For several years, Voiski has struck a singular path in techno music, oscillating between experimental projects and the production of tracks marked by his signature style. Within the large spectrum of his interventions, Voiski stands out for rigor of his infinitely repetitive loops. These, combined with acerbic drum beats, construct an analog excitation that carries his music to the heart of futurist and sentimental layerings. From his proximity to the intriguing electrodance duo Kartei to the experimental label Silicate Musique which he codirects, the amplitude of his activity bears witness to the authenticity of his engagement, one which reconciles the demands of dance floor techno with the construction of an introspective vision.

BLITZ w/ Gian, Jonas Palzer, Voiski (live), Zenker Brothers
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This boy serves cuisine instead of fast food. But before he reached that state, the true-school Berliner had to graduate from the city’s club boot camp. Awestruck by Berlin’s basements and industrial places, where techno was in its early-nineties prime, Soundstream was overwhelmed by Detroit’s beauty and Chicago’s roughness. Unsurprising, he soon agitated in the coordinate system of the world-renowned record store Hard Wax. An institution that also distributes his labels Soundstream and Soundhack. The first one takes care of Timm’s never-ending love for disco and refined house music (take the ear candy of ‘Love Jam’ for example), the latter is dedicated to cut-up and loop adventures that are better described with folly than the customary house and techno signs. Therefore the scalpel is one of his typical tools of the trade. He chops, dismembers, deconstructs and mills – until he drops. However, he never creates Frankenstein’s monster and does not fall for the risks of this mode of operation: Sophistication and consciousness, safe from harm and also from being nerdy. “DJ tools with an attitude”, as Dr. Dre would say.

BLITZ w/ Oracy, Roland Appel, Soundstream – FR, 12/01/18
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqJ-GLor0Vo

Answer Code Request starts the New Year with the release of his second album on Ostgut Ton. After his debut album “Code” from 2014, “Gens” will be out on February 23rd. Find more information here.

Start your week right and listen to our resident Leo Küchler for Grime Box at Griessmühle!

https://soundcloud.com/leokuchler/leo-kuchler-for-grime-box-at-griessmuhle

Have you heard about Eris Drew? Well, we haven’t, until recently our good friend Melanie from Her Damit Festival called us and told us about her. We instantly checked some mixtapes on Soundcloud and absolutely fell in love with her sound. A couple of weeks later, and Eris just released a mix on Resident Advisor, accompanied by an insightful interview. Read it below or visit the original article on RA here and check out the mix.

We are looking forward to have Eris over to play for us on June 8th  2018:
BLITZ w/ Eris Drew, Leo Küchler, Sascha Sibler
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23 years ago, Eris Drew had a visionary psychedelic experience that would shape the rest of her life. “My friend named the Motherbeat in 1994 in the moments after a rave, when we experienced all the ambient sound around us as an extension of the party,” she says. “Specifically, she spoke through an air conditioner. I was a closeted femme at the time and in an existential war with my own body. I was completely lost in the culture’s inadequate models of gender. The records I play for people today, a lot of them were my medicine.” Drew’s connection to her theory of the Motherbeat, which she expands on below, has guided her work as a DJ, musician and cofounder of Hugo Ball, the long-running polysexual party at Chicago’s smartbar. Next year, she begins a seriesof all-night Motherbeat parties at Hot Mass in Pittsburgh, with further dates across the US planned for 2018. The series follows Drew’s busiest year as a touring DJ, as she continued to build her reputation through sets at clubs and parties like Club Toilet, Hot Mass, Honey Soundsystem and The Bunker. As is often the case with the Midwest’sbest DJs, clubs in Europe have been slow to catch on to Drew, although next year that’ll change, with shows booked in for OHM and Her Damit Festival in Berlin and Hopeworks in Sheffield.

Reading Drew’s words and seeing her play makes it seem obvious that she’s feeling particularly inspired right now. Her RA podcast draws from two profound DJ experiences she had in 2017, at Honcho Campout in Pennsylvania and Tuf ’till Dawn in Seattle. Drew’s style is at once contemporary and classic, a blend of house and techno shot through with the utopian spirit of rave and a party-rocking emphasis on rhythm.

What have you been up to recently?

During my travels the last few months I have been preparing. Reading everything I can on esoteric religions, lost trans histories and psychedelic shamanism. Spending as much time as possible in nature. All of this to be ready for the First Psychedelic Rite of the Motherbeat, which I am conducting in April with my hyperdimensional friends ??? (adab), Kiernan Laveaux, Sold and Hi-Vis at Hot Mass in Pittsburg.

How and where was the mix recorded?

I recorded the mix in my bedroom studio about an hour outside of Chicago. For it, I employed the used Technics turntables I bought in 1994. They are MKIIs, which have been modified by Ken Paul. The mixer is an Allen & Heath Xone:32 with a Penny & Giles crossfader installed. It is absolutely my favorite crossfader because it is smooth and very musical. The Xone:32 is great because you can send signal to your own effects. It is an analog A&H small format mixer with three (as opposed to four) bands of EQ, and the trim is hidden on the back panel. I initially disliked this last feature, but it is a limitation that forces thoughtful gain staging. You won’t rely on an average setting, as is tempting to do when there is a knob in plain sight. I recorded into Logic using a Focusrite soundcard.

Can you tell us about the idea behind the mix?

I had two intense and very ecstatic dance music experiences connected with nature this summer. First at the Honcho Campout in rural Pennsylvania during the lunar eclipse. And second during the sunrise at Tuf ‘Til Dawn in Seattle. In the mix, I wanted to capture the communal feelings we experienced of oneness and the overall majesty of those moments. I’ll never forget the ensembles of insects orchestrating Kiernan Laveaux and Father Of Two’s set in the forest; the visceral images of Gaia regenerating that I saw as I closed my eyes in the moments before playing; and the look on the dancers’ faces as they communed with the sun rising behind me in Seattle. I included some of my favorite records on this mix, a few of which have been in my collection from the beginning.

You’re a cofounder of Hugo Ball at Smartbar. Could you paint a picture of the party for us?

Hugo Ball is not like the Smartbar you see in photos. Almost everything is shrouded in opaque black fabric, the DJ and the speakers included. We use as little of the club’s lighting as possible. Sevron, Justin Aulis, Sold and I build our own DJ booth on the edge of the dance floor out of cement blocks (30 to be exact), vibrapods and boards. We call it “The Alter.” The design is based on a photo I found of a similar booth that David Mancuso built for The Loft. You could drive a train by this thing and the records wouldn’t feedback.

The dancing at Hugo Ball is expressive and the music a surreal catharsis in chaos. People are there for an intense experience, and the vibe is open and free. You are greeted by our amazing host, Sophie Bee, a very political and radical trans woman here in Chicago who is a potent source of energy and inspiration on our dance floor. When the crew are not DJing, we hit the floor, worship the speakers and dance next to each other. We are all ravers at heart.

Tell us about the Motherbeat and what it means to you.

There is something in the music. It goes past the intent and personal story of the artist. It is a transcendental message, a language of resonant pulsation. We hear it in nature, for example in bird songs and the insects in the forest. We also hear it in our machines. Trains inspired Bo Diddley’s rock & roll rhythms, and those rhythmic pulsations are foundational in techno as well. A person in the ecstatic state has the power to alter their visual reality with these unenglishable musical messages. Apparently, humans are built to receive and channel these logos into our own expression and creations. If you are intimately familiar with the mushroom, you might have experienced this phenomenon acutely.

At heart, dancing with the Motherbeat is archaic nature goddess worship of the techno variety. My friend named the Motherbeat in 1994 in the moments after a rave, when we experienced all the ambient sound around us as an extension of the party. Specifically, she spoke through an air conditioner. I was a closeted femme at the time and in an existential war with my own body. I was completely lost in the culture’s inadequate models of gender. The records I play for people today, a lot of them were my medicine. Before transition, I would evoke the archetype of the goddess in private and feel connected with my feminine-self through music, dance and adornment. She was my only escape from gender dysphoria and oppression for two decades. I recently wrote this all down on the way to Seattle in the form of a narrative poem, and you can listen to a reading here.

On a deep level, I think the Motherbeat might be Gaia herself—a constant message in the sound around us with the capacity to restore our connection to nature. Calling us to dissolve the ego, reduce cultural models to dust, and revel in the ecstatic. I believe the ecstatic experience is the birthright of every human but the importance of this esoteric tradition has been obscured by centuries of Western rationalism and monotheism. Many modern people only dissolve boundaries through sex and giving birth. And look at the position we find ourselves in as a planet. Rave was an archaic impulse. The KLF burning their money was an archaic impulse. We all need this medicine.

We read that you give lectures on electronic music history and mentor aspiring DJs. How did those two projects come about?

My presentations and mentoring are related to Smartbar’s Daphne program, named after Daphne Oram. A lot of people think the program is merely a month of shows, but we actually workshop all month. I give a talk each cycle about early electronic music history and focus on the stories of a few amazing queer/trans women (e.g. Catherine Christer Hennix and Pauline Oliveros). The first cycle I did was a presentation and equipment demo with the late and amazing Chelsea Faith, AKA Cherushii. Last cycle, Sold presented with me and discussed many of the underground trans and non-binary artists working today, as well as the independent writers covering their work.

I just got started mentoring through a Daphne-related program called Walking & Falling. Sam Kern (Sassmouth), Elly Shook (DJ Kiddo), Ariel Zetina and Jarvi coordinated the program this fall and did a great job exposing a lot of people to the basics of technical DJing (digital and vinyl). Aspiring DJs actually travel to Chicago to come to these weeklong workshops. I am presently giving lessons on vinyl techniques to an amazing trans woman. I feel I am conveying a secret knowledge to her—techniques for the perturbation of time, space and culture—like a shamaness of the past. We have a special bond and it is healing for me on a few levels.

What are you up to next?

I’ve been recording my live music, so the release of that material is on the horizon for 2018. Two years ago I started doing really small shows around the Midwest as a solo live act. The performances are my femme Discordian take on rave and other 20th century spiritual music, using synths (my beloved Chroma Polaris), turntables, and an MPC2000XL.

I am also downright excited to DJ my first sets in Europe this year, starting with a Berlin trip in early January to represent Hot Mass at Ohm with a bunch of my insane Midwest techno friends.

Given his releases on some of techno music’s most prominent labels many will already be familiar with Monoloc. After taking his first musical steps on CLR in his native city Frankfurt he relocated to Berlin in 2014 where he captured the attention of Dixon and Âme who included his “Flaneur” on the Innervisions Secret Weapons Part 7 EP. Since then, he’s continued to add to an impressive discography, sharing music through Hotflush before dropping a poignant, leftfield LP on Rødhåd’s Dystopian in 2016—a captivating release that marked an evolution in his sleek and punchy sound. It was termed the label’s “jewel in the crown“ by Mixmag. More recently, he contributed a track to Tale of Us’ Afterlife compilation. As a DJ he continues to impress with his driving and lo-slung selections. Having only started touring in 2010, he now performs at some of the world’s leading festivals and clubs.  In addition to this, his ongoing affiliations with the above labels make him a regular guest at Afterlife and Dystopian events.

Anastasia Vtorova has been emitting strange yet compelling sounds since 2014. Her first available tracks were on underground cassette releases, and, more recently, she’s appeared on the label Peder Mannerfelt and subterranean noise bastion Where To Now? Her For Sweden EP contained the creepy 4/4 of “Very Kind Human Being”: all scrapes, hisses and eerie tones, like feeling your way down a dimly-lit tunnel pursued by someone or something. The same release contained the sound art/IDM breaths and clipped field recordings of “Liquid Metal.” Another release, the superb Genau House, imported her weird energies and crackly percussive originality into lush dub techno. She’s hardly new to music production.

But it was only really this year that her “reverberations” have been felt “more widely,” writes Ben Murphy in our feature. Much of this is down to Technicolour, who invited Vtorova into their ranks with a three-track 12″ titled When Lobster Comes Home. The lead cut, “Camile From OHM Makes Me Feel Loved,” with its blissful chords and crunching beats, has been praised—and played—by Ben UFO, among others. Hold fire for more.

/ from XLR8R’s Best of 2017: New Artists 

Seemingly out of nothing, through dust and with no bang, Vril appeared on the scene. His music made such beautiful noise that it instantly found his place on Marcel Dettmann’s selection for his “Conducted” CD and on Ostgut’s release schedule. His sound is a search for the evergoing movement, exploring a never stopping energy. Once he catches you in his groove it will shine so bright you won’t be able to escape it. We’re looking forward to VRILs second Live-Set at BLITZ Music Club this saturday, 06/01/18.

Be it ’80s new wave, ’90s West Coast Hip Hop, Disco or Dance mania, Daniel Bortz brings things together that aren‘t bound up with realness and street credibility; he fuses his own world of sound for today‘s dance floor. XLR8R visited him a couple of years ago in his hometown Augsburg to find out more about Daniel Bortz – read the whole “get familiar” story here. We start the first weekend of 2018 with him & Sascha Sibler this friday, 05/01/18.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_OafR6e1Y

As a DJ and producer, Setaoc Mass is part of a select cut of young artists who are absorbing techno’s legacy and carrying the torch into tomorrow. Whilst overseeing his own imprint SK_eleven, his releases push a galvanising brand of techno, steeped in a sense of urgency, ever-propulsive with acute detailing and nods to a futuristic space-age. In addition to a debut release on Len Faki’s Figure which has caught the eye of some of the scene’s most respected DJ’s. As a selector, the Mancunian’s extended DJ sets pull from an expansive spectrum of material both new and old. Get more info and grab your presale-ticket here!

Berlin based DJ, producer and label owner Len Faki is one of the most outstanding and in-demand artists in present day techno. He is an internationally requested dj, whose productions and remixes are played by techno’s most prominent names. Being a resident at Berlin’s prime techno club Berghain since its opening in 2004 keeps him open-minded as both a dj and a producer. His sound is constantly evolving without ever losing its vibrant, unique energy and the passion and heart he puts into his sets. See you on Christmas Eve, where Len Faki will share the decks with Kessel Vale and DJ Donna! Grab your presale-ticket here!