense that it is recognized as a stagnated musical style with more or less clearly defined borders. Back in 1994 I asked for such, as I would call it a frank definition of electronic dance music, simply because I found it wrong to see reactionary people dressed in “innovative” clothes. It reminded me strongly of the entire “authenticity” discourse of rock music, for example, which is equally wrong, misleading and altogether covers the music itself in an unnecessary mist of meaning and false truth. To see that very same thing happening to electronic music at the beginning of the ’90s I found quite shocking, I have to say, and I decided that I did not want to become a part of that. To me it felt and still feels ridiculous to act as a supercool, innovative electronic music dance act on a silver stage, on a party sponsored by a supercool, innovative cell phone company, knowing that I’m selling well-established, out of date musical code.

Celebrating electronic dance music, as you said, in a neo-classical manner, is of course, historically speaking, a logical step that has been overdue, yet had to happen at some stage. To me that is a good sign, since we can hopefully close the book pretty soon and finally work on some real progress.

One of your most recent releases, Music is Better Than Pussy, is a critique of the (un-)creative process of making dance music. To what extent are you deploying dance music tropes in irony or earnestness?

I wouldn’t say that this particular album was a critique. It does contain SOME critical lyrics, true, yet, the entire process of making that album was mainly born out of the interest to produce those tracks. Let’s say the lyrics, the criticism, the humor, etc. are just some flavors that spice up the album — such as the title of course. Talking about the criticism which had to do with “earnestness” to a certain degree, it had to do with looking at what’s going on within the scene of so-called “electronic dance music.” Quite some time ago, as a part of some self-analysis process, I looked around myself, at the people/colleagues/contacts around me, the scene I somehow found myself in, and I realized one important thing: that the reasons of WHY certain people make certain music are what differentiates them from each other.

Sadly I found myself surrounded by way too many “musicians” making music for reasons other than an interest in music itself. Not always, listening to the “product” this becomes clear of course, yet as soon as one has to deal with “the scene” it becomes more than evident who is doing what for which reason. To my regret, I realized that I had just nothing to do with the vast majority of my drifting companions, and some lyrics on Music is Better Than Pussy talk about that. In other words, “making music” can be triggered by a huge variety of reasons: making music unfortunately is just one of them, and sadly, the one that represents a minority of musicians. As the years passed I got more and more conscious and ultimately allergic to a certain type of human being music makers and more and more isolated myself from the scene I tend to be allocated in. This, in itself, does not have to do much with “earnestness” as good rock and roll doesn’t have much to do with “authenticity,” but to me it’s rather a question of personal hygiene. Bad people make bad music.

In what ways do you think musicians can express themselves in, as you say in Liedgut, the delirium of present times (“im rauschen der gegenwart”)? What struggles are they facing? What contemporary themes do you and others deal with, or not deal with?

I think that one of the biggest problems electronic music, or, rather, music itself is confronted with nowadays is just the “delirium of present times.” What I miss so much are personal signatures. Personality is made unrecognizable underneath that layer of “present times.” It’s actually a lot of work and requires a lot of determination, energy and strength to position YOURSELF on top of those layers, or at least find a well-defined spot within the chaos. Unfortunately, most music I hear today is either made by people that long for acceptance by the present times, or by people who are totally unaware of how generic they actually are. This itself would not be a problem if we were talking about jazz, rock, or any other historic musical style, but especially within “electronic music,” once [considered] a label of progress, innovation, craft and personality, I find the generic hard to take.

Photo by Dieter Wuschanski

It’s always been of importance, to any artist, to transform your times into YOUR times. More and more so this has become an almost impossible task. Quoting Gary Clail, who said in one of his recent interviews something like “We all are edits.” I really love that phrase, because it explains so well our current state, as well as the current difficulty: to become aware of the edits and finally to start re-editing yourself!

You mentioned that music and art have been thrown into a system of free economics. When music was first recorded, economics was characterized by mass production and industrialization. When music became portable and critical appropriation (remix, sampling, etc.) was a dominant artistic mode, economics was characterized by services. Up until several years ago, one could say economics was about transforming debt into securities, but then the system of financialization collapsed. How do you view music in light of this most recent economic development?

I think that music itself is changing, just in the very same way it changed from the pre-recording to the recording age. That may be hard to understand and even harder to explain. It’s not only the musical language that is changing, but what music is, how it sounds, where it appears, how it makes us feel, and so on. All that is being transformed right now. Mainly this has to do with the fact that music is still strongly linked to the economic system, which in itself is in crisis, and most probably won’t make it much longer if the fundamental structures of it aren’t changed.

As a second observation, one can say that the process of how music is progressing through time can be described as new ideas flowing into the mainstream from the rims of the creative pool. “The rims,” the outskirts, the minorities come up with new ideas hence they are the innovators (in most cases), while those ideas are picked up and transformed into the cultural mainstream where popularization is taking place. With the new conditions of music industry, one can say that the rims are getting smaller and smaller day by day. The interesting question to me is, from which source the mainstream will be nourished in the future with no or very little innovation to be sucked in from the borders. We are no doubt standing at the very beginning of an era where this is happening and still don’t know which results this will bring for music in general.

One way we can measure the music industry is by how records are selling. If we look at a recent chart, we can see that the music industry is doing terribly. Material formats of music are being outmoded, but immaterial formats like downloading, streaming services, and subscription-based services can barely provide artists with compensation. Per unit of time, recorded music is worth less than it once did by about a factor of three hundred. No matter if it’s mainstream or underground, the costs of producing music (from recording and manufacturing to distribution and marketing, etc.), are changing. How do you as an artist, and perhaps just as importantly a person who runs a record label, work within these constraints?

A couple of years ago, I would say from 2003 onwards, when participating in panels and discussion groups, I realized that for the first time we the artists asked questions like, “What is the future of music industry?” Frankly, for many decades an artist would have been the last one to be asked such question. I realized that had to do with the proper cluelessness of the music industry itself. Now, since years have passed and the overall situation has become more and more dramatic, one was confronted with, let’s call it “the practical issues” of such decline of music industry. Instead of lamenting the decline, which is a common human tendency, I decided to try to turn it into my favor. Most importantly to me, it has to be seen that the relationship between the composition itself, the recording, the reproduction and the sound carrier needs to be redefined under the decline of economics, which up until today defined those parameters.

In other words, economics, the so-called “music business” decided which musical code/language/style, was recorded how/where/if at all and according to which sound carrier how and where it was consumed and reproduced. We the artists gladly adopted the formats such as the 7-inch, 12-inch, EP, album and finally the CD and made them the defining borders of our musical composition. Now, instead of lamenting the no-sales of albums, I received a tremendous feeling of freedom, when I realized that from now on my musical code was no longer related to any format whatsoever! I CAN produce an album, but I don’t have to. It CAN have 20 minutes or six hours — it’s from now on entirely up to me. That said, I think almost everybody is currently drifting around a fuzzy realm once called “market,” trying to inject it with sense and a user’s manual. I personally find that very entertaining and it has certainly inspired me musically.

A second issue has to do with your previous questions. The crisis, to my delight, has been and still is putting a lot of pressure on every artist. This has led to a process of purification, if I may call it that. More and more “ex-musicians” have abandoned music since they realized how little money can actually be made by making it. On the other hand, those who are in it for the money now have to clearly go the commercial route, which means they no longer can mix between the credible folks Even though making a living from music hasn’t become easier, making music has become so much more fun!

What role do you believe physical formats of music have today? Can physical formats take new forms? Since this is an electronic dance music site, please feel free to elaborate on or avoid the well-discussed implications they have for DJ culture, etc.

Though I am not an economist, I believe to have understood that every market after a period of expansion shrinks down to its “natural” size. Every now and then that size is so small that the market disappears or transforms into something else. When looking at formats such as cassette tapes or vinyl, the very same is true. In some countries for example, cassette tapes are still a huge market. In other countries 12-inches that contain certain types of music are still an important format for a certain group of consumers, and so on. The CD, for example, does have a strong link to a specific type of music and is necessary for that music to be listened to. What is happening right now is that in the turmoil of economic re-definition, physical and non-physical formats have to find their places and sizes within that structure. All this is in the making, I think, and we have not come to a stable situation yet.

That physical formats are taking new forms is already happening, I think. All kinds of mixed formats — books with USB sticks, CDs AND download codes, hard discs, etc. are being invented and tested. The final place of the physical format has to do with which type of music is related to which type of consumer who belongs to which sociological sub-group. We can see that music has expanded into almost any corner of our society, from cell phones to websites, elevators, malls, and so on. In all those corners music functions as a texture, like a color or a smell which people need in order to socialize “in the right place.” For the majority of corners in which we socialize physical sound carriers are no longer needed, and the existing ones are moved into the corners they belong to.

Photo by Dieter Wuschanski

As recordings are valued less due to their reproduceability, musicians rely more on the value of their performances, because they are unique, experiential and less prone to reproduction. Someone can record an Atom™ live set and post it as an mp3 to the web, but it’s hardly the same as experiencing you perform in person. How do you value performances versus recordings?

I have always considered them entirely different experiences and therefor, as Atom™ for example, never tried to play a recording, nor tried to reproduce the complexity of a recording at a live concert. The performance and the recording are entirely different as experiences themselves and in my opinion are necessary in order to understand the work of an artist. I would most certainly not like to see my activities reduced to just one of the two. However, live performances are only possible by producing a repertoire. A repertoire does not necessarily need to be recorded, though in most cases producing a repertoire can be seen as a process similar to “producing a recording.” Musicians are in a studio/rehearsal space together and compose new material. The compositions are either just recorded live or indeed recorded, so final “live versions” can be produced from those. Live performances require a lot of “unseen/unheard” work before they actually become reality. Established artists do have that repertoire, while artists which are just starting to establish themselves are trapped in a situation where they need to have a repertoire/name/record deal to play gigs, while at the same time need to have played gigs in order to get a record deal/produce a repertoire. No gigs, no deal, no deal, and no gigs! So the interlinking between the recording and the live performance, in my opinion, is fairly underrated.

The technological tools of our time, with the Internet being the dominant, promise new complexities and theories of music. Yet you find the opposite and are puzzled by it; at a moment of freedom, we create less diversity. Could it be that we’re at a stage where we’re still mining all of the information made recently available to us on the net, and as soon as its absorbed, something explosive will happen? This is to say, can we start to use what you call decadence as fuel for creativity?

I guess you are well aware of the irony that lies within that situation you described! In another interview I recently stated that technologically speaking, music now days can/could take ANY shape at all. The making of music and the possibilities we are holding in our hands are pretty incredible! Just as with images, sound can be entirely modified down to the pixel. Now, interestingly the hippest thing seems to be “minimal techno.” How can that be? How is it possible that in times where technologically merely everything is possible, the variety of music and most importantly, the interest in exploring those possibilities is so little. It’s a complex problem and I don’t have the answer, to be honest.

There are many factors which determine a musical “product.” Most importantly the market and the economics which sadly define whether something is “possible” or not. There are very few artists which are able to produce without economics in mind. I guess it all comes down to personal decision making here. But if you want to make some money, the easy way is the generic formula. Further, there is technology itself which is just another of the above mentioned “layers” that bury the artist under an incredible burden of possibilities and options.

Years ago for example, I realized that I had been dragged away by the stream of upgrades, updates and new possibilities. It took me a while to understand that I had lost control of my very tools themselves (which are of course part of the economic system too, therefore need to be renewed faster and faster). As an “electronic music” composer, one is strongly tied to the technological tools that are provided by the system. Due to the huge amount of tools available, each single one of them offering huge amounts of possibilities itself, and the rapid fluctuation of platforms and tools, one hardly ever gets to know the very same tools in fact. In other words, most musicians are using the surface of the tools, the presets and the pre-defined logical paths. The problem is complete when, because of economic reasons, a production has to be done fast and therefore never allows the tools to be fully explored.

As for the second half of your question, and your theory of “explosion,” I would like to contrast it with a theory F. Jean Baudrillard, who more than 20 years ago stated that we are heading towards an implosion, not towards an explosion. Back then, when I read Baudrillard’s words, I was fascinated by them yet could not imagine how an implosion would feel like. Unfortunately, today I perfectly understand what he meant and feel very attracted to such theory. Let’s say, little innovation in times of huge expansion of knowledge and possibilities, makes total sense when looking at it as an implosion.

You’ll be performing at the Unsound Festival in New York with Pink Elln, aka Tobias Freund. Your collaboration started 18 years ago with the release of Elektronikkaa 1&2 / Electronique. What do you and he consider to be important about your work together? Are there any constants that run throughout these 18 years? Has anything remained the same, and what has changed?

This may be explained perfectly well by a short story. To start with, Tobias and myself have worked very, very little in studios together. Even though he is the engineer who mixed my very first album back in 1989, we never really “made music” together in a studio. Somehow we ended up playing live concerts at a very early stage, in 1992. Sometime around 1995 we stopped playing together since each one of us was taking different paths. Almost 10 years later, at the MUTEK Chile festival in Valparaiso, we decided to play a show together. We did not even rehearse that show, but just brought our equipment to the stage, hooked it up and simply played the show which lasted almost two hours. Standing on stage with him, I realized that we actually hadn’t rehearsed, just very briefly outlined the show verbally while the rest was improvisation. During the entire show we never spoke a word on stage, gave orders or anything. It was just “playing together,” and after not having played together for 10 years. So to me, Tobias is one of the very, very few people I have shared a stage with, with whom I can do something like that. It’s perfect musical communication on stage, which most importantly is great fun with him.

Finally, what’s on the horizon for Uwe Schmidt?

For Uwe Schmidt, like for anyone else, it’s the light!

[BPitch Control]

If you’re like me, you’re heading into Ellen Allien’s latest album, Dust, with rather high hopes. While her recent singles have merited less and less of listeners’ time and recent, CD-captured DJ sets have proven uninspiring at best, the album format is where she’s shined consistently. Her 2003 electro-pop album Berlinette remains a highlight for many, and Orchestra of Bubbles, her 2006 collaboration with Apparat, ranks among my personal favorite albums of all time. Even Sool, a post-minimal treatise co-produced with AGF, managed to intrigue rather than bore with its abstract and reduced sounds. Dust, co-produced by Tobias Freund, integrates the sparseness of Sool with more song-based structures, but unfortunately pales in comparison to its predecessors.

Those expecting to hear obvious traces of Freund’s influence will be disappointed. Rather, his production largely stays faithful to Ellen’s vision and choice of sound design. Stylistically, Dust seems like a distillation of all the elements shared among Ellen’s previous albums, but the songwriting and the quality of her arrangements just don’t hit the mark. Ellen’s straightforward techno productions are rarely her best, so it’s perhaps not a surprise that “Flashy Flashy,” with a pedestrian beat and a boring metallic hook, fails to to wow or stick in the memory. Also aimed straight at the dancefloor, “Ever” is a swirling, melodic mass that soon crumbles under its own lack of interesting ideas. “Our Utopie” seems hamstrung by its very basis — a simple bell pattern that quickly grows tiresome as it repeats and makes slight variations. “My Tree” does a significantly better job with a similar premise, its staccato piano notes subsumed by grainy bass groans that give way to a surprisingly lovely clarinet part (although it could’ve arrived a lot earlier). Freund’s influence is most felt in the ascending modular synth sequence at the heart of “Dream,” not to mention the more inspired and unpredictable drum patterning which help mark it as one of the best tunes the album has to offer.

Ellen also revisits the rock palette touched upon in previous work in more overtly song-oriented structures. She takes on the frontwoman role for “You,” chronicling a personal journey with full, unaffected vocals and a coterie of guitar fingerpicking, strums and thrumming bass guitar. Yet it feels more like Ellen is writing her own Elastica tune instead of incorporating the guitar-led sounds into her own aesthetic as she did on parts of Berlinette. Case in point, “Sun the Rain” reaches for the same tools and feels improved by its spikey surroundings rather than ostracized by them. In spite of its unsubtle nature — not one of Ellen’s stong suits at any point — it’s a clear highlight and miles better than the tropicalia flavored “Huibuh” or the untenable kosmiche funk of “Schlumi.” Given how well Ellen has worked within the pop and rock spheres in the past, her attempts to incorporate these sounds with her abstract tendencies on Dust fail to form a coherent, engaging whole. What’s more, the album offers no major departures to point to as reason the album doesn’t gel; it’s just a banal frontage road with a couple bright spots next to her more successful, fully realized ventures.

Curle Recordings, founded by DJ Fader in 2006, has championed a deep and rolling Belgian counterpart to starker Berlin sound. Building upon their series of split singles by Efdemin, Aki Latvamäki, Mark August, Dub Kult and many more, Curle went on to release Efdemin’s Carry On, Pretend We’re Not In The Room mix CD, give birth to the Métisse and Petite sub-labels, and release tunes from Thomas Brinkmann, Peter Van Hoesen & Donato Dozzy, and Stewart Walker. Not bad for five year’s work. To celebrate their five years of existence, Curle put together the 2xCD So Far (So Good) compilation. The first disc features Fader’s hand-picked tracks, including this week’s download — Tampopo’s “Helicopters Got Cameras” remixed by Tobias Freund — while the second, a data disc, includes mixes by Peter Van Hoesen, Anthony Collins, and Fader himself. The track feels like Tobias is driving a psychedelic locomotive through a mountain tunnel, its dense layers of twinkling, delayed keyboards bobbing in and out of earshot. Our thanks to Curle Recordings for generously making the mind-boggling track available for free for a week.

[Non Standard Productions]

More and more, the recordings of Max Loderbauer and Tobias Freund’s Non Standard Institute seem to parallel the ineffable and absorbing audio artifacts they namecheck from time to time — records like Cluster’s Großes Wasser, Pharaoh Sanders’ Thembi, or This Heat’s This Heat. Like those records, their latest EP sounds as though conceived through exploratory tinker-now, edit-later studio sessions where the ultimate goal isn’t necessarily a new record. All the same, their latest eccentric collection of fascinating, too-brief compositional sketches is a richly satisfying listen. Cut from the same cloth as the track LWE hosted as a free mp3 this month, you could imagine Eitherway as something like last year’s RA-podcasted Mutek set, but parsed into discrete vignettes.

[zero a="nsi." r="Eitherway"]

Clocking in at a lean two-and-a-half minutes, “Scale” opens the record with a droning melody loop and an accumulation of thwacking percussion that sounds for all the world like hail falling on a windshield. “Cabinet” quickly redirects, a sort of eerie, abbreviated take on electro-acoustic Nordic jazz (Supersilent’s “6.1″ sticks out as a point of reference). Its fragile set piece of sci-fi textures, insect-like drum machine debris, and faint snatches of piano is mainly a showcase for the modular synth that Loderbauer plays in plaintive, theremin-like moans. Later on, the woozy “Uncertainty” covers similar terrain, but with a retro palette and see-sawing momentum that verge on techno, though at some remove from the genre. Coming a bit closer, the restless title track sets galloping snares and the hot zaps of something credited as a “random voltage generator” on a nighttime chase through an ambient field of absent chimes. Likewise, the propulsive “Forward” boasts a ferocious drum pattern, but its tightly-wrapped, repetitive piano loops slide so dizzily out of sync that calling it a DJ tool seems like a cruel dare.

The record closes with “Tapped,” reprising the hurled beats of “Scale” beneath a shimmying, free-form warble best compared to a pliant sheet of metal shaken over a mic. Granted, some of that may read like a bit of a chore, but for all its analogue equipment-tweakery and unscripted musical interaction, Eitherway steers clear of the hazards of a gear-fetish geek-out or a hair-down jam. Luscious sound design and tonal variety have a lot to do with it, but the real hero is the duo’s meticulous editing. We’re whisked through six tracks in just twenty-two minutes, the pieces given only enough time to establish a palette, a pattern, and a groove before the curtains close to make way for the next track. As the duo’s press releases proclaim, it’s a “non standard” way to produce music, but it does manage to captivate — spellbind, even. It’s that old showbiz trick, I guess: always leave them wanting more.

Few electronic musicians have earned the title of “mad scientists” as thoroughly as nsi., the venerable duo of Tobias Freund and Max Loderbauer. Their productions are often the results of studio experimentation, allowing their analog synths and vintage drum machines to run wild and form tracks almost incidentally — the journey being much more important than the end destination. On Friday February 5th, as part of the Unsound Festival, nsi. will bring their sonic tinkering (and much of their analog gear) to New York City to provide the soundtrack for Andy Warhol’s seminal film, “The Kiss,” alongside Detroit techno legend Carl Craig, who will do the same for Warhol’s “The Blowjob.” There are 7:30pm and 9:30pm showings at The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, both of which will probably sell out, so get your tickets while you can.

Download: nsi., “Mont”

As an appetizer for this mouthwatering event, nsi. has generously provided LWE with the completely exclusive track, “Mont,” for your downloading pleasure. Derived from a recent live set, tts sustained, bittersweet piano chords are pocked by the click-clack drums puttering from their drum machine, shadowed by throbbing bass and unearthly affected vocals. Thanks to Max, Tobias and Unsound for track; make sure to check out nsi. February 5th.

[Non Standard Productions]

It’s always seemed to me that Tobias Freund’s Non Standards Productions have been more about sessions than tracks, and Odd Machine’s “Phase In” is no exception. For the second Odd Machine release, Freund pairs up with his old friend, Uwe Schmidt. Like many of this duo’s past collaborations (from back when Freund’s business cards still read “Pink Elln”), this session is characterized by live improvisation within established technical boundaries. Freund unsurprisingly clings to his Roland TR-808, while Schmidt gets comfy behind a vintage Linn 9000/LM2 drum machine and one of those newfangled, Lite-Brite-looking Yamaha Tenori-On machines. Get “Phase In” spinning and the first thing you’ll hear is the voice of Roger Linn giving a cook’s tour of the drum machine he designed — a telling sign of things to come.

As a bright cloud of humming tones rises (to remain hovering over most of the track), our dynamic duo launch into a cowbell-heavy percussion workout. The hiccuping rhythm is brisk, but the drum arrangements seem rather basic, actually. And while a parade of flourishes and accents offer sufficient variation, this doesn’t announce improvisation so much as structure and control. Everything is very much “on the grid.” My impression is that the percussion sounds are also left largely untreated. It’s as though the drum machines are presented “at face value,” and to a degree the tools become the subject of the music. This is, however, neither a dry academic composition nor a clunky technical demo. These two masters of sound design skillfully exploit the distinctive personalities of their devices. The swirling, gaseous oscillations prove both ethereal and colorful. Occasional shimmers of synth recall the chilly allure of mid-period Autechre. And, at bottom, the jerk-and-shuffle rhythm moves.

The complementary “Phase Out” also opens on an excerpt from an interview with Linn. This time he introduces information theory and the problem of expectation. You can hear his remarks by clicking above (or get the full BBC program here), but, in brief, he proposes that because a drum machine issues sounds that are, in adherence to pattern, anticipated, “your mind begins to tune out the drum machine itself,” regardless of loudness or bombast. Enter Freund and Schmidt with the audio aids. Behind more of the billowing swirls of timbre, a slavishly ordered drum beat runs through the length of the track. As Linn suggests, the popping rhythm quickly becomes neutral, even gentle. Unquestionably, Freund and Schmidt court this neutrality, but they also orchestrate disruption. Laid over this pattern are a series of miniature “events” — an array of plinking percussive sputters and twisting belches of sub-bass that, despite a general subtlety, can be rather jarring. An exploration of cognition and techno? Perhaps, although the same engagement of the inherent qualities and limitations of the equipment applies to “Phase Out” as well. On both sides of the record, there’s an exciting provocation to think on listening, to focus on structures and surfaces, and then to let our focus drift from the details. That’s for the mind though; Hard Wax calls this “extended tripping ambient-ish & house compatible tunes,” and I think you’ll find the body knows how to follow the beat just fine, thanks.