Kassem Mosse has always been a bit of an enigma. There are pictures of him around (though not many), and he’s got a strong internet presence, partly due to his “critics’ darling” status. He even has a Facebook page. Yet the mystery of Kassem Mosse endures, largely due to his music. Surely any producer whose tracks seem to be evenly distributed in a tempo range covering about 50 beats per minute is operating on a different tip from most. His sound appears to be wildly diverse as well, from slow-mo, bleary-eyed tunes to wiry, jacked-up workouts and back again, often on the same slab of wax. It’s this ingenuity and unflinching output that has earned the man born Gunnar Wendel acolytes from across the dance music spectrum, from UK scene-makers like Instra:mental and Joy Orbison to Omar-S and the Laid crew. But it’s his work for Workshop and Leipzig-based Mikrodisko where Wendel has let his freak flag truly fly, where his sound becomes as swampy and amorphous as it can be. We caught up with Wendel in July after his set at The Bunker to chat about context, his newest projects, and to solve the mystery of the facial-haired stamps.

How did you think your set at The Bunker went?

Gunnar Wendel: I think it went quite well. I can’t really judge from a spectator point of view, but I’m very self-critical and there’s always something that I don’t like or I would like to do better. There’s always something you can improve, because there are always changes in the set up. Al these changes keep it interesting for me, but I also have to be able to adjust to the situation. So it’s always different.

I saw you had a lot of gear up there. Had you planned on using those things?

Yeah. I contacted the promoters ahead asking if they could secure some stuff I could use. I wanted some things I know, things I know how to work and I can use, because it’s difficult, obviously, to bring so much over from Europe. If I’m in Germany it’s easy, I can take my own gear with me. But traveling to the U.S. is difficult when you have lots of gear, especially because of these power and voltage issues. It’s much easier if you have something on location. My experience has been that sometimes promoters are confused with those requests and they don’t know what I mean and they cannot get you anything. But I’ve gone to some places where you could get the most amazing gear and we didn’t know beforehand. We did it on the night. And it always works well.

I like it that way. It’s all so different, you know? If you get different types of gear, it will set a different flavor. It’s like an additional flavor. The ingredients are similar, but if you get a 909, you will have a more harsh, banging sound, as opposed to if you get an 808. It gives you a different experience.

So do you allow for a lot of improvisation in your live sets then?

Yeah, definitely. I like to keep it as open as possible, because otherwise it would be really boring to me. Obviously I don’t want to bore myself, so I try to structure my live set in such a way that I can respond to what is happening and to each situation, because you never know what crowd you will get and what the space will be like. Sometimes it is a bit more crass, sometimes it is a bit more house-y, or a bit more laid back. I can adapt to the situation. I like to be able to change the tracks in a way that they suit the situation as it is.

I also just use tracks that I’m working on, unreleased material. I rarely play stuff I have released. I played some in New York, but that was like an encore, so [laughs] it’s OK to do it, I guess. But usually I’m not fond of doing that because I don’t like this rock attitude where you have these songs and people want to hear those songs and you have to play all of those songs all the time. That’s not something that interests me. I’m more about improvisation and trying things out on the spot.

Do you think that you’ll keep honing some of the tracks from this live set and that they’ll see eventual release? Or do you like to keep stuff back for just live performances only?

I do keep stuff just for live performances. Some of the stuff I eventually wind up releasing, but often I prepare that material and I take it to a live set. I just have so many other ideas to work on back home that I don’t go back to actually finish it, and I end up just keeping it for a live set. There are certain things that work in a live set but that don’t work when you make them into a track. That’s the reason why I don’t like people recording live sets. I personally don’t like to listen to them that much because I hear all the mistakes and I think it doesn’t really translate. If you listen to these recordings then you don’t know the audience, and you don’t know the context. You don’t know the situation, so you cannot properly evaluate why somebody is doing what they’re doing. Like, “Why is this part going on for so long?” If you have a particular groove and you’re riding on that groove, it might be cool, and it might work on that specific night, but it might not be something that you want to listen to at home, right? Because it’s something that happens right there on that spot. It’s a reaction to what’s going on. It’s not something that you are producing for listening. I think that’s something is hard to get across and it probably doesn’t translate so well.

I agreed to do the Trilogy Tapes release because I like the work of Will Bankhead, and because they said it would just be a limited cassette. I’m usually not much into the idea of limited editions, but in this case it worked for me because I don’t really want to have that many live recordings out there. I wouldn’t have agreed to put this up as a download somewhere. I have some other recordings of live sets that people want to put up and I shy away from that. I mean, you can see the reason, the promotion, stuff like that, but I’m just not… it’s a different thing. You know what I mean?

Right.

It’s not a finished recording. It’s not something where you can say, “Yeah, I worked on this. I added these details. It has a certain meaning; I put a lot of work into this.” It’s a recording of something that happened that night, and I think it’s better if it stays like that. If you were there and you don’t have a recording of it, then what you have is a vague memory, and that is really all you need. I think there is a certain beauty in vague memories. You don’t need all those recordings that we have of everything nowadays. I mean, who listens to all those recordings anyway? I wouldn’t. I have some recordings of my sets, but I never listen to them, just as I never really listen to my music once it is released, honestly. Do you know the live recording from Tokyo?

Yeah.

That’s one thing I agreed to do, but only under the condition that I could edit it together with the live recording that I did from the space. We recorded the floor sound at Module so you can hear the audience and you can hear the sound from the mixer. It’s mixed together, so it’s not just a recording from the floor. That wouldn’t sound so great, so the recording of the audience is mixed with the output from the mixer. This way you relate more to what is going on. You can understand certain situations.

So when you are in your studio producing tracks that will be put out, do you try to account for the different contexts in which people will listen to your records?

No, because I can’t. I have no control. I cannot control the context in which people will listen to them. Sometimes I might think about adding things that you wouldn’t necessarily hear depending on the situation. You might not hear some things on headphones that you would in the club. Background bits, like [makes rustling sound]. Maybe some silent voices somewhere that you wouldn’t hear unless you are listening to the track very loud. I remember I did this with one track where there was some muted spoken word parts in the background. It’s pretty much silent, just one or two parts, and then it gets a little louder. I like the idea of being in a club where a track like this is being played, and then suddenly you hear a soft voice coming from somewhere, but you’re not sure if it’s coming from the recording or if it’s somebody just talking behind you.

I have some recording devices that allow me to record different places. I also like the idea of putting recordings of a space into a track, but one that isn’t necessarily the type of space where you would listen to it, so you have sort of a clash. But I cannot control context. It’s not like I sit down and think, “OK, this is going to be something for home listening.” I don’t really do that. That’s not something I care much about, actually. I’m happy that people listen, but I don’t sit down and think, “I’m gonna make a real banging club track.” I have certain sounds and ideas and I want to see what I can do with them. Whatever I make should work as a track in itself. These sound recordings I was talking about have to tie in. It has to match somehow. It has to have a certain aesthetic that fits that track, even if it’s not necessarily focussed on a particular situation. The record that I did for Laid has this bit on it that’s taken from a live recording. That’s from a live set I was playing. You probably know it: there is this one loop at the beginning and at the end which is the sound of the audience taken from a live recording. Dor from Laid approached me during a live set in Berlin and asked me to release this track. It was one of the parts of my live set and the guys at Laid were like, “Can we have it?’” and so yeah, well why not? When I finished the track I wanted to keep the idea of the live set, so you still have this relationship of how it actually came about, you know?

That was a track that played with classic house tropes in a way that you never had before, and you haven’t since. Was that planned out?

I’m happy people see it that way, but I don’t think that it is like that. For me it’s not something that tries to be a big house track. But yes, it uses some classic sounds. It’s an interesting question. I wasn’t planning on making a proper house record, but I had the basics of the track in my live set and maybe I was thinking that it would fit well with the label and that gave me an idea. I knew where it was going to come out, so I wasn’t finishing it just because I wanted to finish it. It was based on the fact that they asked me to do it, and I think in that sense there was an influence of going in that direction, because I could have taken it in other ways as well. This was just one of the possibilities. I tried to integrate some details that are based on me playing live. Like, it’s not done on a computer, it’s not automated. I like to have these kinds of human elements in it where you can… well, you probably can’t hear it, but I know it’s there. [laughs]

And then I can say to myself, “This is something I did myself. I’ve been working on it and I made it sound like this, and not some plugin.” It’s not one of those randomizer plugins that does it either. No, I do it. There is some kind of… I don’t know, human agency or something. It’s handmade, or something. I like to have an element of that in what I do. A personal element. Maybe that’s a better way of putting it.

How did you get into electronic music in general, and house and techno specifically? Was there like some sort of big moment that made you think, “I want to make house records now,” or were there some records that you heard when you were younger that really inspired you?

Yeah, there were probably some records that inspired me. It definitely was working more through records, which is at a time when it wasn’t as easy to access music as it is now. I’m from a rural area, so there were some things happening around, but if you didn’t have access to go to those places or an incentive to go there, you wouldn’t go there, so I didn’t have any teenage club experience until I moved to a bigger city. In the beginning I had no relationship to house music, but I always had a soft spot for synthetic sounds. It’s something I realize more in retrospect. When I go back and look at music I used to like when I was younger, I notice that they all have these elements in them that I still like, or they have particular drum sounds, or synthesizers and stuff. You know, stuff that I didn’t consciously realize at the time because I didn’t know how they were made, but it’s something that you subconsciously soak up in a way, and then… I started to dig deeper into electronic music.

It was a very long learning process. I’ve been recording things for a long time. I started out doing field recordings, and I have some field recordings I did with a tape recorder when I was a kid, and when I was a teenager I experimented with recording all kinds of stuff in really primitive ways. Overdubs with cassettes and stuff like that. Then I started to collect all sorts of electronic devices for cheap or from yard sales. I didn’t know how to use them, or what their purpose was even or if they were any good. But I learned along the way by acquiring new technologies and sometimes making the wrong choices. It was a very physical thing, maybe because it was such a long time ago. There was, of course, software around at that time as well, and I tried to fiddle around with that as well, but I don’t know. It didn’t catch on to me. I was more of a hands-on person.

Anyway, there wasn’t one particular moment. There wasn’t one particular record where I listened to it and it changed my life. No, I just grew into it. I was more interested in leftfield stuff anyway — anything that had an experimental edge. Then I went back to listen to where that music came from. I just connected the dots from that to all the stuff I used to like from before. Somehow it all made sense in the end.

How did you first hook up with Mikrodisko and Workshop?

Well, Mikrodisko evolved from a crew. We did parties together in Leipzig, and we started to do underground techno parties. It was a collective called Homoelektrik. There was no money involved, we just covered the overhead for the soundsystem, or it would be a free event. No one ever got paid. It was very idealistic. If we had money left we would spend it on a big dinner for all the people who had helped set things up or who had played music. It was mainly locals and everybody did everything, if you played you would also help cleaning up. Sometimes we had guests from other cities, even people that were quite known, but they too would play for the transport money, without fees. It was a really cool time. And then some of us started doing the label.

For Workshop, I knew Lowtec because he had played at one of our parties. He had a partner, Even Tuell, who had another label that was connected to Airbag Craftworks. A friend of mine, Nadine, she knew him as well and played him some of my tracks and then he asked me to do a record for them. One of the tracks on the first record was supposed to come out on a compilation, but that never happened and then they started Workshop and I just happened to be there at the right time. That’s how it came together, it was all through knowing people. I didn’t send out demos or stuff like that, it was just connecting with friends.

Workshop 03 was pretty notable at the time for the fact that two tracks on the B-side were slow, and that’s become like a much bigger thing recently. What attracts you to those slower tempos?

It’s not something that I consciously do. I don’t have a slow agenda. A lot of the electronic stuff I first got into had hip-hop roots. I’ve always been into hip-hop, and if you look at the early Warp stuff, they also had downbeat type tracks that were slow but electronic, and that’s maybe the connection. I didn’t care if these tracks were supposed to work on the floor. I never had this intention of producing DJ tools, so I didn’t bother to produce at a DJ-friendly tempo because it wasn’t something that occurred to me. It doesn’t matter. I just wanted make music and not necessarily as something that would run a party.

Sometimes I just think there are a lot of tracks that sound much better when you play them slower. Some things are really funky when you play them really fast, but then there are some house and techno tracks that, if you play them slower, have more of a groove. I like slower tempos where you can still get the impression that it is fast. You know, all these people that run around and say, “Play it faster, play it louder, play it harder!” Why? The way it feels depends on how you do it. The live set I’m doing now is at 115 BPM. I never had people complain about that and I can still do stuff that is pretty… well, I wouldn’t say aggressive, but driving. It can be slow, but it can still be driving.

I made these tracks slow because I didn’t care so much about whether they would fit in a DJ set. But then again I’m also doing tracks where I don’t know how they’re supposed to be played. That’s one of the ideas of the last single I did for Mikrodisko. It has two different tracks and it’s anyone’s guess how fast they’re supposed to be played. One is really fast and one is really slow.. or maybe they’re both really slow, or I don’t know. You can decide for yourself. I know lots of records where people just wouldn’t know what tempo to play something at. Maybe people are losing this idea, or the notion that this is actually possible. It used to be that you can play a record at 33 or 45 and it could work both ways, and now you have digital files that are just one tempo. You can pitch shift it seamlessly with modern software, but you know, it’s not the same thing. I have friends who would play records that I liked to play at 45 at 33, and you would only know that it’s not the intended tempo if you had a CD to use as a reference. But it was OK. It’s good if you have a choice how to approach, experience and enjoy a piece of music, even if it’s a silly choice like how fast you play a record.

Well this happened to yourself. When Workshop 08 came out there were some pretty heated discussions about which speed to play the B1 at, and I heard it played out numerous times at both 33 and 45.

The original recording was slow. At the time when it came out, it didn’t occur to me that people would play it fast when it was pressed onto vinyl, and to be honest, I believe it’s only because of the sample I used that they do it. Now I’m more aware of these things and keep them in mind, but at the time I didn’t think about it, and then I stopped caring. Whatever people like, play it fast, play it slow, as long as you play it it’s OK. [laughs] Personally, I don’t like it so fast. I like it played slow. I think also it’s obvious because the last track is ridiculous when you play it at 45. Whatever. It’s good if people have a choice and it’s good if they make these choices, so I’m fine with that.

Why is there always a bearded or mustachioed man on your Workshop records?

They just started with the beards and then it became this running gag. There’s not really a concept behind it. I think we have to stop now, though. It would be silly to have somebody else with a beard after this. It’s three records with beards, sort of a trilogy I guess, but time to look for something else. It’s weird because sometimes people assume I have a beard. I’ve had this recently again, which is funny because it tells you a lot about the assumptions people have just based on some stamp on a record. It’s not a picture of me. The one on the eighth record is a British cricket player from the 19th century. We picked it up when we were in Manchester, so it’s a bit based on coincidence, and again, friendly ties to the meandyou crew from Manchester.

You’ve said that the name Kassem Mosse sort of affords you a bit of anonymity due to mispronunciations and misspellings.

Well it might, in theory. Obviously it doesn’t anymore, so that’s a bit of an issue. It’s interesting because you can still find people who misspell it, so it’s still working to a degree, but in a way you are fixed with that role and that specific spelling now that evolved out of different names and misspellings. Now I’m stuck with it.

The idea of monikers and misspellings of artist names has always been a thing in techno, but now it’s all conveniently located on Discogs. Do you think that takes away some important aspect of house and techno, or is it not really a big deal?

Well, to a certain degree. I mean, there are good reasons for obscuring your identity. The point with techno used to be that it doesn’t matter who did this because you’re trying to just let the music speak for itself, and so the name isn’t really important, or how you write it is not really important. You find it also in the idea of the collective: people involved in the scene should treat each other as equals, it’s not about treating someone as “the star” but rather as someone who happens to be also part of this. If you have different monikers, it gave you an opportunity to hide behind those names, to not be a big name, to remove those preconceptions and judgements. The mutation of the name had a lot to do with doing parties as I mentioned earlier: sometimes we would just make up new names for the next event, or not have any names on the flyer at all.

Coming back to Discogs, you now easily find those lists of all the different types of spellings of a name, which is a bit silly. I mean, who really cares? But in the end it’s something you cannot work against these days anymore. The Internet requires you to have one fixed and stable version of your name. You have to make a brand out of a name. I would prefer if it we could get back to the flexibility. How a name is written or how a name is pronounced is an example of how you typecast things. I mean, in the Internet it’s all written down, but you still you have a level of flexibility in how you pronounce the name because that’s something that people don’t really know when they see it. People interpret it in different ways. I don’t want to have some music nerd who says, “This is the right way to do it. This is the right spelling. This is the correct pronunciation. This is how it’s supposed to be done.” No, it doesn’t matter. As long as you like that music and you know who we’re talking about, it doesn’t matter at all. And the same is true for music: there is no right way, there is no “real” way of doing it.

Take languages. When you Latin-ize a name from other languages, you have all kinds of different spellings, in different languages, and there’s not a problem there. You still know what you are talking about, no matter how you write it. It’s difficult because obviously as a promoter you want to do everything right. Recognizability is also a market interest. If there’s a misspelling, well, I might appreciate it, but from a promoter’s point of view it would be an issue because people wouldn’t find it in their search engines and they couldn’t Google it if it’s misspelled, so you really take care to write it the right way. I think you can clearly see the effects of the Internet at play here. But electronic music it’s not all about the Internet. It’s about going to a party, about what you see, what you experience or what kind of experience you have when you listen to the music, what you feel, what it makes you feel like. That’s more important than just how something is written or how something is supposed to be. It’s a bit boring if everything is set in stone.

You did a podcast for LWE a couple of years ago with Mix Mup as Chilling the Do, and that was an ode to the basically now-extinct chill room. You haven’t really released much of that stuff on record; any reason?

The reason is more that we are still working on putting out a record, to be honest. [laughs] We are working together on another project now that is somewhere in the middle ground between both of us making dance oriented stuff, but not necessarily just for dancing. It will surface soon on Will Bankhead’s label. We’ve also been working on material to release that is more chill stuff, but we simply haven’t finished it. We’ve been doing some remixes together recently and we’ve got some more coming up, so you know, it’s evolving in different ways. We are not really in a hurry because these chill rooms are gone. [laughs] We put it out and it doesn’t make a difference.

The chill room is, to a certain degree, extinct. This also means that there is not a big demand for that type of music. While you have lots of music that is mainly for listening now, with all the retro 80′s synth stuff out there, you are still limited in terms of where to perform it and what type of scene tends to get into it. I mean, techno and house labels are not exactly pushing you to press music on vinyl without a beat in it. A lot of this is happening in an art/experimental context, but that is not necessarily the context we want. Maybe I don’t really want to release this material at all, because I just like to keep these tracks to myself or use them for something else. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I don’t know if it connects to the fact that these spaces don’t exist. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. It’s a difficult genre.

Have you guys been able to do the Chilling the Do stuff live at all? Despite the chill room’s extinction.

We have certain situations where we can do it, and we do it once in a while, but it’s obviously difficult because the demand in a club is for stuff that makes you move. In Berlin, even in the afternoon people aren’t open to listen to stuff that doesn’t have a beat in it, so it’s a difficult situation. You can do it in an art setting, you can do it in a bar, but we want to do this in in clubs. Not on the main floor, maybe. But on the second. At the opening of a party it might work. We do it sometimes for friends who are into it, but it’s not something that bookers are after. It’s such a strange format. It’s difficult because somehow people have to be able to actually listen. They have to sit back and tune into what we are doing, even if they don’t do it consciously. You really need the right situation and the right space to make it work.

How do you decide what tracks go on what label? Do you just send off a couple of tracks and let label heads choose what they want? Or do you plan releases for labels in advance?

Sometimes I have a particular idea for a single release and do certain tracks for certain labels. Sometimes it’s a selection of different tracks that are lying around; I’ll listen to stuff with label heads and they’ll tell me what they like. My problem is that there are a lot of tracks that I like, but I’m not the best judge; sometimes it’s better if someone from the outside helps you evaluate. It can be weird because sometimes you’ll end up with tracks from different periods on the same release. The material for Nonplus I did exclusively for them, intentionally. These are not tracks I would send to anybody else. It’s different from other stuff I release, obviously. Like I said before, with Laid they wanted that one track from the live set, so it was a very particular thing. I don’t want to branch out that far, so I limit myself and I’ve learned to say no to offers because I don’t want be on too many labels, especially not too many similar labels. Still, if I get an offer that is interesting, or gives me an opportunity to move in a new direction, I might do it. For now I’m sticking with Mikrodisko and Workshop. I like to have some focus. I just sent some more stuff to Nonplus, so there’s another EP coming out there as well. Some people who appreciate one type of record I did don’t necessarily appreciate others, but that’s just what I do. I don’t just want to stick to one genre; I don’t think I fit in just one box, to be honest.

You’ve recently stepped up your remix output, having done none before 2010. How do you approach the remixing process?

Well, it depends. It’s different. Usually, it depends on the freedom people give you to work with the material. Actually, I want to cut back on it a little bit. I still have some coming out, but I’m going to take a step away from remixing a bit because… I started doing it because I’ve never done it before, and I wanted to try it out. I was wondering what it would be like to work with material somebody else sends you. What can you do with it? It seemed like an interesting idea, trying to make something out of someone else’s material. I did some completely blindfolded, and that didn’t really work. I did one where I didn’t listen to the original at all and just took the parts and focused on the sounds. Sometimes you get stem files and sometimes you get just sounds. In the end It was so far from the original I could understand why they weren’t so happy about it, so I did another version, but in general I realized I don’t like this process that much.

Basically, if I can have more or less free reign, then that’s good for me. I don’t like when it gets to the point where people are arguing with you. It’s like you are a contract laborer or something. You are supposed to deliver something, and they have a particular idea of what it should be and you are supposed to do it that way. I understand that point, but I don’t really want to do that, so now if people are not really open to just let me do what I want to do, then I’m not going to do it. After doing a bunch of remixes I’ve come to realize that it’s not something that I want to do that much anymore. But I’m OK with the ones I’ve done. This experience is one of the reasons why I started to work with Mix Mup on remixes recently, because I thought it help to have some other input. Like, now there are three people working on it. You have the original producer, and you have us guys, and it makes it even more interesting.

You’ve started a label called Ominira. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Why cassettes?

Why cassettes? The simple reason is that a friend of mine manufactures them, so it’s easy to do. Also, I like that cassettes are so redundant and useless to the techno and house scene. We used to have them as mixtapes for the car, but now that’s rare. Other than that, it’s an odd format, but at least it’s a format, not even an uncommon one in other parts of the world: cassettes are a nice anachronism. And they are not easily accessible. I like that. If you want to listen to it you have to make an effort, you need to have a cassette deck, you can’t just download them and forget about them. I don’t mind if only a few people are making that effort and listen to that music. I want to have liberty to just put out whatever I please, whatever I think is good. You can put out anything on cassette; it doesn’t have to conform to anything. It won’t be all cassettes, though. We have some CD-Rs and vinyl planned as well. There is one 12″ coming out that will be a bit more dancefloor oriented. It will have a track from me on it, one from Kowton and one from Juniper.

It’s an open process. It’s about trying out different things and having a bit more control. If you work with other labels then you always give up control, and that’s cool because somebody else takes the risk. Somebody else has to care about all of the annoying business, but you also give away a certain amount of control. Ominira allows me to do whatever I want. There is no concept other than that the label is not about authenticity, not about realness. Because personally I’m so bored with the notion of authenticity and realness in electronic music. Please, leave that to rock. As far as Ominira is concerned, we just make it up as we go along.

You live in Leipzig, which is close enough to Berlin to go in an out as you please, but still removed. Would you ever move to Berlin, or do you like being outside of the scene for the most part?

Obviously I could move there if I wanted to, but I don’t have any incentive to do so. I like to do my own thing. If you are in Berlin you constantly run into so many people, you meet so many people, which is great but not what I want. I don’t want to be too accessible or work with too many people and take too much influence from a scene. I try to stay away from scenes. I mean, I’ve been involved obviously in this party crew and everything, but even then that crew was quite different from what was going on around town. I like to take a step back and just do what I think is good, not necessarily wind up in a scene and then work on a certain sound or certain aesthetic. I want it to be my aesthetic, not the aesthetic of a particular group or club, so I consciously stay away from it. At this point, it might not even make a difference, because with this attitude I could probably go to Berlin and still not be influenced by it. But I have a good life in Leipzig. It’s easy. It’s chill, so I just kick back. I really don’t have any reason to go there. I’m not really an open person. I don’t approach people to become involved in projects. I don’t pursue people. Just like I didn’t send out demos, or didn’t run after guys like, “Hey, listen to this stuff;” I just don’t do that. So if there is anything going on in Berlin I can go there, but usually if I go to Berlin I will stick with people I know.

[Workshop]

Workshop 12 is a strange one. For one, the whole thing operates within normal house tempos, which in itself is an odd turn of events for a label that often pushes the BPMs down as far as it possibly can. Brushing tempos aside, however, the A side is a truly weird piece of abstract, bearded techno, one that only a label such as Workshop could really get away with. It kicks off with the word fragment “-ensuality” looped over and over again while bass jabs and contorted string samples wrap themselves around each other. After everything gets going, however, it all just sort of falls apart, resulting in the latter half of the track being practically nothing but the looped vocal (something immediately apparent by just looking at the grooves on the vinyl). It’s a pretty out-there arrangement, but somehow it works.

The B-side is a bit more straightforward, starting with the deep and Noir-ish B1. Unstable sounds oscillate off in the distance while the steady clicks of Mosse’s drum machine keep track of time. The B2 is short but sweet, with an aggressive arpeggiated bass line phasing in and out and half-time percussion, giving the track a rickety but endearing quality. Given Kassem’s now-relatively high profile it’s safe to say he’s tapped into a vibe that’s all his own yet universal in its support from many corners of dance music. That he manages to keep putting out records of the highest quality, always with a couple surprises up his sleeve, just confirms that his is one of the most vital voices around.

[Workshop]

The wait between volumes in the Workshop catalog can be nearly excruciating for diehard fans, yet the salve for the pain is also the cause: consistently excellent new releases that are few and far between. Their sudden, unheralded appearances on the Hard Wax website are events that pit fans, DJs and critics against each other to snag a copy of the hand-pressed records, only a handful of which appear on shelves each year. Workshop 11, their second release of 2010, is another of the imprint’s famous compilation EPs, bringing together the now well established Even Tuell with relative newcomers Madteo and Midnightopera.

Even Tuell dominates the A-side with a deep slice of hazy, narcotic house. With Mala-strength low end and a propulsive bass line the track has a strange sense of heavy momentum. Blurry tones drift in and heap on top of one another while dutiful rimshots keep time ticking along. Its hypnotism recalls Even Tuell’s well-loved Workshop 04 offering, but is more likely to have dancers standing still in bewilderment. Something this unusual requires a couple of listens to sink in, but once you’ve taken the plunge you’ll likely wish you could submerge yourself in its murky depths indefinitely.

Somehow outshining Even Tuell’s contribution is the incredible B1 track from Italian-born New Yorker Madteo. Like the A side, it’s unlikely to be pulled out by DJs at peak hours thanks to a glacial tempo that stuns rather than sets in motion. A shifting bass line fathoms below even many UK bass music records is almost the only element constant here, with movie quotes drifting in and out and a barely-there beat only occasionally puncturing the din. Midnightopera has two tough acts to follow but puts on a good show with the analog warmth of the B2 cut. It brings to mind the drifting, ponderous Songs From The Beehive by Move D and Benjamin Brunn, and with so many sounds buried under the surface begs close listening. Workshop 11 is perhaps the darkest and most difficult Workshop yet — and that’s certainly saying something — but wrapping your head around its grooves reveals a truly mesmerizing record.

[Laid]

For its seventh release, the Dial sub-label Laid has commissioned a split 12″ from Berlin’s lauded Workshop family, granting Kassem Mosse and Lowtec one side each. One assumes the two labels share much of the same fan base and so the EP’s outsourcing is a little perplexing. Regardless, both tracks are predictably emblematic of Workshop’s dusty, narcotic take on experimental house.

The truly essential piece here is Kassem Mosse’s “Untitled.” It’s a dense, hypnotic tangle of murky low-end elements, ghostly synth patterns, and sputtering hi-hats, with some subtle changes and breakdowns along the way. As with most of his material, “Untitled” is caked in fuzz, which, in spite of the track’s intricacy, gives the impression that Gunnar Wendel just jammed this one out, his hardware somehow united by that relentless crackle. It remains spontaneous while locked in a persistent trance, one of those special tracks that’s both immediate and labyrinthine. Even as a touring DJ, Wendel continues to preserve that treasured, hauntingly “anonymous” quality: you can almost instantly tell it’s a Kassem Mosse, but it’s anyone’s guess where exactly this music is coming from.

Lowtec’s contribution is an alternate mix of “Use Me,” from the B-side of Workshop 06. The original’s sluggish beatdown shuffle is basically sped up from 33 to 45, and the change is further accentuated by the addition of hissing doubletime hi-hats. It’s a little disappointing to see Lowtec rehashing old material, especially after the brilliance of his track on Workshop 10 earlier this year, but this mix is a fine choice for DJs who were put off by the downtempo pace of the original. The Workshop EP is thus a bit lopsided, but more than worth checking for Kassem Mosse’s track, a benchmark for the Workshop catalog and his own.

LWE’s Talking Shopcast series started out on a bang with Even Tuell representing the mavens of Berlin’s Workshop imprint. Check out his excellent mix before it retires this Friday at 10am CST.

[Workshop]

Improvisation. In house? Sure, DJs do it every night. Move D did it before with Benjamin Brunn on Songs From The Beehive, creating sketches beforehand but recording everything in more or less real time. Plenty of parallels exist between that record and Playtime but none are quite so telling as this. To be frank, I don’t know if the recording of Playtime was actually in real time or improvised, but this is a release whose unfolding seems so natural and human it seems unlikely that it’s the work of automation. Many complain about the lack of musicianship in house and techno, and Playtime serves, in part, as a solid response to such silly claims.

[zero r="Playtime" a="Reagenz" t="Keep Building"]

Sure, Playtime may violate most of Workshop’s criteria, but its devotion to analog synthesis feels right at home on a label that’s become the poster child for the those interested in all things sans-MIDI. This is a showcase of two virtuosos of their machines, or in some cases guitars, as on the building early-morning workout of “Dinner With Q.” Guitars in electronic music are a hard thing to pull off, but Reagenz make it feel like they’ve belonged all along, with Moufang’s airy guitar complementing the breezy electronics and vocal hums surrounding it. “Shibuya Day,” recorded at the home of a Japanese synth collector, is a laid back and mostly beatless play with texture.

“Keep Building” is the star dance floor cut of the pack, pairing warbled narration from Fred P with what sounds like a constantly descending bass line. Its thirteen minutes feel almost stunted; the slow but steady changes and progression Moufang and Sharp provide keep every bar captivating. Elsewhere, shorter cuts like “Freerotation” combine cloudy backgrounds with almost two-stepping percussion. The 23 minute “Du Bist Hier!” closes the record on an ambient note, and is a nice way to finish off a record full of both parallels and differences. Unlike Songs From The Beehive, Playtime has the floor at the front of its mind, and its ambient passages seem directed straight towards the chill out rooms of yore.

[zero r="Playtime" a="Reagenz" t="Freerotation"]

Given some of the previous releases on Workshop one might not expect Playtime to be quite as light as it is, but with its brisk sound and natural progressions it’s one of the most enjoyable listens I’ve come across in awhile. Many great electronic works (of 2009 at least) trended towards the dark and serious (Vertical Ascent, Three EPs), but Playtime evokes the kind of feeling that its name does: a sense of play and light-heartedness connected with childhood. As academic as you like, Reagenz combine the exploration and amusement of youth with the skill and panache that comes with years of experience. With both of their albums inspired by seeing Autechre play live, I hope the pair have the opportunity to see Autechre again; I’d rather not wait another fifteen years for the next Reagenz release.

[Workshop]

Workshop releases only a few records a year, emphasizing quality over quantity. Luckily for buyers this means each new Workshop record can be bought without hesitation, as there hasn’t been a dud in the bunch. They turn away from whatever may be popular at the time and shoot for longevity, opting for records that reveal themselves over time. After what was, for my money, the best record in the series (the sometimes ethereal, other times ghastly “Workshop 03″), Kassem Mosse steps up once again and give us “Workshop 08″, a contender for the label’s standout release.

The A side is the longest track so far in Workshop’s discography, yet also one of the more thrilling. The deep, muted synth line may rarely change, but the track refuses to stay static. Kassem fiddles with the intensity of the track throughout, building tension with ominous waves of sound, just on the brink of crashing. In fact, the whole thing has an out-to-sea quality to it, conjuring images of an impending storm on the horizon. B1 sounds great at both 33 and 45 (at 45 the sample of Dettmann’s “Lattice” is more apparent), but the proper speed is at a slow, hazy 33. A deep kick drum and dark background ambiance lends a sinister feeling to the track. Oddly timed rhythms and sharp, wobbly synth stabs speed up and down, giving the tune a confusing sense of time. B2 draws the record to a close on a more low key note (despite having what sounds like the fastest BPM). Its a real reflective tune; the soundtrack to the end of a long day or the start of a rainy one. The crisp percussion offsets the moody two note bass line and unstable sounds squirming in the background. Kassem creates many moods over the course of “Workshop 08″ with his distinct, analog sounds, crafting one of my favorite records of the year, to be sure.

[Workshop]

“Workshop 07″ marks Even Tuell’s first solo EP for Workshop (profiled last year on this site) and known for its left-of-center output. From what we’ve heard in his mix for LWE and his own Airbag Craftworks compilations, Paul-David Rollmann seems to have just as much of a penchant for balm as he does for the sparse beats released on Musik Krause and Broque. In comparison to standout tracks like “Pretty Bonita” and his contribution to “Workshop 04″, “Workshop07″ comes as a disappointment. On the A-side, a Detroit shout out is looped ad-infinitum and becomes more distracting with each passing minute. The mid-range is saturated to the detriment of any clarity in the lows, which end up buried in the mix. While the track has a nice melody, the lack of dynamics and the clichéd sample leave the strongest impression.

B1 is a take on spooky electro like the kind Alexander Robotnick explored in the early 80s when he stretched the synth out to the dark side. The saving grace of this release, B2, may find itself in everyone’s Halloween crate this year. It sounds like Goblin ditched their guitars for drum machines, recorded another Dario Argento horror soundtrack, and got it cut at Dubplates & Mastering. If Scientist failed to rid Channel One of the evil curse of the vampires and Rod Modell remained Rod Modell, we’d have a rough approximation of the nekrotechno going on here. Hopefully we can continue to depend on Workshop to release more of these flat-out weird tunes.

Welcome to the tenth edition of our series of short interviews affectionately titled Talking Shop. The majority of media and fan attention gets showered on the artists who create the music we love to listen to/DJ with/dance to, and for good reasons. But without the hard work, keen ears and business savvy of label staff, we’d be stuck only streaming tracks on Myspace. Number ten brings us to the cold and soulful sounds of Berlin’s Workshop. Headed by Jens Kuhn, known to many as Lowtec, Workshop is as much a label as it is a series of EPs. Since 2006, Lowtec and crew have put out a new EP every few months, each comprising three untitled tracks. Some showcase a single artist (Move D, Kassem Mosse and Lowtec have each commandeered one), while others feature a handful at once. LWE’s current favorite is Workshop 004, a collection of shadowy house tracks by Move D, Even Tuell and Sascha Dive. With its gray aesthetic and cryptic design, Workshop has chiseled a distinct identity and landed a distribution deal with Hard Wax, arguably Berlin’s most respected record shop. Lowtec gives us the lowdown on the snacks that inspired the label’s creation, their stratified demo system, and how smaller release runs could save the vinyl business. Also, an exclusive mix from Even Tuell inaugurates our Talking Shopcast series after the jump.

Please tell me about the beginning of Workshop. Why and how did you start out? How did you decide on the name Workshop?

It took us two bottles of wine to decide that Workshop would fit best because it expresses the way we talk about, deal with, and make decisions about the music we produce and receive as demos. We take our time with the Who/Why/What/When decisions. That’s what you learn from experience with fresh cheese and good Bordeaux.

Can you tell us a bit about why the tracks are all untitled?

Searching a good track name for “just-another-cool-dancetrack-or-DJ-tool” might seem a bit senseless or like a waste of time but sometimes track names fit so well that some artists skip that rule.

How do you select the artists for Workshop’s roster?

It’s mainly about good old friends and keeping the family together, but it also features relative newcomers like Gunnar, Kassem Mosse, or Sascha [Dive], which is the result of traveling around and keeping your eyes, and of course ears, open for fresh but familiar sounds.

Do you get many demos? What are some qualities you look for when sorting through them?

We get more and more demos. We have now a full-time employee, Natascha, who looks through the daily incoming packages, judges the stamp selection and info sheet style, weighs the sound and feels the base line temperatures. There are three demo baskets: a.) Nice tries, maybe cool for Carl, b.) Quite good music in general, but definitely not for us, and c.) Boys, give it a chance. Worth listening to

What is one of your favorite releases on your own label? Why?

We love Kassem’s record because it’s very special to us. We were kind of worried whether it would be recognized for its new-schoolish groove and its experimental slo-motion tempo.

Workshop: Keeping the rubber stamp industry booming.

According to many doomsayers, running a record label isn’t one of the “smartest” fiscal things to do. How do you keep Workshop running with sales “as they are”?

Hardwax does a very good job for our label and we’re very happy to work with them as our exclusive vinyl distributor. It seems easy for them to sell the stuff they like and if they don’t like a release very much, they’re honest about their view and advise or suggest lower production numbers to reduce the financial risk for the label.

Do you think mp3 blogs like LWE hurt the music industry? Do you think blogs have a role in the future of dance music promotion?

Definitely not and definitely yes. As long as it doesn’t feel like self-hyping or remote controlled hyping, remote controlled hyper PR or marketing of rubbish that there’s no adequate rubbish marketplace for… we think all this blogging is very fine and informative!

There is no shortage of labels in dance music. What does Workshop do to stand out from the crowd?

1st. We do what we love, like all the others hopefully do as well. 2nd. Maybe all the little underground labels should rethink their output frequency a bit. If they want they can contact Natascha 24/7 to learn how to handle it.

As technology advances further, vinyl is moving closer to becoming obsolete to many DJs. What are your feelings on this? Do you think the end of vinyl is in sight?

Vinyl will never die and it will definitely kill the mp3 industry, which we’re very sorry for. Mp3s cause a lot of messiness in one’s music collection. Vinyl does too, but it really feels better and it weighs a lot more.

What are a few other labels you respect/revere most?

Warp, Rephlex, Main Street Records, Source Records Heidelberg, Trax Records, Dance Mania, Dow & Vigliante, and the early years of Playhouse and Planet E.

What can we expect from Workshop in the next year or so?

Hopefully some very good EPs and a little Workshop showcase tour.

To get an aural idea of what Workshop’s all about, check out this exclusive new mix by Even Tuell. Some of you may know this Workshop gun already as the man behind the ghostly second track on Ame’s Fabric 42 mix. Entitled “DETROITENACHT,” this mix represents Workshop well — a serene variety of deep and soulful sounds, perfect for the descending autumn.

LWE Talking Shopcast 01: Even Tuell (73:00)

01. Wolfgang Rübsam, “Flourish” [Palham Music]
02. Four Tet, “Ribbons” [Domino Recording Company Ltd.]
03. Ovatow, “Phalaenopsis Dub I” [Frantic Flowers]
04. Strand, “De Grand Act” [Delsin]
05. Quince, “Steady Freddy” [Delsin]
06. Convextion, “Astrum” [Down Low Music]
07. Urban Force, “Untitled 2″ (Mike Huckaby remix) [Statik Entertainment]
08. The Oliverwho Factory, “Apocalypse” [Madd Chaise Inc]
09. Ksoul & Ra.H, “Turning Point” [Sistrum Recordings]
10. Claro Intelecto, “Harsh Reality” [Modern Love]
11. Murmur, “Tap90″ [Meanwhile]
12. Tim Toh, “Join the Resistance – One” [Philpot]
13. System 360, “Like A Virgin” [Source Records]
14. The Other People Place, “Sorrow And A Cup Of Joe” [Clone]
15. The Attendants, “Hmmm Love” (Arturo’s Mix) [Inner Sunset Recordings]
16. Invasion Of The Beat Snatchers, “Di Da” [Rufftrak Recordings]
17. Aybee, “Deepblak’d” [Prescription]

[Workshop]

Since 2006, Workshop has released a new EP every six months or so. Sold and distributed by Hard Wax, each EP consists of three untitled tracks, sometimes all by the same artist and sometimes by a varied group. The quality of these releases has been consistently solid: Kassem Mosse’s “Workshop 03″ had a stark and gravelly aesthetic that made it a real standout from 2007, and “Workshop 04″ boasted some fine ghostly house from Move D, Even Tuell and Sascha Dive. Unfortunately, “Workshop 05″ is the weakest installment yet, offering a handful of tracks less varied and intriguing than their predecessors. But it still merits some close attention, featuring a memorable track by Benjaminn Brunn — an artist I personally had yet to hear solo — and a quirky contribution by the mysterious Da Halz.

The three tracks that make up “Workshop 05″ are all cut from the same cloth — sugary, soothing, stripped down tech house. Benjamin Brunn’s contribution focuses on a serene two-chord motif, doused in reverb and pushed along by a perky, compelling rhythm.  Some gentle synth stabs drift in and out, along with some erratic analog streamers that soar and crash. Atmospherically, it recalls the lazy bliss of Songs From the Beehive, his recent collaboration with Move D, but unlike the sprawling semi-ambience of that album, this track is crafted with the DJ in mind. Japanese artist Rising Sun kicks off the B-side, lamely shadowing Brunn’s effort with a pretty but unremarkable afterhours track. Da Halz redeems the B-Side with an off-kilter groove that would take a bit more creativity to drop in a mix. The beat is gentle and plodding, vaguely funky and probably not danceable. In terms of mood, Da Halz follows suit, draping ethereal veils over the percussion’s mechanical clacking. As with the other tracks, this tune’s euphoric drowsiness is better suited to a bedroom mixtape than a weekend DJ set. Overall, “Workshop 05″ succeeds in being dreamy and pleasant, but feels lackluster compared to other recent efforts in mollified tech house (Move D’s “Between Us,” Sten’s “Way To The Stars”), and certainly doesn’t live up to the high standard set by the earlier installments in this series.