New Dopplereffekt website, Hydro Doorways re-press and more

What appears to be an official Dopplereffekt website has just materialised online (their first). It has some nice graphics and a release history, contact page and upcoming events. If you click on 'Multimedia' there are samples of two new tracks, 'Stellar Optika' and 'Quantum Flux' to download as video files. I've just done this and they are very impressive indeed, this all looks like a new release is on the way.

There is a new re-press of Drexciya's classic 12" EP, Hydro Doorways (2000), available now at places like clone.nl and Juno Records. It's hard to keep up with these Tresor re-presses, 2014 was the last time it got pressed as far as I know and I think this latest one was announced last year but is only available now.

Just a reminder, as far as I know even if you don't have a Facebook account, you can still see my often daily post on the DRL page. You might get annoying messages on the screen to join FB but I know that if you are accessing the page using a computer you can still read the posts (maybe not with a mobile device). I am still posting the new and important news on this site and will continue to do so but you will hear about it first on the DRL FB page.

This is a great Drexciya tribute track by Italian producer 051 Destroyer aka Mattia Trani. Released in 2018 it's available on 12" and download from the UK label Lunar Orbiter Program.

This is a very beautiful Sleeparchive track from 2006, which was inspired by The Other People Place. You will find it on Hospital Tracks double pack.

'Xternal Pulse was a project done by myself and Gerald Donald it was my first project when Ultradyne was in its beginning stages.'

Dennis Richardson of Ultradyne has been in touch with DRL to clarify the personnel behind this project. This one-off track was released on Dan Bell's Accelerate label in 1993 (Various Artists - The Silicon Ghetto EP Vol.3). You can listen here.

'[Ghettotech producers] used to sample a lot of the Drexciya stuff and our stuff (Aux 88)...They would sample Drexciya, or especially Dopplereffekt once Gerald [Donald] went solo.'
-Keith Tucker

Fascinating account of Detroit's Ghettotech scene.

New Drexciya/Heinrich Mueller mix from Kogemoti, some great selections.

In Mike Banks' (UR) Berlin lecture for Red Bull Music Academy in 2018 he mentioned The Abyss (1989) as a possible influence on James Stinson's concept behind Drexciya. I got curious and have been on the look out for a secondhand copy ever since. I probably caught it on TV almost 30 years ago but had no memory of the story.

I've now gotten to watch it and basically it's a cold war science fiction love story and at the very end you do get to glimpse the underwater city of a previously unknown species with advanced intelligence. They may be aliens but I think they are primarily deep sea dwellers from our own planet. James would have been about 20 when this played in theatres, it could have sparked his concept but we might never know for sure. Check it out if you can. 1989 has also been called, 'the year of the “underwater” sci-fi film,' with Deep Star Six, Leviathan and Lords of the Deep all released then as well.

By coincidence or not there are also two Drexciya tracks with 'The Abyss' in the title, 'Beyond The Abyss' on Bubble Metropolis (1993) and 'Sighting in The Abyss' from Aquatic Invasion (1995), both on UR. Was he trying to tell us something?