Drexciya commission, Dopplereffekt radio show and more

To tie-in with Drexciya Day 2022 (which will be the 20th anniversary of James Stinson's death) Brighter Sound are 'commissioning two artists, one from the North of England, and one from the USA, to collaborate and produce new music reflecting on the legacy of Detroit electro-techno duo Drexciya'. The deadline is 15th May.

There is a £2000 prize for the selected work which will be performed live on Drexciya Day (3rd September) during an event at Manchester's Eastern Bloc.

This is also a good time to remind fans who are interest in organising their own Drexciya Day events to start thinking about it. As usual I will be happy to share them here to spread the word. Drexciya Day is on and around 3rd September.

Avina Vishnu (Aina & Heinrich Mueller) are playing a very rare gig in Belgium on 5th June (it may even be their first ever live show).

Dopplereffekt's new album Neurotelepathy is now available for digital download from Bandcamp, vinyl and CD from 10th June. More info about them below. 

There is a new Instagram account for Mirovaya Liniya (Julia Pello & Heinrich Mueller) with some new artwork.

John R. Eperjesi has just published an academic paper, 'Drexciya’s Bubble Metropolis and Blue Cultural Studies' in the University of California's Journal of Popular Music Studies. He sent me a copy and I must say he has some fresh analysis, has brought their environmental concerns to the fore and even got to grips with their complex origin mythology. It is accessible and well worth reading by all fans of Drexciya for sure. 

The Feb/March issue of France's Gonzaï magazine is a special on Afrofuturism. There is a piece on Drexciya by Ruddy Guilman and this very cool illustration by Olivier Laude. It seems to be only available as a hardcopy from this link (it's also written in French). I did an interview for it back in January so it's nice to see it available.

"Dopplereffekt is Gerald Donald. Gerald's a very interesting character. I've known this guy since he was a little punk. He used to come to my house and play my music—or play his music, which was crazier back then than any of this stuff. He would try anything. He pushed buttons. That was great about Gerald. He's a huge Kraftwerk fan, a huge Juan Atkins fan. He's also had another group [with James Stinson] called Drexciya."

Carl Craig selects Dopplereffekt's Linear Accelerator for this excellent 2021 piece about the 30th anniversary of Planet E. His label also released music from Donald and Brendan M Gillen's Flexitone in the mid '90s.

"Yeah, it’s such a shame he’s not here anymore (James Stinson). I always wonder what music he might be making if he was still around today. I discovered Drexciya’s music just from hanging out at Rubadub, everyone there was always going on about them. They held them in such high esteem that you just get sucked into it that way. I think this Transllusion album, Neptune’s Lair and Lab Rat XL’s Mice or Cyborg are my favourite Drexciya records. I picked the Transllusion album because of ‘Dimensional Glide’, which was a direct influence on ‘I’m For Real’, the track I did with Nightwave for the album. Doing at the Art School and [Paisley venue] Club 69, and hanging out at loads of afterparties in Glasgow, Drexciya’s music was always essential."

Glasgow's Konx-om-Pax selects Transllusion's The Opening of the Cerebral Gate for this 2019 piece for The Quietus.

Dopplereffekt were on Bristols's Noods Radio and are taking part in a three month residency there so expect more to follow. So far they have made a mix show called Hydrogen Pulsar which has now been archived, in case it disappears the track-list is below. You can find the latest Dopplereffekt live shows at this link. Nothing scheduled for Arpanet right now but Dopplereffekt's next show is in Cologne on 29th April (more at link). 

Grand River - Canopies

JakoJako - Neogenese

Mirovaya Liniya - Book II Definitions V + VI

Dopplereffekt -Cerebral Data Download 2100 A.D

Bjork-Pagen Poetry

Goldfrapp - Human

Jeff Mills - Silence

Jeff Mills - Transformation A

X-101 - The Flyby

Monic - What Lies Behind Us

Jeff Mills-Revolt

Dopplereffekt -Cerebral to Cerebral Interface

Dopplereffekt -Neutron Impulse Acutator

JakoJako - Viridis