Black Replica on Metaphysik and more

It is happening again! It's been over twelve years since Heinrich Mueller's collaborative project, Black Replica, first mysteriously appeared on My Space with four quite special songs and two mysterious black and white videos. They registered on MySpace in October 2006 and predated Zwischenwelt, Zerkalo and Daughter Produkt (all launched on same platform). There was a short solo European tour in 2007 and then two years later three more new songs were tantalisingly added to their MySpace player (which can still sometimes work) and then nothing.

Now the German label, Metaphysik, have announced that they will be releasing this music for the first time in a physical format. Black Replica appeared to win over many fans at the time and they left more than a few questions in their wake. I still love those mysteries and perhaps there will never be any new music or live shows again but this new release will make what they achieved a permanence and introduce more people to their music and world.

The videos were removed from their then official YouTube channel a long time ago but thankfully somebody did upload them again in 2015 at a new Black Replica channel. You can watch the videos there for 'Mathematical Eyes' and 'Spider Theory'. There was even a short and very early interview with BR for a Polish webzine here (when they were called Black Amnesia). A few years ago I wrote a summary about them here and in 2008 a longer piece here.

Watch Metaphysik's Facebook page and website for details.

Dopplereffekt will be playing live in Berlin on 31st August at Berghain.

Sadly 'The Story of Drexciya' on Red Bull Radio was disappointing; basically the first half hour consisted of their music with a few comments about them by the DJ, John Collins, and then he went back to his usual show. Judging by the amount of shares and likes the link got on the DRL Facebook page there is obviously an appetite for some kind of audio documentary about Drexciya and maybe someday RBR or someone else might get around to it. The closest thing to this that already exists is the recording of a talk myself and the journalist, Richard Brophy, did last year in Dublin. It might be a little boring without music but we do go into some detail.

Clone Records have now uploaded all four of the full length 'Moments' from Transllusion's A Moment of Insanity 12" to this YouTube playllst. This is a great way to sample these previously unreleased tracks from James Stinson's vaults.

'Death in Vegas are huge fans of Gerald Donald in all his forms. He choose to 'reproduce' Metal Box, keeping certain elements of the original field recordings, the sounds of the Steel Factory opposite Drone's studio, the incessant drones from the planes landing at City Airport and the dial tones of the studio's VHF radio and layered over these with his own sonic tapestry.'

GD under his Rudolf Klorzeiger alias has remixed an epic 10 minute version of 'Metal Box' (Mercury Box Rework) by Death In Vegas. The original can be found on their Transmission (2016) album. You will find this on the remix 12", You Disco I Freak. This one sneaked under the radar and has been available since April 2018. You can hear a generous snippet of it and purchase at this link and at Juno.