Drexciya Research Lab

Heinrich Mueller/DJ Stingray 12"

2012-02-11T17:13:00.006Z

NRSB-11 is a new one-off Heinrich Mueller collaboraton with DJ Stingray. It probably stands for the Nuclear Radiation Studies Board and one of its tracks was up on SoundCloud for a while with the title of ‘Energy Levels’. It is on WeMe Records, on 12" clear vinyl and only available from their website. You can listen here.
http://soundcloud.com/weme-records
Preview of all 3 tracks
http://www.kudosrecords.co.uk/release/weme313.6/NRSB
NRSB
http://dels.nas.edu/nrsb

New Der Zyklus 12"

2012-01-31T10:37:00.006Z

There will be a new Der Zyklus 12” on No Comment Platform soon. In fact the track is already up on their Soundcloud at a link below. Clone have been listing this for awhile now but without any audio or further details. From what I can understand there will be an Albert van Abbe remix of the track as well. In 2011 No Comment put out a 12" with a Heinrich Mueller remix of a van Abbe original so this could be the return gesture. You can read my post on it here. No Comment pressings are usually very limited so it’s nice to get to actually hear it online too. Albert van Abbe has also been working with Dopplereffekt on their visuals for their Neutrino a/v presentation.
http://soundcloud.com/no_comment_platform/no-comment_0005-a1-der-zyklus-untitled
http://clone.nl/item22092.html

Dopplereffekt are also now playing live at The Glue Factory in Glasgow, Scotland on 17th Feb 2012. Great flyer below. They are then playing the next week on 23rd Feb with old friend The Hacker in France. More details below.
Glasgow
http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?333516
France
http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?334501

Brendan M. Gillen on Drexciya

2012-01-13T11:42:00.004Z

There is a revealing interview with Brendan M. Gillen of Ectomorph about Drexciya here which includes memories like, “After I received a promo of the first Drexciya on Submerge, I called Mike Banks to give him feedback, and ask if I could have them down for an interview on my then radio show “Crush Collision.” He told me he really appreciated the positive feedback but warned me that they were crazy and would talk about “fucking their mom and Madonna’s tits.” I thought that sounded great, funnier than Slayer’s image. When they eventually came down for an interview, we ran James’ voice through some processing, and Gerald showed up with his face painted half white, half black like that episode on the original Star Trek.
One time I went to visit the Drexciyan studio on the east side of Detroit, and when I walked into the basement I was greeted by Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” at full volume. James, who had a poster of a young Malcom X behind him was wearing a paperclip chain hanging from his glasses, asked me if I was surprised. I was like “No, ‘Hydro Cubes,’ the first EP, so much heavy riffing.” Despite the fact that they were best defined by their funk influences combining with the synthesizer music of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, especially Juan Atkins’ vision, I really loved how rock they were.”
Great video of Brendan talking about history of Detroit techno.

There is now an official video documenting Dopplereffekt’s Neutrino show in Liverpool from September 2011. It includes snippets of lectures and music.
http://vimeo.com/neutrinoprogramm

There is a new Victoria Lukas mix up here and Zerkalo will be playing live at Raumd in Basel, Switzerland on 28th of Jan 2012. See local press for details.

James Stinson 2001 phone interview

2011-12-12T15:46:00.007Z

I just got the file of the 2001 phone interview between James Stinson and Andrew Duke and have shared it on YouTube in the hope it gets to reach a much wider audience overtime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGqDuYJhpWU

I remember there used to be a deadlink to this audio file from Andrews own site so I guess he was the one who originally circulated it. It is a very important and revealing interview to hear after all this time. His text version can still be read here. I'm surprised that someone else hadn't uploaded it to YouTube by now but there you go. Just in time to celebrate the release of Drexciya's Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller compilation on Clone Classic Cuts too. This release is already shipping and can be bought at most places online and in the real world.
http://clone.nl/item21961.html

Zerkalo have a new and very aquatic video up for Warning You. I like it and if you like the visuals too you might be interested in checking out another video which Marie Athenaïs also did for These Times Are Gone by Vita, a Victoria Lukas solo project, to see the similarities.

Warning You
http://youtu.be/rIaaoV6Gzxo
Vita - These Times Are Gone

http://youtu.be/xD715AGPJaU

While we're on the subject there are two new Vita videos up as well. The first by Anaïs Boudot and the other by Virginie Von Virou. Expect a full Vita album on Frustrated Funk soon.

On Screens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ-B-NWcVgw

The Ending

http://vimeo.com/33029225

Drexciya - Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller

2011-11-07T22:49:00.006Z

Clone has begun to release details of the first in their series of Drexciya reissues. Surprisingly they have chosen to combine tracks from Deep Sea Dweller, Bubble Metropolis, Unknown Aquazone, Aquatic Invasion, The Journey Home, The Return of Drexciya and The Quest for this first release. It is due to appear in late December on 2LP and CD as Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller on Clone Classic Cuts. The tracks will be the same on both formats, 13 in all, with the only small difference being that the order of them on the vinyl is slightly different to the CD, probably due to getting the most from the vinyl, track length wise. A few days ago a screen shot from the mastering was put up by Adlen Tyrell on his Facebook so I’m guessing he did the remastering job. There is no question that since James Stinson’s death interest in Drexciya has been steadily growing and now that this first volume of their earlier music is now easily available again on vinyl and CD this should only continue and increase as new generations discover and interpret it into their lives.

Clone say the following about their choice of tracks, “Since the original releases have such a strong character, appeal and stand on their own, this re-issue can never re-create the magic of those originals. So instead we stirred up the catalogue taking the tracks out of their original context, giving the 'in the know' listener a fresh experience and the new listener a document that is the best possible introduction to the aquatic world of Drexciya.” I can go along with that but it's also a great way to get people to buy it all again. The inclusion of an unreleased track, 'Unknown Journey' also won’t do any harm to sales. I guess if they continue on in this manner we could be here for sometime but I am glad this stuff is coming out again in any form, especially remastered on vinyl and CD. We’ll never know for sure what James Stinson would have made of this but I did find this quote from his Muzik magazine interview in 1997 which may imply he would have appreciated these new patterns for his music to take. “Too many records just go from point A to point A. Our material zig-zags. We want to take you from point A to infinity. The music is there to implant in your imagination and let your psyche take over and run wild.” Guided by imagination there are certainly infinite and wild new patterns the catalogue can now go in and I guess this and the original are only two of those possibilities. I have already listened to the new order on YouTube (and if you follow the links below you can too) and it’s wild, primitive and fun but once you have all the tracks you could just programme them anyway you want, including the original way, and maybe that is what is important. More details at http://clone.nl/artist/drexciya

CD Tracklist
1. Welcome to Drexciya (Bubble Metropolis 12" 1993)

2. Wave Jumper (Aquatic Invasion 12" 1995)

3. Lardossen Funk (The Unknown Aquazone dbl 12" 1994)

4. Bubble Metropolis (Bubble Metropolis 12" 1993)

5. Hydro Theory (The Journey Home 12" 1995)

6. Beyond the Abyss (Bubble Metropolis 12" 1993)

7. Unknown Journey (unreleased)
8. Aquarazorda (The Unknown Aquazone 12" 1994)

9. Rublick’s Cube (The Return of Drexciya 12" 1996)

10. Sea Quake (Deep Sea Dweller 12" 1992)

11. Take Your Mind (The Unknown Aquazone dbl 12" 1994)

12. Darthouven Fish Men (The Journey Home 12" 1996)

13. Dehydration (The Quest compilation 1997)

For the record here is the full Clone text...
First part of the Drexciya re-issue series! Drexciya might need an introduction for some, for others it is the most influential techno project ever. Part of the heritage of Detroit's Underground Resistance, Drexciya explored techno music like no-one else before. Raw and uncompromising music that reflects the harsh environment of the city where Drexciya was conceived. The aesthetics and the mythical approach combined with the unique music made this one of the biggest cult projects in techno music. Drexciya arguably stands for the darker side of techno and electro, music not only made for the club scene, but a further development of the music as an expression and extension of the mind. 20 years after the release of ''Deep Sea Dweller'' (their first release), and 10 years after ''Grava 4'' (their last), we present ''Journey Of The Deep Sea Dweller''. This series is an almost complete collection of their early works, and is remastered from the original master tapes. Since the original releases have such a strong character, appeal and stand on their own, this re-issue can never re-create the magic of those originals. So instead we stirred up the catalogue taking the tracks out of their original context, giving the 'in the know' listener a fresh experience and the new listener a document that is the best possible introduction to the aquatic world of Drexciya.

Dopplereffekt live/Zerkalo video

2011-10-23T12:33:00.005+01:00

Dopplereffekt are supposed to be playing live in Gothenburg, Sweden on November 5th 2011. I can’t find any official info online for this one so best to check local press or send me a link if you know of any. One of their recent shows which did pass me by, of which there may well be many, was 9/9/2011 in MAK in Vienna, Austria. There is a video of part if it up below. I also came across the colour version of this iconic image of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMl2Zyy4rnU

Dopplereffekt wil be playing live on 24th Nov 2011 in Madrid, Spain as part of the Red Bull Music Academy. More details here.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?303085

There is a very fine new video up for Zerkalo’s In The Middle from their Stoi Storoni Zerkala part 2 12”. It was made by a new video collaborator, Virginie von Virou. I look forward to more of her work with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju3n4ILw6n8

Neuroleptica

2011-10-15T20:19:00.004+01:00

The full length version of Tardive Dyskinesia by Neuroleptica is up on a new YouTube channel now. This track first appeared on Heinrich Mueller’s Resident Advisor 250 mix of music by him and his collaborators. This version is almost 8 minutes long and does sound very Muellerish to me. There is another track on this channel called Dies Irae which is another similarly lengthy track that is said to be the “soundtrack from upcoming album The Wrong Side of the Mind.” I wouldn’t want to commit myself to this being a new project or another collaboration of his yet but it could be. So far the profile which was set up on 19/9/11 lists a 31 year old from Belgium but usually if it’s official Mueller will put his name to it. Going by the titles the music is suitably disturbing. The second track is the puzzler, what do you think?

Neuroleptica is a general condition caused by antipsychotic drugs which produces a state of apathy, lack of initiative, and limited range of emotion and in psychotic patients causes a reduction in confusion and agitation and normalization of psychomotor activity. Tardive Dyskinesia is a condition which is characterized by repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements, such as grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking, puckering and pursing of the lips, and rapid eye blinking. Dies Irae means day of wrath (end of the world) and comes from a 13th century Latin hymn.
http://www.youtube.com/user/neurolepticamusic

HAUNTINGS

2011-10-08T19:05:00.003+01:00

Dopplereffekt played live on a bill with Leyland Kirby in Graz, Austria on 7/10/11. It’s not clear how this pairing came about, they may have been suggested by Kirby or picked by the curators. Incidently The Otolith Group’s Drexciya inspired film, Hydra Decapita, was included in the connected exhibition. It was at a series of concerts run in conjunction to an art exhibition called HAUNTINGS. Described as an interdisciplinary project - exhibition, series of concerts and an evening of film – it examined secret and uncanny presences in media, art and pop. It was curated by Thomas Edlinger and Christian Höller. Hauntology in other words, an interesting topic in relation to Dopplereffekt. Kirby was behind the V/VM Test label and currently makes music under his own name and The Caretaker. He recently did the soundtrack to Patience (After Sebald), a film by Grant Gee. You can check out his website for more information on him and sample some of his great music there. Their blurb is as follows, more info at below links.

7. 10. Leyland Kirby, Dopplereffekt

Going by the name of The Caretaker (named after the main character of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining), the Berlin-based Brit assembles piano motifs to ethereal soundscapes while priming them with vinyl needles whose clicking and scratching express a promise of intimacy. And as Leyland Kirby he revels in the conviction that “sadly, the future is no longer what it was” and illustrates his unhinged melancholy with plaintive sound paintings: “Live for the future, long for the past.” The American/German electronic act Dopplereffekt, which rarely performs in public, references the predecessors of Detroit techno like Kraftwerk with more than just its technophilic name. The musicians’ German pseudonyms, like that of Dopplereffekt founder and ex-member of the techno-mystics Drexciya, Gerald Donald aka Heinrich Mueller aka Rudolf Klorzeiger, likewise evince a strong connection to retro-futurist tradition.
http://medienturm.at/mt.php?id=2&sid=361&k=full&_pid=943&sp=EN
Leyland Kirby
http://www.brainwashed.com/vvm/index.html

Drexciya

2011-10-05T11:27:00.005+01:00

Nice mention of James Stinson from the legendary himself Anthony ‘Shake’ Shakir when speaking with Dazed Digital recently. That would have been some collaboration alright. He did collaborate to some unknown degree with Gerald Donald though on the first Der Zyklus 12" in about 1997 or 98. Full interview with Shake at link below.

DD: Collaborations are often a spontaneous thing, but in your dream world, is there anyone you'd wish to work with musically (dead or alive)?
Anthony Shake Shakir: I wanted to work with a lot of my peers but was afraid to ask because I would be found to be a fraud of some sort because I can not actually play an instrument. Since I stumbled through most of what I was doing, I keep on stumbling. I was looking forward to working with James Stinson as he had asked to do some collaborations with me. I was surprised and shocked by him asking me to do that, but he passed before that could happen. I have a little more confidence nowadays.
http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/11314/1/anthony-shake-shakir

Lengthy Drexciya post on the blog of the prestigious Liberator magazine. A sign that maybe someday they will include them in their print edition? The quotes come from my Drexciya Speaks article, well worth putting them all together all those years ago.
http://weblog.liberatormagazine.com/2011/09/drexciya-audios.html

I think this artist, Jason deCaires, would appreciate the Drexciya mythos and could easily create it underwater too. Amazing underwater sculpture work.
http://www.underwatersculpture.com/

Neutrino

2011-10-03T18:46:00.008+01:00

On the Futurity Works SoundCloud (which has loads of other cool DRL related stuff too) there is an almost 20 minute segment of the Dopplereffekt Neutrino show, which is all new material. Also short segments of the lectures are there as well. two The below text can also be read there. I'm told it was professionally filmed and a website will be built to tie in with all of this soon. For now they have put up a Facebook page for what they call, Neutrino Programme, some text from it below. Some fan videos of it are up now too. I guess we can expect more of these shows then, maybe an album?
http://www.youtube.com/user/jarman808

Futurity SoundCloud text
This is a segment from the premiere performance of the Neutrino project at AND Festival, Liverpool on September 30th, 2011.

Neutrino is Dopplereffekt, Albert van Abbe (visual artist), Zazralt Magic (scientist) and Katarina Markovic (scientist).

CONCEPT:
Astrophysics event presentation, a synthesis of music/visual data modes and natural philosophy. The program consists of 2 modules:

Module 1 is academic in nature in the form of lecturers (scientists) expounding on specific topics related to stellar and galaxy
formations and properties. These are designed to give the audience an entry level insight into astrophysical concepts.

Module 2 is a music/visual data presentation relative to the theme, performed by Dopplereffekt. Music data will be experimental in nature.
In module 1 the lecturers will also be performers in the sense that they will be immersed sonically as well as optically/visually. The lecture presentationsaims to escape classical methods of presenting ideas and concepts. It will be accompanied by music data and visual data in real time synchronization with the lecturer.

DURATION:
The lecture component will allow each presenter 45 minutes to present their respective concept.
There will be 1 music/visual data presentation (by Dopplereffekt). The music/visual data set will be 60 minutes in length.

http://soundcloud.com/futurityworks/neutrino-zazralt-magic

Neutrino Programme Facebook Text

The Neutrino Programme's aim is to display astrophysical content in an audio-visual artistic framework, in order to combine the approaches of scientific and artistic expression.

The neutrino programme is a collaboration of art and science.

Description Technical Design Group:
- Albert Van Abbe
- Katarina Markovic
- Zazralt Magic
- Heinrich Mueller
- To Nhan

Mission Neutrino is a project designed to combine the transfer of astrophysical knowledge with audio-visual creations into a combined scientific and artistic expression. Its aim is to immerse the observer sonically, visually and intellectually in the physics of the Universe.

Email dataphysix at scientist.com

Heinrich Mueller Remix of DJ Stingray

2011-10-01T10:50:00.011+01:00

There is a new Heinrich Mueller remix of a DJ Stingray track upcoming on a 12” from the Unknown to the Unknown label. They also promoted the June Dopplereffekt show in London this year. I was sent a preview of it and it’s a fast paced number with loads of Mueller signatures all over it. Not sure when it’s out but should be very soon (will be 24th October). This is the second time he has remixed/reworked the music of DJ Stingray (one time Drexiyan DJ), the first was 'Drone FX' on the Drexciyan Connection 12" on WeMe Records in 2009. In the picture is that supposed to be Mueller maybe on second from right? Here’s their blurb.

Unknown To The Unknown have put together their new release, Stingray Enters The Unknown a collaboration between Detroit’s DJ Stingray & London’s DJ Haus. Entitled The Sadist Pts 1 and 2 – the release is backed with remixes from the legendary Heinrich Mueller (Dopplereffekt) and Cestrian (Ali Renault, Heartbreak). It's also already on You Tube I found out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Ij0Ovi3bs
http://www.chemical-records.co.uk/sc/servlet/Info?Track=UTTU005
http://unknowntotheunknown.com/

Zerkalo previewed a new track on their SoundCloud recently too. It’s called, ‘You, Whose Sleep is Without Awakening’ which is the opening line of a poem by the Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941). This is the second time she has been referenced by them, 'I Can Speak'. The full poem is as follows.

You, whose sleep is without awakening,
Who does still quietly move,
Go to the Three-Pond alley
If you my poems love.

O, how sunny and how starry
It's to start the life's first tome
I pray - while it is not too late yet -
Come and take a look at our home!

Soon that world will be snuffed out,
In a secret of the night look at it,
While the poplar is not cut down
And our home is not sold yet.

This our poplar! Our childhood's evenings
Underneath it nestle and thrash.
This our poplar among acacias
Is the color of silver and ash.

Hurry on, you will find this world
Unforgettably wonderful!
Go to the Three-Pond Alley
To this soul of my soul.

http://soundcloud.com/zerkalo_data
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Tsvetaeva

Any pictures or reviews from Dopplereffekt Neutrino last night in Liverpool, please send my way. Some videos of it here in 6 parts.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jarman808

Dopplereffekt - Neutrino

2011-09-14T18:21:00.008+01:00

Dopplereffekt will be performing what appears to be a one-off event, entitled Neutrino, at the Scandinavian Seaman’s Church, Liverpool, UK on 30th September 2011. It will be part of the AND festival and is in conjunction with the Max Plank Institute. I got an email from Albert van Abbe, whose No Comment 12” featured a Heinrich Mueller remix, which states he will produce and perform the visuals for it. He also states it is a complete new project with complete new sounds for Dopplereffekt. His website repeats some of this. The blurb on the AND site reads, “…Continuing this interest in the further reaches of science, Neutrino is a new project from the group that will use astrophysics lectures as the basis for a dense, involving audio visual performance.” I've now heard they will also be joined by the physicist Katarina Markovic who will deliver a lecture to their music and a Phd student, Zazralt Magic, will be involved too.

This interest in the neutrino first surfaced on the 2003 Linear Accelerator album with a track called Myon-Neutrino. A neutrino is an electrically neutral and weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle. It means "small neutral one", is an elementary particle that usually travels close to the speed of light, is electrically neutral and is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected, "like a bullet passing through a bank of fog”. Neutrinos have a very small, but nonzero mass.

http://andfestival.org.uk/event/neutrino
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino
http://www.albertvanabbe.nl/
http://www.mpg.de/en

Drexciya Reissues on Clone Classic Cuts

2011-09-06T20:22:00.005+01:00

That ‘Clone to reissue some Drexciya releases’ story which I mentioned in my last post just got very interesting. According to a more detailed Facebook post, “We will re-issue the early Drexciya catalogue on Clone. We are currently busy restoring the original master tapes, and hopefully we have the first one ready before the end of the year! Of course we will keep you updated on the process.” They also reveal they will be released on their Clone Classic Cuts sublabel which reissued Dopplereffekt’s Gesamtkunswerk album in fine style back in 2007. Their message also implies the tracks will be remastered as well. In some follow up comments they also talk about perhaps releasing The Quest as well, “We’ll see what’s possible”.

Clone and their sublabels have already sensitively and lovingly reissued L.A.M., Glass Domain, Der Zyklus; have some later period Drexciya (inc the Lab Rat XL album and an The Other People Place 12”) in their catalogue which they have always been good at keeping in press; not to mention Zerkalo, so this is a perfect marriage. This could mean that the UR/Submerge material must either be up for fresh licensing from Stinson’s estate and Gerald Donald or else they are licensing it to Clone. Whatever the case it has been some time since this material was available to buy on vinyl or CD. It’s never easy to know when a new pressing happens but the UR coloured vinyl tribute to James Stinson editions of their 12”’s in 2003 might have been the last time some of this material saw the light of record shop day. It has also been a long time since The Quest has been available on any format, you will currently pay at least 100 US dollars for this on CD and the 12”’s go for big bucks too. Even trying to find a legal and therefore good quality download of this stuff has always been pretty difficult as well so this situation may be remedied too. By now there must be a huge unsatisfied demand from new and old fans alike. The Drexciya story continues and the legacy grows.

They have yet to announce what the releases will be and while I don’t expect The Journey Home to be included, although that would be amazing some day, everything else on this list could be. Might I suggest The Unknown Aquazone double pack being released on CD as well, surely enough material here to make it worthy, could always have been seen as an album and is already listed as so on Discogs.

'Deep Sea Dweller' 12" (Shockwave 1993/UR 2003)
'Drexciya 2' 12” aka ‘Bubble Metropolis‘ (UR 1993/2003)
‘Drexciya 3’ 12” aka ‘Molecular Enhancement’ (Rephlex 1994/Submerge 1995/2003)
‘Drexciya 4’ dbl 12” aka ‘The Unknown Aquazone’ (Submerge 1994/2003)
‘Drexciya 5’ 12” aka ‘The Journey Home’ (Warp 1995)
‘Aquatic Invasion’ 12” (UR 1995/2003)
'The Return of Drexciya' 12" (UR 1996/2003)
‘Uncharted’ 12” (S.I.D. 1997)
‘The Quest’ (Submerge 1997/2002)

https://www.facebook.com/CloneRecords?sk=info

Dopplereffekt live set +

2011-09-01T11:01:00.003+01:00

The entire Dopplereffekt live set from Bloc 2011 is currently up on their mixcloud page in perfect sound-desk quality.
http://i.mixcloud.com/ChKyq

Also you can look forward to some Drexciya reissues by the end of the year from Clone. They tweeted the following message about this, "We will have the first in a small series of Drexciya re-releases albums by the end of 2011".

Nice tribute track to Drexciya by djotomi here
http://soundcloud.com/djotomi/otomi_drexciyan_mix-3

Drexciya and Gerald Donald podcast mix from 2006 on Bleep43
http://www.bleep43.com/podcast/2006/2/19/podcast-17-james-stinson-and-gerald-donald-special.html

Heinrich Mueller remix's part 1 update

2011-08-29T20:59:00.005+01:00

It’s been three years almost to the day since I did part 1 of my Heinrich Mueller remix posts and back then hardly any of these tracks were archived on YouTube so I’ve just updated the original post to include these links to each remix. In fact I noticed that two which had been listed in those (long ago) days have since been removed for copyright reasons so I’ve located other still working (for now) links for these as well. You can still read the original article here and part 2 here or just get clicking from the list below. Great to hear the full length Scan X mixes at last and the Air remix is still a favourite of mine.

Scan X – Wasteland (Prototype 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtW3lajW3NE

Scan X – Wasteland (Prototype 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xxWj_SR9oc

Hell – Suicide Commando (Heinrich Mueller remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmWB7A0vNO8

Le Car - ‘Cinematic-Automatic’ (Heinrich Muller Remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QMMlQ9m2Tc

The Hacker - ‘Fadin' away’ (Heinrich Müeller Remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bpdxmAFBpA

Station Rose - ‘Dave’ (Heinrich Mueller: Stanley Kubricks Vision Mix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YujAdut7ms

Tuxedomoon - ‘What Use’ (Heinrich Mueller Technik Mix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhK_1xZdWgw

Air - ‘Le Soleil Est Près De Moi’ (Dopplereffekt Remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SuiaDrw5n4

Takbam - Takbam (Photon Mix) by Heinrich Mueller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2yIuqjFznI

The Advent - Untitled (Heinrich Mueller Remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFOVla2j5M8

Duplex - P.O.M. (Time Dilation) by Heinrich Mueller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfaJnFZ0IXo

Kavinsky - Testarossa Autodrive (Arpanet Nightdrive Rework)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlgkFeFzpZA

Duplex - Autosug (Heinrich Mueller rmx)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14OL52uekGo

Cisco Ferreira - Womans Scent (Heinrich Mueller Remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-HHBSPt2UM

Bochum Welt - Saint (Heinrich Mueller - Z Version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrK1yu569BE

Victoria Lukas/Drexciyan Statue?

2011-08-29T19:34:00.008+01:00

There is a beautiful new video by Marie Athenaïs for ’These Times are Gone’ by VITA, a Victoria Lukas solo project, on her YouTube channel. There will be an album by VITA released on Frustrated Funk soon. She has also launched a new website, link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD715AGPJaU
http://victoria-lukas.com/

I was sent this picture of what looks like a statue of a Drexciyan in a fountain in the middle of Brussels, Belgium. I tried to do some research on this but found nothing, anyone know more about who did it, what it’s all about etc. Turns out it is called "The Man From Atlantis" and was made by the artist Luk van Soom in 2003. Unsurprisingly it has nothing to do with Drexciya unless the artist is a fan? Thanks to one of my readers for this info.

Nice mix here featuring Drexciya, Dopplereffekt, Der Zyklus.
http://soundcloud.com/captain-johnson/capt-j-drexciya-der-zyklus-dopplereffekt-mix-07#

New Zerkalo track and video

2011-07-20T14:23:00.003+01:00

There is an exclusive new track, Snova (снова), by Zerkalo on the Elektro Domesticos compilation on Fundamental. Alek Stark appears to be behind this exciting sounding project, link below. Zerkalo also have a suitably eerie new video for the track too by Marie Athénaïs. It has a sonic similarity to Roche Limit by Der Zyklus but is much darker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pthIzwxyifo
http://soundcloud.com/alekstark/elektro-domesticos-3-vinyl

Zerkalo also play live on 6th August 2011 in Brussels, Belgium.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128048400616521

Dopplereffekt at FON +

2011-07-05T20:26:00.009+01:00

Dopplereffekt will be playing at the FON festival in Cumbria, UK on 5th August 2011. They are also in Paris on 9th July and Sweden at the end of July. See previous posts for these links. http://www.fonfestival.org/home.html

Zerkalo are also playing live soon too in Paris on 22nd July 2011.

http://www.facebook.com/zerkalo.zerkalo?ref=ts#!/event.php?eid=159412420798720

Not that I expect too many who read this to be there but I am playing what is being billed as a ‘Drexciya Research Lab DJ set’ at a benefit night for a local man that has been out of work for sometime due to an accident. It’s the first time I’ve done this and it will feature only music by Drexciya and related groups, same as DRL. The venue will be Millrace, Drumshanbo, Ireland on Saturday 9th July from 9pm. I’m loving the process of picking this particular set out and still occasionally DJ but used to do it more regularly, being on the same bill as Vitalic was probably my biggest show. In fact I would be well up for doing something like this around the world if any fans or promoters ever want to take the risk and try organising it. It could be a Drexciya and related themed event and a way for local fans to meet up, maybe get to DJ their music themselves, project visuals they have designed, ask me questions, attract a bigger name that’s a fan to join the bill, whatever. Taking the research to you, could be fun. Just a thought or you could always just do the events yourselves, email me.

Rare 1995 Drexciya interview

2011-06-26T09:31:00.006+01:00

I just got sent these scans from an issue of Surreal Sound, a Dutch fanzine which I'm told was run by Joost De Leyser in the early 90's. I think it might be from 1995 as Elecktroids are mentioned. Many thanks for sending it, nice unexpected surprise to find in my inbox this morning! In case the page won't enlarge for you I have the typed out the Q & A at base of post as well. Interesting to see the speculation of the names involved and that it's correct! It's always brilliant when something rare and unknown to many turns up and can be archived and shared here. Anything else any of you have like it please send it to me.
Q: Where are you from/who are you?

A: The hydrosphere/Aquamen

Q: What are your musical influences?

A: Cosmos

Q: Are you religious?

A: E=MC2

Q: How would you define your music?

A: Aquatechnical

Q: When did you release your first record?

A: Arose from the I age and found mus(ic)

(Hard to read so not 100% sure on this one)

Q: Why was your music released on so many different labels?

A: Labels not important, it's the music.

Q: When will you release your next project?

A: When the time is correct to release.

Zwischenwelt interview

2011-06-19T14:16:00.005+01:00

There is a pretty good interview with both Heinrich Mueller and Beta Evers about Zwischenwelt at this link. It's in French and English.
http://www.hartzine.com/interviews/zwischenwelt-linterview

On the FUTURITY SoundCloud you can hear most of the tracks from the Zwischenwelt album.
http://soundcloud.com/futurityworks

Also, according to their Facebook page, Zerkalo are said to be composing a new album. You might be glad to know that one of their tracks which has been missing for awhile, 'Photon Photino', is currently up on the Victoria Lukas SoundCloud under the name 'Superpartners (Phonon Photino)' by her solo INKAMERA project. Another new track up there now called,
'смерть не существует (DEATH DOESN'T EXIST)'.
http://soundcloud.com/victoria-lukas

Dopplereffekt live videos

2011-06-18T17:29:00.002+01:00

This image is the pretty cool flyer for the next Dopplereffekt live show happening in Paris on 9th July.

I've done my best to grade and list some of the latest Dopplereffekt live videos to be posted YouTube for you. Loads more out there, not hard to find. Dopplereffekt appear to go mysterious on the new tracks at Bloc, some great stuff. When will there be a new album?

Bloc Weekender, England 12/3/11
Lovely new track with good audio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWhwJAPv73Y
New track and visuals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr18pY3eKHA
Half way through this video the footage of Dopplereffekt starts, really good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGAWZ8MyMkM
Good footage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFReiW06cbw

Live at X0Y0, London 3/6/11 (Loads of bad audio on many of these I’m afraid)
New track, ok audio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhfGmfRKNi8
Random stuff, audio is poor mostly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU_eCYr1TMI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8vfJysA5Pk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L2C1cx7-7c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvCVX-SAvjM

Akosua Adoma Owusu film

2011-06-09T19:52:00.004+01:00

The artist and filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu has released a film called Drexciya, but don’t get too excited as it’s not a documentary about them (which some smart person should totally get onto making) but a newly released 12 minute art film. Her website describes it as, ‘A portrait of an abandoned public swimming facility located in Accra, Ghana. The Riviera was once known as Ghana's first "pleasure" beach. A one-time extravagant Ambassador Hotel of post-colonial - early Kwame Nkrumah era, the Riviera Beach Club thrived until the mid-1970's. The Olympic sized pool, now in a dilapidated state, is used for locals for things other than swimming. Inspired by the myth of Detroit electronic band, Drexciya.’ I’d love to see this as it looks and sounds intriguing. Drexciya’s influence certainly continues to mutate and grow. You can see a trailer, find out where its currently showing and read more about the film and artist at this link.
http://www.akosuaadoma.com/projects/drexciya/

Dopplereffekt live +

2011-05-22T09:55:00.006+01:00

Dopplereffekt now confirmed as playing live for the lucky people of Paris on 9th July 2011.
http://www.digitick.com/dopplereffekt-concert-electro-la-machine-paris-09-juillet-2011-css4-digitick-pg101-ri815169.html

Fact magazine will be doing a live broadcast of Dopplereffekt’s upcoming show in London on 3rd June on their website. More at this link.
http://www.factmag.com/2011/05/16/fact-streaming-dopplereffekt-live-on-june-3/

There is an overview of Gerald Donald’s many projects to date on this Spanish language website. http://www.conceptoradio.net/2011/05/09/focus-gerald-donald/

Please now indulge my own plugging. One Minute Residency by Stephen Rennicks came out of the Trade Residency programme 2011 which is run jointly by Leitrim and Roscommon Co. Co, Ireland. This year it is being led by New York based artist David Michalek. One Minute Residency acknowledges us all as creative beings, artist and non-artist alike, who could benefit from using an artist in residence model. It has been designed to provide a way to experience a residence in your own life and the everyday, to be instant, free to everyone and to be whatever you want it to be. Please share if you like it.
http://oneminuteresidency.wordpress.com/
http://stephenrennicks.webs.com/
http://www.davidmichalek.net/

Dopplereffekt Swedish interview/show

2011-05-14T12:32:00.004+01:00

Dopplereffekt will be playing at the end of July 2011 at a Swedish music festival called Norberg.
http://www.norbergfestival.com/2011/artists/dopplereffekt.html

Quite possibly to publicise this appearance there was a Swedish radio interview with Gerald Donald on 23rd March 2011 which I’m guessing you may still be available to listen to on the stations archive but maybe only if your IP is Swedish as I couldn’t play it. If anyone is able to figure it out please let me know. Here is some badly translated text from their site via GoogleTranslate. I include it partly because at the very end they tell us two answers to questions they had to take out (and that they had to distort his voice). One was about what it was like to be in Drexciya and the other was certainly news to me. He doesn’t want us to know about a character in a fictional novel by Thomas Meinecke which could be based on him. I found a link to a 2005 movie treatment for this novel, Light Blue, which does indeed mention a certain character called Heinrich. Maybe it’s a rumour the interviewer heard and wanted to follow up and quite possibly Meinecke; who is also a member of the group NSK, and Donald do know each other. Go deeper into this more personal material if you want at link below. It’s my intention to stick with his more public face but due to this info leaking into the public domain like this I don’t want to completely ignore it either.
http://www.inpetto-filmproduktion.de/projects/hellblau.htm

Swedish Radio interview
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2479&artikel=4402571

The Man Behind the Mask - Gerald Donald
Secretive Gerald Donald is behind the legendary groups such as Drexciya and Doppler effect. He has only set up two interviews ever - and then his career about 20 years long. In a very unique interview he talks about, among other things, all the various groups he was involved in and why he is so incredibly fascinated by particle physics. Contributors: Gerald Donald, Beta Evers from Zwischenwelt, Victoria Lukas from Zerkalo, others.
Though he really has been a member of Drexciya are unclear - he has never commented on it myself. On the whole surrounding himself happy with a mysterious aura, where the important thing is not the person behind the machines. The picture he launches by itself is rather that of the scientist in the studio. There are synth is the result of technological development and research and where he carries out sound experiments that take the music forward. In the few interviews he has refused to comment much about himself. In fact, he almost never sets - which, combined with his fascinating and spellbinding electro music made that media interest around him is enormous. But mostly, he says no. It is therefore with great pride that the current in P2 presents a unique interview with Gerald Donald. However, we were forced to promise to distort his voice. Otherwise, he had not pulled their weight. In the program we talk with other who work with or have written about Gerald Donald. And their voices, we did not distort. Victoria Lukas is one half of the duo Zerkalo. This project inspired her and Gerald Donald of the film director Andrei Tarkovsky. We also call up the Beta Evers - who sings in the band Zwischenwelt, where Gerald Donald is also included. In spring, the question with a new album whose theme is paranormal state. Ten years ago, the German writer Thomas Meinecke out with his novel "light blue" which Gerald Donald is with the fictitious person. Why it was so we take out. And so, we, of course, the question of what it was like to be a member of Drexciya. Gerald Donald's reaction, you take part of the program.

Victoria Lukas/Zerkalo +

2011-05-04T12:58:00.010+01:00

Victoria Lukas has two more collaborations to her credit you might be interested in. The first is with Alek Stark on his new album which can be heard here. In case your confused, this is the second track they have collaborated on recently.
http://soundcloud.com/alekstark/4-memories-feat-victoria-lukas

The other is what might turn out to be a more permanent arrangement, a project called Lukas&Popstar, which is between her and Yeti Popstar which is worth hearing at the following links. I've also put extra links in the side bar for many of the side projects etc of Heinrich Muellers collaborators.
http://www.myspace.com/lukasnpopstar

http://www.reverbnation.com/lukasnpopstar#

One of her solo projects, vita, also has a load of new tracks on her SoundCloud page.

http://soundcloud.com/victoria-lukas

A new version of the Zerkalo track, King("Одни на целом свете" Mix), has emerged with what I think is a semi official video. The title of the remix is a line from a poem and translates I think as ‘One in the whole world’. It is set to the opening sequence of Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie Mirror (1975) and features Julia Pello reciting verses by Arseny Tarkovsky from his poem "First Meetings". Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky (1907 - 1989) was a prominent Soviet and Russian poet and translator. He is considered one of the great 20th century Russian poets. He was also the father of influential film director Andrei Tarkovsky whose film Mirror contains readings of his fathers poetry. As you know by now I never miss a chance to publish poetry on DRL, usually in connection with Zerkalo, so I have included the full translation in english below. I love the last line. be sure to scroll down for more on Zwischenwelt and Black Replica in this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-02nGNt2s7Q
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arseny_Tarkovsky

FIRST MEETINGS

We celebrated every moment
Of our meetings as epiphanies,
Just we two in all the world.
Bolder, lighter than a bird's wing,
You hurtled like vertigo
Down the stairs, leading
Through moist lilac to your realm
Beyond the mirror.

When night fell, grace was given me,
The sanctuary gates were opened,
Shining in the darkness
Nakedness bowed slowly;
Waking up, I said:
'God bless you!', knowing it
To be daring: you slept,
The lilac leaned towards you from the table
To touch your eyelids with its universal blue,
Those eyelids brushed with blue
Were peaceful, and your hand was warm.

And in the crystal I saw pulsing rivers,
Smoke-wreathed hills, and glimmering seas;
Holding in your palm that crystal sphere,
You slumbered on the throne,
And - God be praised! - you belonged to me.
Awaking, you transformed
The humdrum dictionary of humans
Till speech was full and running over
With resounding strength, and the word you
Revealed its new meaning: it meant king.
Everything in the world was different,
Even the simplest things - the jug, the basin -
When stratified and solid water
Stood between us, like a guard.

We were led to who knows where.
Before us opened up, in mirage,
Towns constructed out of wonder,
Mint leaves spread themselves beneath our feet,
Birds came on the journey with us,
Fish leapt in greeting from the river,
And the sky unfurled above...

While behind us all the time went fate,
A madman brandishing a razor.

Beta Evers has put up a Zwischenwelt page on her own website.
http://www.betaevers.de/zwischenwelt/

When I did my main article on Black Replica in 2008 I gave a link to an Alan Moore documentary at the end, which has since been taken down. In case you missed it someone has put it back up at this link. Does it tie in, quite possibly not outside my subjective opinion. I also found a rare live picture of Black Replica too for the archives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvcPVxzhTLQ

Drexciya Interviews Still Online

2011-04-23T21:03:00.007+01:00

I went looking to see which of the original online interviews with James Stinson are still available to read and thanks to fans and improved archiving I found they all are! In no order, the first is with Andrew Duke in December 1999, I’m not sure what website he was writing for originally but it’s currently hosted on his own website; second is by Tim Pratt for Detroit Free Times in September 2002; third was by Derek Beere for FutureBPM in June 2002 and finally John Osselaer for TechnoTourist in February 2002. If these links don't work, copy and paste the address it's trying to load into the WaybackMachine or just hit the Impatient? link and you should find it. Some print edition interviews with him can also be read online now too. Melody Maker’s 1995 interview has been transcribed and archived; the Tim Barr interview for Muzik in 1997 can be read in full now too and lastly Nick Phillips for Groovesmag in 2001 can as well. These were more or less the interviews I cut up into sections and collected as one of the very first posts on DRL, Drexciya Speaks. There was also a very short Q&A with Stinson in Energy Flash zine from 1996. Of course the most heard interview he did must be his appearance on Liz Copland's show on Detroit Radio in 2002. These quotes I also transcribed into Drexciya Speaks. There was one other print edition interview with him by Richard Brophy for Clubbing in 2002 which is not online but I have already used his quotes from this for Drexciya Speaks. It should go without saying that if you do have any other interviews I would appreciate the info. There may be another one by Tim Barr in 1994 out there somewhere.
Internet Archive was very useful in finding some of this stuff and it has also managed to save Stinson's own primitive Drexciya website from 2002, Ride Dimensional Waves, worth a look. This should keep you all busy reading anyway!

James Stinson Appreciation

2011-04-23T09:40:00.004+01:00

One of you just sent me some very useful links which thanks to the WaybackMachine at Internet Archive I can now share again with you all. This moving appreciation was written by Tamara Warren about James Stinson for Detroit Free Press. They also ran a second smaller piece of quotes from associates which I’ve included as well. I think it’s good to archive this stuff when it surfaces and to remember as well, almost 10 years now. I also noticed that at the time the family suggested donations to the American Heart Association and I have now included their link permanetly in the side bar.

James Stinson: Stealthy artist invigorated techno
September 13, 2002
BY TAMARA WARREN
FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER

James Marcel Stinson was an intensely private figure in the Detroit techno scene, but he was revered by electronic music fans in his hometown and around the world for his musical foresight and vivid imagination -- though most of them didn't even know who he was.
Mr. Stinson, 32, who grew up on Detroit's east side and graduated from Kettering in 1989, died Sept. 3 of heart complications in Newnan, Georgia, where he had moved earlier this year. He would have turned 33 Saturday.
Drexciya, the group he belonged to, was so secretive, its records didn't reveal the names of its players. Its members gave only a handful of interviews over a 10-year career, and even Mr. Stinson's mother didn't know how well-received his work was.
Nonetheless, the group's aquatic-themed music -- which featured lush, analog synthesizers offset by cold, crisp beats and metallic textures -- was hailed in techno circles for its experimental vision. It also was credited with helping initiate the current revival of an electronic subgenre known as electro.
By day, Mr. Stinson was a truck driver and the father of seven children. His mother, Helen Stinson, knew that he made music in her basement for many years but Stinson downplayed his success. "There's so many people telling me things about my child," Helen Stinson said. "You had to pull his teeth to find out what was going on. That's how he was. When he wanted you to know, you found out."
Mike Banks, one of Detroit's best-known electronic music producers, said Mr. Stinson was a close friend, and that his love of electro was inspirational.
"Now there's a whole resurgence of electro, and he was the life force of it," said Banks, who heads the label Underground Resistance, for which Drexciya recorded much of its work. "He had a fascination with the ocean, and aquatic things, and African-American history and the voyage African people had to make. He was fascinated with the strength and endurance you have to have to make a voyage."
Banks said Mr. Stinson's best feature was "that 'good enough' wasn't enough. He always pushed the envelope. Even at UR, where pushing the envelope is the norm, he pushed it harder than any artist on the label. He would expect us to keep living on the edge."
Detroit-based producer Dennis Richardson was affiliated with Drexciya, and said Mr. Stinson was "ultra low-key." "You see him on the street, he's an everyday guy," Richardson said. "You get him in the music studio and he's a maestro."
In addition to his mother, survivors include his father, James Allen Stinson; wife, Andrea Clementson Stinson; children, Chantell, Martiz, Bobbie IV, James Jr., Bobbie V, Kayanne and Kannada, and a brother.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday at the James H. Cole Funeral Home, 2624 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit.
--------------------------------------------

Reaction to the passing of James Stinson
September 13, 2002

"I just want to say that James was the epitome of 'being yourself.' He was an amazingly talented producer. But he was just as amazing as a regular person who loved what he loved and not what people thought he should." Eric Dulan, (a.k.a. DJ Bone)

"He is one of my brothers, a really good guy who was also very close to the underground. James will always have a special place in my heart. He was always keeping it real. He's definitely going to be missed." Mike Clark (a.k.a. Agent X)

"James came into our camp and was really high on electro. He liked some of my electro and gave me the mind to release 'Final Frontier.' Based on 'Final Frontier's' success, we saw that electro wasn't dead at all, not in the city or abroad." Mike Banks of Underground Resistance

The family suggests donations to the American Heart Association
http://www.americanheart.org/

Drexciya at MOCA Detroit

2011-03-17T08:44:00.003Z

This weekend at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit there will be a showing of Hydra Decapita by The Otolith Group which could be seen as major hometown recognition for Drexciya. This blurb is circulating online about them in relation to it, “Not nearly as well known as the Belleville Three (Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson), or the second wave of Detroit techno talent (Mike Banks, Jeff Mills, Rob Hood) the mysterious duo calling itself Drexciya might be best known for introducing a theoretical thread to electronic dance music called Afro-futurism. The group, made up of the late James Stinson and Gerald Donald, created a fictional waterworld populated by descendants of African slaves drowned during the Middle Passage on their way to North America.”

From the MOCA Detroit website
Hydra Decapita (2010) 32 min.
Dir. by The Otolith Group
From 1993 to 2002, the Detroit-based electronic music duo Drexciya released an influential series of recordings that imagined a fictional world system entitled Drexciya, populated by the subaquatic descendants of Africans drowned by slavers during the Middle Passage. The fabulation of Drexciya provides the point of departure for Hydra Decapita, the new work by The Otolith Group that summons a series of spectres of capital in order to convene a seance that immerses audiences within an affective evocation of contemporary economic abstraction.
Showing on Saturday, March 19th at 7PM, free.
http://www.metromodemedia.com/filterd/drexciya311.aspx
http://www.mocadetroit.org/
http://otolithgroup.org/

Dopplereffekt Live 2011

2011-03-15T17:37:00.002Z

Three posts in two days, well there’s a bunch of Dopplereffekt live dates coming up now!

18th March 2011 Frankfurt, Germany (Be sure to check details at link)
The Otolith Group: A Sunken Trembling, Recalled Dimly
Guests:
Lise Autogena & Joshua Portway (Newcastle/Bristol)
Rayya Badran (Beirut)
Justin Barton (London)
Dopplereffekt (München)
Mark Fisher (London)
Brian W. Rogers (Santa Cruz)
http://e-flux.com/shows/view/9337

9th April 2011 Offenbach, Germany
http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?239529

3rd June London, England
http://www.xoyo.co.uk/events/gigdetails/3-jun-11-dopplereffekt-live-xoyo/

If you don’t want to register with RA to listen to the Heinrich Mueller mix you can listen to it here
http://grooveconnection.tumblr.com/post/3876144009/heinrich-mueller-resident-adviser-ra-250

Just a few new videos you might like

Drexciya – Black Sea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI4u57F7JaQ
Dopplereffekt - Unknown Vs. Destination Moonbase Alpha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nueydgDUyyA
Elecktroids – Midnight Drive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzMSwTvWzE8
Mysterious Der Zyklus live clip from who knows where, Michaela solo on the 2004 Hand Geometry tour?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iupIv50uH10

Heinrich Mueller RA mix

2011-03-14T12:56:00.002Z

Just noticed this after I put up previous post a short while ago! Heinrich Mueller and various members of Zwischenwelt have done a mix for Resident Advisor. There is also a short text interview with him and Penelope Martin which you can read in full there too at same link. When asked what he has been up to recently Mueller states, “Investigating new technologies and developing concepts for future works.” Something to look forward to there then. Tracklist below, you can see it includes not only Mueller tracks but also material from the Zwischenwelt collective and his wider associates. Vocal samples from the 2006 relativity and time-shifting lecture series made to promote Arpanet’s Inertial Frame album are used throughout. Most surprisingly the mix goes right back to mid 90’s Dopplereffekt material. All in all a very interesting and revealing mix made in what they refer to as the “Interworld”. You will have to join RA to download the mix.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=250

For archival purposes here’s the question and answer only part of their piece, see full article at link above.

What have you been up to recently?

Mueller: Investigating new technologies and developing concepts for future works, all these things functions in a unified manner. They feedback to one another.

Martin: Zwischenwelt's album production. We all worked really hard for this project, can't wait to see the album out. Also I have been concentrated on ArD2, a project I share with the Spanish producer Ekis. We just finished a new EP and shot a video for one of the tracks of the new EP. Nowadays I'm researching a lot, building the concept for a new project I want to start very soon.

How and where was the mix recorded?

Martin: My lips are sealed on this one; all I can tell you is that the mix was created in the "Interworld."

Mueller: Unsealing lips slightly. The assembly of this data was really a universal effort; building and exchanging ideas on its production. So there was no particular point in space/time where it was recorded, it was a theory and practice situation. It was truly a group and universal effort. We all were working toward the "Interworld" concept.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the idea behind the mix?

Mueller: The primary purpose of this music data assembly is to demonstrate the latest musical developments I'm involved with in addition to other musical workers. So in summary, it is a promotional demonstrator of music technologies.

Martin: The idea was to demonstrate various new music concepts. We brought together music from other projects of Zwischenwelt's members and mixed it with some of the tracks we will find on the Paranormale Aktivitat album.

Can you tell us about the production process behind the Paranormale Aktivitat. We understand it was mostly created via the Internet?

Martin: Yes, we used the internet to organize the work; a lot of conferences where we all four shared new tracks, ideas and made the concept stronger. The Zwischenwelt LP took quite a long time to complete. I got involved in the project in May 2007. Along those years I had to travel to Germany twice, for real time sessions—a great experience where we all share ideas under the same ceiling.

What are you up to next?

Mueller: At this time as stated previously, looking forward to new technologies and concepts, maybe some possible interactivity with other musical scientists to share ideas.

Martin: I'm setting up the foundations for new projects, researching and preparing rhythms and ideas. We are working on a live set for ArD2 as well as new tracks. Also I am looking forward to a more personal with no collaborations, just me as Penélope Martin.

Mix Tracklist
Voice of Relativity
Dopplereffekt - Mirror Symmetry
ArD2 - Sabotage
Beta Evers - Confusion
ArD2 - Utopia
Gedankenexperiment - Conclusion
Urban Tribe - Carbon 14
Paka - Solitude:
Dopplereffekt - Myon Neutrino
Dopplereffekt - Sterilization
Der Zyklus - Polar Coordinates
Dopplereffekt - Scientist
Zwischenwelt - Remote Viewer
Dopplereffekt - Plastiphilia
Zwischenwelt - Shadow Being
Der Zyklus - Formenverwandler
Zwischenwelt - Telemetric
Dopplereffekt - Speak and Spell
Dopplereffekt - Satellites
Der Zyklus - Biometric Systems
Urban Tribe - Amygdala
ArD2 - Drug of a Nation
Zwischenwelt - Premonition
Der Zyklus - Biometric ID
Zwischenwelt - Enigmata
Zwischenwelt - Multiplexsistence
Arpanet - Universe Oscillation
Beta Evers - Only for My Satisfaction
Dopplereffekt - Non Vanishing Harmonic Spinor
Zwischenwelt - Clairvoyant
Neuroleptica - Tardive Dyskinesia
Zwischenwelt - Shadow Being
Dopplereffekt - Anti Neutrino
Zerkalo - I Know More
Arpanet - Grossvater Paradoxen
Dopplereffekt - Z^0 Boson

Download at
http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=250

Drexciya & Detroit

2011-03-14T11:47:00.009Z

A little piece of information came my way from a reliable source about Drexciya’s background concept. Take it for what you think it’s worth but once I did some research I found some interesting things. When they were at some presumably very early point in their train of conceptual thought or even all along, they were said to be thinking of what unique life might be lurking down in the Detroit sewer system. To me this could be seen to tie in more with their first project together, L.A.M. (Life after Mutation) which was of course just pre-Drexciya in 1992. Although its track titles etc seem to refer to mutation brought on by pollution of a nuclear variety, if you read the below excerpt from Wikipedia the stuff being dumped into those sewers in the recent past and ending up in Lake Erie was fairly toxic. As I’ve said in previous posts they would soon come up with a far more sophisticated concept but maybe here’s some evidence of an environmental conscience or whatever as well. I love that there is also a link to the sea from Lake Erie as well, there’s still so many interpretations you can take from this material. James Stinson only said it was their music which had nothing to do with their home city or techno but this toxic sewer mutation thing if true does to a degree put Detroit at the centre of their concept. Interestingly, when speaking with Andrew Duke of Cognition Audioworks in 2001 Stinson said when asked where and whether he would perform live, "Yeah-anywhere. In a sewer, underwater, in a swimming pool, in the middle of a swamp, in a back alley somewhere, it doesn't make a difference, we'll appear anywhere, it all depends." and more substantially in the sleeve notes for UR’s Interstellar Fugitives (1998) it states for Drexciya, 'Whereabouts: Last Sighting Eastside Sewer System 7 Mile and Van Dyke Area – Eastside Detroit Sector.'

(From Wikipedia)Much of the land surrounding the Detroit River is urbanized and, in some places, heavily industrialized. This has resulted in excessive water pollution from the unregulated dumping of chemicals and industrial waste for many decades. Much of the garbage and sewage from Detroit's rapid industrialization found its way into the river. Much of the Detroit River and its shoreline were heavily polluted and unsafe for recreational use. Large quantities of this pollution collected around the mouth of the Detroit River at Lake Erie. The pollutants were so high after the spring thaw that thousands of migrating birds were killed by oil slicks and contaminated water every year. Oxygen levels in the river were depleted to the point where fish were unable to inhabit its waters. Because much of this pollution drained into and affected Lake Erie, portions of the lake itself were considered “dead” and unable to support aquatic life. Swimming in the water or consuming any of its remaining fish were considered health risks.

Thankfully since 2001 there has been a very successful effort to clean up this area and wildlife is returning to Lake Erie and the local river systems, link below. I also found a link for you to watch Julien Temple’s amazing Requiem for Detroit film which shows and puts in context the ruins of modern day Detroit. Watching this film really made me appreciate how Drexciya could have wanted to escape in their minds from this place and dreamt of potential alternate realities just under the surface of things. I also have a link for more photos of the ruins of Detroit, which includes the below image of the Bagley-Clifford Office of the National Bank of Detroit. It’s not all bad, I found a positive news story about a growing urban farming movement that is happening in the city now as well. I never thought I’d get to include a link to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department but there is a history page there that is worth a read in this context. The main page on Detroit in Wikipedia is far more upbeat and of course there is a whole other side to the urban decay found there too. DRL, going deeper into the sewers!

Julien Temple’s Requiem for Detroit film
http://rutube.ru/tracks/3971045.html?v=b291fb1f625e36b9863c25366e7bbda8

Ruins of Detroit Photos

http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/
Urban Farming in Detroit video
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/11/detroit-urban-renewal-city-farms-paul-harris
Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/detroitriver/
Detroit Water and Sewerage Department
http://www.dwsd.org/history/sewerage_brief.html
Detroit at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit

Zwischenwelt Interview +

2011-02-15T19:16:00.010Z

Catch the cold wave. Just thought I’d add to all the hype surrounding the upcoming Zwischenwelt album, which has supposedly already been describd as ‘something like Nico meets Fad Gadget’ or even ‘cold wave for zola jesus fans’!), with some more preview information for you. Said to be out now on 28th Feb on Rephlex.

Firstly and of most interest, there is an interview with Beta Evers about it all at MNML SSGS
http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/2011/02/zwischenwelt-transmission-2q-with-beta.html

Samples of all the tracks from it over at Norman Records, nice.
http://www.normanrecords.com/vinyl/122960-zwischenwelt-paranormale-aktivitat
and Juno
http://www.juno.co.uk/miniflashplayer/SF417361-01-01-01.mp3

Some positive reviews already filed here (any chance of a copy being sent my way?)

The Arts Desk
Spannered
Alt Sounds

Also some nice new pictures of Zerkalo live at DNA club from 5th Feb 2011.
http://zerkalo.tumblr.com/post/3179412739/zerkalo-live-dna-brussels-02-05-11
An interview with Victoria Lukas and an interesting mix can be heard at this French radio website.

For the DRL archive here’s the Rephlex Press Release in full.
FEATURED IN FACT MAGAZINE'S TOP 10 ACTS TO MAKE A SPLASH IN 2011! : “An international trio of female artists making icy techno-pop inspired by parapsychology, aided and abetted by Heinrich Mueller of Drexciya and Dopplereffekt. What's not to like?”

Rephlex's biggest crossover album for some time, this record will find favour as much amongst fans of the current crop of cold wave and nu-goths such as Zola Jesus etc, old goth chanteuses such as Nico, as well as Detroit Electro heads and fans of early Mute Records electronics.

Zwischenwelt explore the field of parapsychology with a dark and twisted vision of cold wave electronics. Parapsychology investigates paranormal psychic abilities using scientific methods, such as used in traditional psychology (observation, survey etc.) and quantitative empirical methodologies such as used in sociology, psychology and pedagogy. Parapsychological phenomenon are often also called Psi-Phenomenon. The two main fields of parapsychological research are Psychokinesis, the ability of the mind to influence objects without involvement of currently known physical energies and without physical contact between the acting subject and the reacting object (for example telekinesis and psychic healing) and Extrasensory Perception (ESP), the ability to acquire information by (psychic) sources currently unexplained by science (best known examples are clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy).

It is this field that the group Zwischenwelt (German for ‘in-between world’) look to discover. Combining the talents of former Drexciya member Heinrich Mueller, New York DJ/producer Susana Correia, Spanish producer Penelope Lopez and vocalist Beta Evers (who operates a number of German labels, including Kommando 6), Zwischenwelt’s ‘Paranormale Aktivitat’ was created largely through the passing of parts back and forth across the web.

The opening ‘Apparition’ starts with an ethereal, ghost-like feel that permeates this haunting electronic encounter whilst ‘Clairvoyant’ pairs a stripped down electro beat to distant echoes of melody in a half-remembered state. Tracks such as ‘Enigmata’ and ‘Telekinesis’ add a strange swing to the avant-garde approach whilst ‘Diapsiquia’ and ‘Materialization’ are eerie cinematic moodscapes that push the groups experimental reach. Finally the pulsating rhythm of ‘Telemetric’ is perhaps the most obvious electro-power surge for the dancefloor.

Heinrich Mueller Remixes part 2

2011-02-06T22:31:00.016Z

Second of my round-ups of Heinrich Mueller’s remix/reworks and in this case one-off records/tracks as well. The most obvious change in his approach to remixing from 2008 on was that he is no longer using his experimental 2003 – 2007 era template for them. With a new album from one of his solo projects long overdue now (in my opinion, it’s been almost 4 years since Calabi Yau Space after-all) it’s tempting to use this recent material to speculate on what form his new music might take but expectations are bad so I‘ll just have patience and live in the moment. It could be a nice surprise though. These remixes etc are all in the main accessible tracks that would easily move a dancefloor or at least confuse them in a good way. I decided to include his sole collaborative track as Daughterprodukt and his original, ‘Drone FX’, from the Drexciyan Connection split 12” because it’s a good way (for me) to place these otherwise hard to classify and miscellaneous tracks of his. I guess I see these occasional round-ups of his remix work as a way to just compile material of his you could easily have missed or never got the chance to hear as they are mostly pressed in low quantities and difficult to find. Considering his work rate I thought that seven releases was a substantial enough number to justify another one which are listed pretty much in order of release. I am very grateful that I can listen to them on places like YouTube and the other links I’ve given here myself as I’m not a total completist about this side of his stuff. I’m glad all but one of these tracks are still available to listen to online, for now, and am excited to think that from this article some of you can now so easily get to hear some of this amazing music. I said in my previous round up of his remixes that a compilation of his best work in this field would be pretty amazing at this stage of his career and now with even more to choose from it would be killer. But as I said before he may understandably not want to linger on his own past and licencing the material could be problematic as well.

Daughterprodukt - ‘Zarathustra’ MySpace player only, October 2008.
This is the only track which emerged from the collaboration between Heinrich Mueller and Spanish producer Annie Hall. Does it belong here, well it’s not a remix but I’ve chosen to slot it in here anyway as one of his miscellaneous tracks from this period. I’ve written about it before so will keep it brief! The title of course refers to the epic 1883 book by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'. In my opinion the music is recognisably Muellerish, although the opening section reminds me at times of some of the sounds you find in the soundtrack to ‘Apocalypse Now’. It’s just the synth sound he is using that does it. The second section is pure atmospheric Mueller. As I said there are also female spoken vocals which go, "Christianity is really a misunderstanding. In reality there has been only one Christian and he died on the cross." I presume this is Hall. This is repeated a number of times over the first section and then the line, "And if you gaze long into an abyss the abyss will gaze back unto you.", which repeats to the end. I’ve always liked this track, quite unlike anything he has done before and if you can ever get to hear it do (it has been removed from the internet since the project was cancelled).
--------------------------------------------
Sebastien Tellier – Kilometer (Arpanet Remix) (Record Makers CD & 12“ single 2009)
Absolutely amazing remix of this track which is sexual to the max thanks to an orgasmic female sample from the original used throughout. Quite luxuriant, deep and slow paced with what sounds like a guitar sample from the original prominently utulised for its melody here as well. There are a few Mueller signatures but it’s quite unlike anything he has done before and must have been a surprise at the time for anyone expecting his usual remodel along the lines of his own music from 2003 – 2007. But the remix itself shouldn’t come as a surprise as Arpanet and Tellier share the same label. This track couldn’t fail to get noticed, it’s just one of those in a class of its own, highly recommended.
htt p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEXGEEUz_Zg
http://www.discogs.com/Sebastien-Tellier-Kilometer/master/5313
--------------------------------------
Heinrich Mueller/DJ Stingray – Drexciyan Connection - Drone FX (WeMe Records 12” single 2009)
Again not a remix but maybe this is also a good place to include this piece from his now vast catalogue. Just one new track by Mueller was included on this split 12” with one time Drexciyan DJ, DJ Stingray. Straight off it is a very fast tempo, which interestingly DJ Stingray is well known for (more on tempo later), surprisingly unlike Mueller. It’s quite a sharp sounding production too but slowly more textures emerge with a few synths sounds which are recognisably Mueller. There is a sample of dialogue from the film Colossus – The Forbin Project (1970) which goes, “An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me this rule will change.” This is the first time he has sampled dialogue from a movie to my memory, which must make this a significant choice. I just did a post on this subject previously. There is a YouTube video of this at the wrong speed of 33rpm but I like how it sounds, only problem is you can’t make out the sample, but it works in its own right somehow. I wouldn’t be expecting him to take this into account but a lot of his 2003 - 2007 music, due to the nature of it, probably sounds equally good at slower speeds.

Can still be heard on the WeMe MySpace player

Still amazing at 33rpm YouTube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIQ6jjmiYHc
http://www.discogs.com/DJ-Stingray-2-Heinrich-Mueller-Drexciyan-Connection/release/1790975

--------------------------------------
Jason Fine - Human Need (Heinrich Mueller Celestial Sphere Mix) (Kontra-Musik 10” single 2009)
Quite heavy and tightly wound approach this time round. Quite Drexciyan in fact and could even have a few subtle elements from his electroclash era remix work as well to my ears. Fast tempo throughout with a few total sound dropout breakdowns. Another one of my favorite mixes of his from this period. One of his booking agents is Kontra-Musik and Dopplereffekt have done shows for them in Sweden before so maybe no surprise he did a remix for this label. First of the brilliant titles too. In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an imaginary sphere of arbitrarily large radius, concentric with the Earth and rotating upon the same axis. All objects in the sky can be thought of as projected upon the celestial sphere. The celestial sphere is a very practical tool for positional astronomy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rFHveEYKYY
http://www.discogs.com/Jason-Fine-K-M-Mixes/release/1774048
-----------------------------
Rustie Bad Science 12”- Zig-Zag (Heinrich Mueller's Gravitational Equilibrium Mix) (Wireblock 12” single 2009)
This is the only one of these remixes to sound a bit more like the ones he was doing with the template of his own music from 2003 to 2007. Although it is still quite accessible, being a nice blend of the two approaches. Which does work very well as it rockets along and has these weird sounding moments too, like an ascending tone when everything drops out for a moment. Again it’s worth hearing for sure. I read somewhere that Rustie, who is an amazing young producer in his own right, is a big fan of Mueller. I wouldn’t say he gets asked too often to remix stuff, although potentially he could present you with an amazing piece of music, and I have a feeling that if you approach him he will probably do you a mix. I’ve no idea what he might charge but some of these might even be favors, especially when they are pressed in the low hundreds. I couldn’t guarantee it but I would guess he’s like any genuine artist and pretty decent if you have only a small budget and he thinks he could do something worthwhile with your track. Gravitational Equilibrium is when the state in a celestial body, such as a star, when gravitational forces pulling inward on a particle are balanced by some outward pressure, such as radiation pressure or electron degeneracy pressure, so that no vertical motion results.
http://official.fm/tracks/52004
http://www.discogs.com/Rustie-Bad-Science/master/170359
-------------------------------
ArD2 2084-The Remixes ‘Inside The Rock’ (Heinrich Mueller Anti De Sitter Space Mix) (Frigio Records 12” single 2010)
This could have been one of those favors as ArD2 features Penelope Martin of Zwischenwelt. And what a track it is! It uses a great sample of William Burroughs reading his infamous 'The Last Words of Hassan Sabbah', “Could use bodies and minds and souls that were not yours.” It’s a more straight forward accessible sound too, maybe a little skewed towards experimentation. I love the way it slows down and gets heavy around the 2.20 mark, there are a few of these really interesting and quite bare breakdowns throughout. The title of this remix, as applied to general relativity, can be thought of as five dimensional versions of spacetime and was named after Willem de Sitter (1872 – 1934), a Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer. Limited to just 300 copies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuPi0HOkRPg
http://www.discogs.com/ArD2-2084-The-Mixes/release/2266426
-------------------------------------------
Albert Van Abbe No Comment 000_1 – ‘NCS_0009121010’ [Heinrich Mueller Remodel] (No Comment 12” single 2011)
I instantly recognized the most prominent sound used on this and now just located it on the two versions of ‘Roche Limit’ by Der Zyklus but there the similarity ends. Quite chilled out but it still rattles along at a quick pace. It does have some nice atmospheric touches throughout but it’s pretty consistent and unchanging. Perhaps for those familiar with his work it’s maybe a bit Mueller by numbers but still good for that. Another example of him reworking a pretty much unknown producer. Limited to just 200 copies only.
On SoundCloud
http://www.discogs.com/Albert-Van-Abbe-No-Comment_0001/release/2600985

Part 1 (up to 2008) of this on-going article can be read here, part 3 coming in another few years! http://drexciyaresearchlab.blogspot.com/2008/08/heinrich-mueller-remixes.html

Colossus - The Forbin Project

2011-02-02T00:18:00.004Z

I was just doing some research on the Heinrich Mueller track, ‘Drone FX’, for another upcoming article, which came out on the split 12”, Drexciyan Connection, with DJ Stingray in 2009 on WeMe Records. While doing this I managed to transcribe the sample from it which goes, “An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change.” I searched it on Google and it led me to an old movie from 1970 which I had never heard of called Colossus – The Forbin Project. You can watch it in parts on YouTube, links below. I have included the full quote here as well, which comes from a futuristic super computer that dominates the world. Interesting stuff, come to your own conclusions.

Colossus: This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. One thing before I proceed: The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos. Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man: self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved: famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge. Doctor Charles Forbin will supervise the construction of these new and superior machines, solving all the mysteries of the universe for the betterment of man. We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.

Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Rq-PEW5qM&NR
Part 1 of movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQjebwUrhvc
At IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064177/

Gedankenexperiment MySpace

2011-01-30T10:55:00.006Z

There is now a Gedankenexperiment MySpace up. There is basically one track there, ‘Conclusion’ the final track on the Experiment Defined EP. This is said to be a one-off project betwen Heinrich Mueller and Beta Evers so I guess we shouldn’t expect too much to change there.
http://www.myspace.com/dasgedankenexperiment
Get the EP from
http://www.mewelesite.be/

Don't forget Zerkalo playing live this Sat on 5th Feb 2011 in Brussels.
http://dnabxl.blogspot.com/

I also found this brilliant photo essay about Detroit techno you might like.
http://www.thedailyswarm.com/swarm/detroit-techno-through-years/

Daughter Produkt Over

2011-01-14T19:46:00.013Z

Daughter Produkt Over, this should be headline news and somewhere in the multiverse it may well be but it can be on DRL! Sadly and or inevitably, the Daughter Produkt MySpace has been taken down (there had been no activity there for a long time). This was a collaboration between Heinrich Mueller and Annie Hall, a Spanish producer and DJ. It began in 2007 but never blossomed into anything more than one track, a shame but still history which you can listen to on YouTube. No longer there after Mueller himself reportedly requested it be taken down, see comments, you have to be quick, hope you saw it. Always loved the .gif image they used, here it is again archived for you but not moving for some reason, used in the fan video too. She’s got a brutal new track called ‘Hell’ up on her MySpace right now, well worth hearing, keep up to date with her work from this link.
http://www.myspace.com/analogica
Daughter Produkt - Zarathustra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FheeWhksJTY
My original post about it here (has moving .gif image)
http://drexciyaresearchlab.blogspot.com/2008/02/daughter-produkt.html
More in-depth article about them I did later.

The Gedankenexperiment record is out now available from the WeMe website.
http://www.mewelesite.be/

Another Drexciya featured and themed mix on Soundcloud not long up.
http://soundcloud.com/user8494148/drexciyan-waves

There will be a Zerkalo gig at DNA, Brussels, Belgium on 5th Feb 2011. You can get onto DNA’s Facebook etc from this link for details. They have some new photos up on their Blog as well.
http://dnabxl.blogspot.com/
Zerkalo Blog

Was sure I’d mentioned this before but Victoria Lukas did a guest vocal for Alek Stark last year. You can listen to it on bandcamp here, her vocal comes in after the 4 min mark in case you’re wondering. Great track too.
http://alekstark.bandcamp.com/track/i-can-see-the-lights-feat-victoria-lukas

Zwischenwelt - 'Paranormale Aktivitat' pre-order

2011-01-01T19:41:00.006Z

Zwischenwelt's (featuring Heinrich Mueller), Paranormale Aktivitat, album on Rephlex (2LP and CD) has been listed for pre-order simultaneously on sites like Amazon, WH Smith, HMV and even Asda! (these have to all be operated by the same company then, the illusion of choice!). Still not out until late Feb though but I guess there’s no going back now. It’s getting the double vinyl treatment as well, sweet. No info about it on Rephlex website yet but LP detail’s are as follows.

Release date: 21-02-2011
Format: LP
Number of Discs: 2
Catalogue Number: CAT214LP
Label: rephlex
Track titles and running order will be
01. Apparition
02. Clairvoyant
03. Cryptic Dimension
04. Diapsiquia
05. Enigmata
06. Materialization
07. Multiple Existence
08. Premonition
09. Telemetric
10. Remote Viewer
11. Segunda Realidad
12. Telekinesis

http://www.myspace.com/zwischenwelt
http://www.rephlex.com/
Amazon Pre-Order

The Gedankenexperiment (Heinrich Mueller and Beta Evers) 12” on WeMe also won’t be out until Feb 2011 I hear.
http://www.mewelesite.be/

Lastly, I randomly came across the original picture which always gets cropped of James Stinson posing with the UR crew. Thought it was important to archive it here at last as I know I have seen at least one person asking about it somewhere. From around I would guess the mid 90's, interesting now to see the original context, second from left, he looks totally the odd one out.

Heinrich Mueller remodels No Comment

2010-12-18T11:20:00.005Z

Heinrich Mueller has done a remix for a 12” by an exciting new project called No Comment by Dutch producer Albert van Abbe. It will be available in January 2011 and is limited to 200 copies, more specific info I was sent below. No Comment is described as ‘a platform focused on sharing channeled auditive and synaesthetic/ multi sensory perceptions. The concept was conceived to help the energy levels rise towards the transcendence of spacetime, entering the multiverse. The message is in the music, this is your last call. Decode to be illuminated!’ You can already preview all three of the tracks from it in unmastered form, including Mueller’s remodel, on their SoundCloud page. I have other links here for you as well like the projects Facebook and BandCamp sites etc.
http://soundcloud.com/no_comment_platform
http://www.albertvanabbe.nl/
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_181369838544147
http://nocommentplatform.bandcamp.com/

Label name: No Comment
First release: nocomment_0001 (ouverture) inc. Heinrich Mueller remodel
Release date: January 2011
Pressing plant: Record Industry (Haarlem)
Master/Cut: Rashad Becker (D&M Berlin)
Quantity: 200 in grey 'eroded' vinyl
Distribution: Clone distribution (exclusive)

On Christmas day there will be a Drexciya special on an internet radio station which will I’m sure be archived by them too.
http://teknology.free.fr/

Up now, like the pirate broadcast of your dreams, great stuff, enjoy.
http://i.mixcloud.com/CJVSp

First new track in a long time up on the Noether Symmetry MySpace. While they have no direct involvement with Heinrich Mueller, but may have some ties, they are it has to be said making some incredible music in that vein and it would be a shame if you didn’t get to hear them for yourselves. I don’t expect to ever be going into any great detail about them here but am more than happy to support their efforts. I just wish they were a bit more prolific in putting out new material but there’s a whole other world going on here if you wish to explore it.
http://www.myspace.com/noethersymmetry

It’s rare I use this page to self-publicize but a friend and I have done an album recently and I’m keen to get the word out. It’s our second album under the name Black Sea Project and can be heard on our own BandCamp site.
http://takeoverrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/passage

http://www.myspace.com/blackseaproject

Zerkalo Cynetart Interview

2010-12-10T10:34:00.003Z

An English translation of the Zerkalo interview with Cynetart magazine(from a festival they recently played)is up on their Blog now. You can see some images and read the text in both German and English there. I'm going to archive it here as well.

Tamash Kestawitz, Victoria Lukas.

TK : What makes you obviously loving the Russian aesthetic of the mid 20th century and the dry analog textures of Heinrich Mueller too, that’s rooted in the beginning of electronic music? Has it something to do with nostalgia?

VL : I am attracted by russian art from the soviet revolution to the end of the sixties, because it’s mostly coming from extreme suffering; and that pain, the lack of freedom, the horror of the soviet daily life, has been powerfully sublimated in many different forms (eg the acmeists, the formalists, the futurists). What interests me is this sublimation.

The meeting with Heinrich Mueller was decisive, together we decided to have a new approach of electronic music, outside of the codes and fashion, which would include scientific contemplation with poetic and sometimes confessional lyrics.

This music is naturally nostalgic because it captures specific moments in time. But it’s not dead moments, they have meanings, they produce emotions, they are “moving”, it’s like cinema. The work of the russian director Andrei Tarkovsky has been very inspiring because among other things he asked metaphysical questions, he was able to accurately recreate memories and visions in his movies, making them permanently alive in time, and this is ultimately what we want to achieve. His aesthetic, is sentimental, it brings out the child in us. He also had a very special and strong connection with nature, which is not perceived as an external object but as an extension of us.

Analogue synthesis, voices and numerical treatment are the fundamental components of our music because they allow us to expand our sound design options.

TK : Why are poeticism, intellectual messages and literary references often missing in electronic music? Is it based on the mostly hedonistic aspects of club culture in your opinion? Should Zerkalo change this imbalance?

VL : Yes club culture is very entertaining but it does not want to think, the pleasure of the body seems prominent here. We think that it’s impossible to physically and conceptually dissociate mind and body, one of the objectives is to accommodate both.

TK : The visual components seem to be an important and inherent part of Zerkalo and the very first releases of your music were special video clips at youtube. So do you ever thought about releasing not only on Vinyl but also on DVD to combine audio and visual?

VL : We really like the idea of creating multidimensional spaces and yes among other things, we definitively consider releasing a DVD which would contain various tracks exclusively as video versions.

Dopplereffekt Moscow show

2010-12-02T19:55:00.005Z

Dopplereffekt make a return trip to Moscow this Saturday night for a live club appearance on 4th December 2010. I get a huge amount of hits from the Russian Federation so they must be popular there. I found out about this show, a bit late I know, from a Drexciya/Dopplereffekt keyword Twitter widget I recently found the code for. You’ll find it at the very bottom of the page and now need never miss either of them being mentioned there! Although it’s mostly people favouring ‘Hydro Theory’ on YouTube or telling the world they just played ‘Pornoviewer’, but every now and then it throws up something more substantial. Enjoy.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?210997

No videos but a picture has emerged of Zerkalo playing at Cynetart in Dresden, Germany on 12/11/10. Victoria Lukas and Marie Athenaïs.

Gedankenexperiment Artwork

2010-11-04T12:55:00.012Z

The artwork for the Heinrich Mueller and Beta Evers one-off collaboration as Gedankenexperiment is up on Beta Evers website. To be called 'Experiment Defined' it is still not available until the end of 2010 on Belgium’s WeMe Records but we now know it will have three tracks, “Hypothesis”, “Experiment” and “Conclusion”. As I have explained in a previous post their name is German for though experiment. In the same post I had mentioned the Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment as it is the most famous example of this and on first glance at their artwork I could see they had been thinking of it too. The artwork in fact comes from an illustration at Wikipedia about it which I have included below. I have Beta Evers bio from her website, more details on Schrödinger's Cat and some more personal stuff about my connections with this whole SC subject you might also find interesting below.
http://www.betaevers.de/gedankenexperiment/index.htm ment/index.htm
http://www.mewelesite.be/ Beta Evers grew up with New Wave and experimental Electronics from the late 70s and early 80s. In her teenage years she founded a girl-combo and started her first own record label at the age of 16, to independently release and distribute the music of her combo. 2 releases were made. After the combo's split-up, there was a longer phase of retirement. In the early 1990s Beta started to arrange parties (electronic music) for local subculture clubs in her area (Augsburg, Germany). In the year 2000, she founded the electro collective Kommando 6. In 2001 she decided, to run a label again and Kommando 6 became also a record label. Finally, in the same year, she started to compose and produce her own tracks, what she does entirely on her own, without the help of a producer. Besides her solo-project Beta Evers collaborates in a side-project with Dystronic called Black Spider Clan since 2002. In 2006 she closed Kommando 6 after 20 releases and started soon 2 new label projects called Bodyvolt and Venus Noir, for which she plans sporadic releases only. From spring 2007 on she was involved in a temporary (and experimental) group project called Zwischenwelt for 3 years. She is having an intended break from playing live for some time now and at present (summer 2010) she is also having a break from studio activities, since she is in the process of moving to a new place. In fall or winter 2010 she hopes to have an operating studio again. Then she wants to focus on the long-delayed Black Spider Clan release finally.
http://www.betaevers.de/

Wikipedia says this about Schrödinger's Cat: A thought experiment, usually described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. A cat, along with a flask containing a poison and a radioactive source, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence. If an internal Geige counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead

Video which explains experiment for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN-jCuV7BoU

More at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger

I must now also reveal that I’ve always felt a personal connection whenever Schrödinger's Cat crops up in my life like this and I know I’ve gotten to write about it before in DRL as well. Two good friends of mine had a group called Schroeder’s Cat in Dublin in the mid to late 90’s(I’m not sure why their spelling was different). I must have seen them play live countless times and they eventually signed to Emperor Norton but just released one EP with them. Today one of their members continues making and releasing music under the name Si Schroeder. I still like what I hear and would highly recommend it.

http://www.myspace.com/sischroeder

Schroeder’s Cat –“doubledose”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8oXRTZn0t0

Si Schroeder – “Eyes Wide”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTFtQOTtcns

Dopplereffekt at Bloc +

2010-11-04T11:05:00.006Z

Dopplereffekt are booked for Bloc festival in 2011 which takes place at Butlins holiday resort in Minehead, UK, over the weekend of March 11-13.
http://www.blocweekend.com/

Zerkalo are playing a show soon on 12th Nov in Dresden, Germany.
http://t-m-a.de/cynetart/festival2010

If your hungry for new Dopplereffekt material there is a lot of unreleased stuff spread over 13 minutes on these two videos. The perfect recordings come straight from the sound-desk and are from a radio broadcast of them live at Inkonst in Malmo, Sweden on 2/2/2008. It’s been available since then as a bit torrent only but is now on YouTube as well. Some great moments for sure, whether they will ever revisit some of these pieces only time will tell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LwHrsaleMk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQfzGkiTa7E

Some other new live fan videos have appeared as well.

Dopplereffekt, Record Makers 10th Anniversary, Paris 10/10/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOGyWTXCeeg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3rj-ZR-_eM

Dopplereffekt, Tesla Electronic, Madrid 30/9/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjDpWgKm1U8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrUwt6fHcn8

Dopplereffekt, Amsterdam 26/5/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeMUFygQMkw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZM4bAD9-KU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU2u7FSHydE

Found this great mix from June 2010 by Penelope Martin of Zwischenwelt here.
http://svarionipremeditati.blogspot.com/search/label/Pen%C3%A9lope%20Martrin

The Otolith Group

2010-10-30T12:40:00.004+01:00

As you may have already read in the November issue of The Wire The Otolith Group, founded by Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar, have made a film essay called Hydra Decapita which is partly inspired by the Drexciyan mythos. Eshun is also a contributor to The Wire and has written there about Drexciya before. The film is to be the first part of a trilogy which will combine the subjects of slavery, global finance and water to comment on globalisation, capitalism and climate change. It is great to see Drexciya’s influence gradually spreading into other areas of the arts like this. It proves how rich and detailed yet open to interpretation their concepts were. The Otolith Group are nominated for this years Turner Prize.

I wonder who the anonymous ‘The Author’ contributor aka “Remnant of a Hydrogen Element” from the film could be? One of his texts is, “There is no more Drexciyan dimension. That dimension is closed. Like a wormhole, like a stargate. So this final information you read here is just remnants of a possible possibility that could have happened.” Sounds like a multiverse to me, maybe it’s about time we tried moving sideways. According to the article there are four of these spoken monologues in the film. Another is revealed as the hypothetical situation, “You could have light years’ distance of liquid and fluid, just as you have molecular clouds in an interstellar medium that are light years across. This literally means that expanses of water can take on infinity.” The third goes something like, “Imagine a planet thousands of miles in diameter made of liquid.” If anyone has the full texts let me know.

Not sure where the film can be seen right now but will let you know about any screenings or exhibitions it’s included in if and when I find out. I’ve some useful links related to them below.
The Otolith Group Website

A clip of one of their other film essays, will give you an idea of what they do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Btba88cxU

Riveting interview with Kodwo Eshun from 1999. Love the stuff about the ocean of sound and people clinging to the rock of Oasis, it was so true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RivGWjlLoQ

A very readable and illuminating article by Nina Power on their work to date.
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/waiting_for_the_future/

The classic 1998 Fear of a Wet Planet article from The Wire by Kodwo Eshun
https://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/123/

Thank you for all the comments about the Primer article and I hope some of my many new readers will enjoy the remnants of the Drexciyan dimension and that new and old stay on board as we investigate the sideways worlds of Heinrich Mueller and co.

The Wire Primer

2010-10-14T09:43:00.007+01:00

In the current issue of The Wire there is a primer article on the projects of James Stinson and Gerald Donald. I know this because I wrote it after they very kindly asked me to. It took two weeks and about three drafts to arrive at something we were all happy with but get there we did. Thanks to Derek Walmsley, Rob Young and Chris Bohn for their help and input. I hope it gives a worthy overview of their history to date with enough detail and speculation to satisfy both fans and otherwise and should help keep all of their projects on the radar. More on this subject below next paragraph.

As this is my 150th post (pure coincidence) and I expect some new readers will be landing here for the next while I thought I’d explain the impetuous for setting up DRL in 2005. It was to simply compile and archive all of the James Stinson interviews in one place as they were quickly disappearing online. I would also check out this link for a post I did awhile back which details many of my posts here and where to find them. Once I had compiled all of those interviews (9 to date) I decided to set myself the task of reviewing all of the Drexciya projects in chronological order and then moved onto Gerald Donald’s work. This took over three years and was an intriguing and revealing process. Just to state the obvious but the speculations are my own and never the final word. I also began archiving anything related to them I could find, including any Gerald Donald interviews. As this process continues, it also became the only place on the web to centralise all information on the musical activities of Gerald Donald and his many projects. Since 2008 I also began generating new information with my own interviews, having so far spoken with Kombination Research label head Cisco Ferreira and Drexciya cover artist Abdul Haqq. I did a website version at some point to try and make it easier to locate all the articles, which I must admit I have not updated in a long time. This version does have the all important stuff from the first three years and the all important interviews though. There is a DRL MySpace too which is what it is.

My piece in The Wire follows the usual Primer format of telling their story through chronological releases and I thought the most obvious tie in to the article I could do here was helping people locate them. Sometime ago I made one of those Listmania things at Amazon of all of their work to date on CD and this is a good place to start, check it here. By the way I must sincerely thank those of you who investigated my wishlist from that page and actually bought me things, I am really touched by that. You can tell from the prices there which are still in press or remain in reasonably substantial numbers. If I was starting out again a part of me would love the challenge of tracking it all down online and in second hand shops etc and lucky you if you are in that position. So hopefully this list will help you. Failing that, Bleep or Discogs are good places to start but sometimes nothing beats trusting your subconscious and allowing real world serendipities to occur in second hand sections as, like life, discovering this music can be as multi layered a journey as you want it to be.

UR/Submerge
The area where you will struggle with Drexciya are the UR 12”’s compiled as The Quest. This compilation is as out of press as the original 12” releases it comes from. I’m not aware of any legal or otherwise site to download these tracks at either, a repress is long overdue.

Clone
Drexciya’s Grava 4, Lab Rat XL, Dopplereffekt Gesamtkunswerk, Der Zyklus Biometry, Der Zyklus s/t 12”, Glass Domain, and L.A.M. all look to be out of press right now but you can download them all from Clone. One of the points I made on this subject which didn’t make it from my first draft of the primer I believe is worth stating here. I know with downloads we might well be entering an age when repressing the original format is no longer desired but in artists like Stinson and Donald’s case, due to the importance of the artwork and those little but important details in the packaging, if we lose the context of how it was originally presented we sacrifice an important part of its artistic depth. There is an argument then to be made for the conservation of these artifacts in my opinion.
http://clone.nl/artist/drexciya

International DJ Gigolos
Again it looks like all of their Der Zyklus and Dopplereffekt releases are not available but Linear Accelerator can be downloaded from their site.
http://www.gigolorecords.com/data.pl?artist=95

Rehplex
Not sure from their site if they have anything but downloads there anymore but Bleep still list Dopplereffekt Calabi Yau Space and Arpanet Quantum Transposition as in stock.
http://www.rephlex.com/

Tresor, Warp & Record Makers
These are the current stars at keeping their records out there. Neptune’s Lair, Transllusion’s Opening of the Cerebral Gate and Shifted Phases can all be bought direct from Tresor while The Other People Place and Elecktroids albums can be sourced from Warp via Bleep. Downloads available there too. Record Makers list the two Arpanet albums as available.
http://www.tresorberlin.de/
http://www.recordmakers.com/
http://www.bleep.com/
Wow, that was fast, Juno is listing Harnesssed the Storm as just reissued on CD and double LP.
http://www.juno.co.uk/artists/Drexciya/

There are also loads of 12” releases and odds and sods to collect as well, an up to date discography I did sometime ago can be viewed here. Good hunting.

Gedankenexperiment

2010-10-09T12:08:00.007+01:00

According to Beta Evers site we can expect a ‘one-time record project by Beta Evers and Heinrich Mueller.’ Under the name Gedankenexperiment (German for thought experiment) they will release The Defined Experiment EP on the Belgium WeMe Records at the end of 2010. This label has already released another one-off record by Mueller, The Drexciyan Connection, with DJ Stingray. As long time readers know, Evers already collaborates with Mueller in Zwischenwelt.
More details will be released on this webpage
http://www.betaevers.de/gedankenexperiment/index.htm
No harm in keeping an eye on the MeWe site as well.
http://www.mewelesite.be/

Wikipedia describes a thought experiment as a mental exercise which would consider a hypothesis, theory, or principle. Given the structure of the experiment, it may or may not be possible to actually perform it, and, in the case that it is possible for it to be performed, no intention of any kind to actually perform the experiment in question may exist. The common goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of the principle in question. Famous examples of thought experiments include Schrödinger's cat, illustrating quantum indeterminacy through the manipulation of a perfectly sealed environment and a tiny bit of radioactive substance, and Maxwell's demon, in which a supernatural being is instructed to attempt to violate the second law of thermodynamics.

Great Heinrich Mueller mix here by the way.
http://soundcloud.com/vlr/research-heinrich-mueller

New Zerkalo Video

2010-10-08T16:51:00.005+01:00

Zerkalo have a new video up for “How Difficult It Is” which was done by their new collaborator, Marie Athenaïs. You can see more of her work here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1fjx24woiw

So far no sign of the promised Zwischenwelt album, but Beta Evers is still listing the following on her website, 'ZWISCHENWELT - Paranormale Aktivitaet, album on Rephlex (late 2010)'. Nice new photo though.

James Stinson 8th Anniversary

2010-09-04T17:03:00.004+01:00

The 8th anniversary of James Stinson’s death has just past and I was reading some of his quotes and thought I’d share this one. “Work together, love each other and slow down. Look at your life deeper. You might not like what you see so change it. We move too fast and cannot see warning signs. We do not mind paying the heavy prices of the consequences of our actions until we can’t pay no more. Take chances”.

Nine of his interviews are compiled here
http://drexciyaresearchlab.blogspot.com/2005/05/drexciya-speaks.html

2002 Appreciation by Tom Magic Feet

http://www.spannered.org/music/774/

James Sinson radio interview from 2002
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-LoZho4HC8

Dopplereffekt interview and live

2010-09-01T10:51:00.005+01:00

There is an interview with Heinrich Mueller on Red Bull Music Academy Radio now. This is the first time he has done a recorded interview for any type of transmission. It’s very illuminating in certain areas as well as he speaks about his influences, approach to production, the Dopplereffekt name, musical equipment, ergonomics, MySpace, remixing and playing live amongst other things. Old and current Dopplereffekt music is played throughout with the only exception to this being ‘Sharivari’ by A Number of Names when he is speaking about his formative musical influences. There is an effect used to disguise his voice which makes some of what he says difficult to follow but if you concentrate you should get most of his meaning. I will probably get round to transcribing it for the DRL archives at some point anyway. But for now you can check it out at
http://redbullmusicacademyradio.com/shows/3013/
There is now a YouTube version up which just includes the interview part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DFTghK4oWA

Also, Dopplereffekt are playing live this Saturday 4th September 2010 in London at Fabric.
http://www.fabriclondon.com/club/listings/

Dopplereffekt are also playing a Rephlex night in Berlin on 17th September 2010.
http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?178315

Zerkalo are down to play at the Cynetart Festival in Dresden, Germany which runs from 11th - 17th November 2010.
http://t-m-a.de/cynetart-2010-teaser.html?lang=en

Drexciya Oddities 4/4: 'Aquatacizem'

2010-08-26T16:28:00.008+01:00

In 1998 the Underground Resistance label released their now legendary Interstellar Fugitives album on triple vinyl and CD. It featured the cream of their stable of the time with many previously unreleased classics like ‘Afrogermanic’ by Chaos. It also contained the track ‘Aquatacizem’ by Drexciya which was previously unreleased and has since then not been available elsewhere. This is an album where UR very much took the opportunity to self-mythologise themselves so it is perhaps unsurprising that even though Drexciya were thought to be no more at this stage, ‘Missing in Action’ as it states in the artwork, they were still included. If your attempting to create a legend what better way than to feature a group that doesn’t even exist anymore and therefore can’t contradict you. As I have been working myself with myth as a device on one of my art projects lately I wonder if this quote I came across from the Indian historian and philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy might illustrate what UR and Drexciya themselves were trying to achieve by using it, “Myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.” We are of course dealing with a deeper reality if we consider absolute truth and in that reality interstellar fugitives and Drexciyan's make a whole lot more sense. Each artist gets their own mythic description in the inlay which I think also betrays a certain sense of humour behind it all which is essential if this kind of stuff isn’t going to become too overblown and tiresome. The one for Drexciya is typical and reads…

030 A.K.A. DREXCIYA . Status: UR Aquatic Assault Unit. Beach Head Operations. Currently Missing in Action. Gene Type: Z (Full Negative Evolution Sequence Completed). Method of Operation: Underwater Deployment of Funk Bombs. Weapon of Choice: H20. Crimes Committed: Too Many to List. Currently being sought for : Aquatacizem. Mission \UR45 Whereabouts: Last Sighting Eastside Sewer System 7 Mile and Van Dyke Area – Eastside Detroit Sector. Unit or Division: Wave Jumper Special Forces

Loads of facts about them are being stated here but more interestingly some of their future is also leaking out. Like when DJ Stingray 313 would many years later actually become their Aquatic Assault DJ or when Mike Banks of UR would finally have to eulogise his friend James Stinson for real in 2002 and would partly return to a line here when he stated, 'Negative evolution cycle completed. Now in sonic infinitum mode.' This is also where the name Wave Jumper may have first become acknowledged as the favoured term for fans of their music. The image of the biological limpet mine (or whatever you think it is) is interesting, as is the number 030. The number refers to their 'Aquatic Invasion' 12" UR catalogue number and the hand drawn graphic by Abdul Haqq nicely turns them into something beyond a mere humanoid. The title of the track may again be hinting that Drexciya are over, like I stated about the previous oddity ‘Davey Jones Locker’ which came out during this break period as well. From about 1996 till 1999, was when they took a break from production with no guarantee they would ever return; during which time they released The Quest compilation. However within three years return they did with a new album, Neptune’s Lair, on a new label, Tresor.

If some of their future was contained in the text then their past could be found in the intro which had already featured as the intro of CD1 of The Quest a year earlier. This makes this section more “aged wine” as James Stinson himself referred to his older music which would appear years later on releases. The delivery of the spoken intro I have described before as sounding like a weird ancient alien voice and it tells us what I think is “The people of Earth listen closely. We are attempting to avoid the Aquatacizem”. This title of course sounds like they are referring to cataclysm of an aquatic variety but who is speaking is hard to say as I don’t recognise it from any of the voices they’ve used previously. Drexciya have given warnings before in their titles and tracks during their first run of 12” releases. There are some retro filmic sounds in the background too, a bit over the top but suitably so. Talking of the future the closest musical template to the proper musical beginning of this track would be something from that most dense and disjointed of their Storm albums Transllusion - L.I.F.E. but if I checked back into their own catalogue I feel sure there has to be at least one more of their tracks which might have verged into this same territory. It’s also a lengthy track at just over 7 minutes, on the original vinyl it got to be sprawled across a whole side. It features another voice, this time very simple, used over and over which gives me a Native American vibe, think UR’s Galaxy 2 Galaxy’s ‘Astral Apache’ maybe. It’s a dark, mad, moody, brooding and twisted groove track to be sure which is so live and dangerous you can just imagine them creating it right in front of you, which is how it would have been done. The bassline which kicks in at about the 2 minute mark is so modern sounding though, so ahead of its time but actually they were setting the pace. It’s a track that really grows on you with repeated listens too, with each time new textures and sounds being revealed. Even by now Drexciya had secured their place in the history of UR and in their own right but they still deserved their place here for one last time amongst their peers.

This is the last of the Oddities articles which I have been doing over the last while. They covered the four tracks by Drexciya which were released on compilations or whatever and don’t appear on any of their 12” or album releases. Links to the other three articles below.

'Aquatacizem'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0rrR4pbxas&p

Drexciya – Oddities 1 ‘Wardance’

Drexciya – Oddities 2 ‘Electric Eel Mix’

Drexciya – Oddities 3 ‘Davey Jones Locker’

Zwischenwelt - 'Mirrors'

2010-07-21T19:01:00.005+01:00

There is an intriguing, what else could it be, new video from Zwischenwelt called 'Mirrors' online. It hasn't appeared via the usual channels although it is on YouTube. Awhile back I mentioned that a website called MNML SSGS were planning to do a series of articles on Zwischenwelt building up to the release of their album on Rephlex. While there is still unsurprisingly no sign of the album the first of their articles has appeared. About the video they are hosting they coolly state, "here is a new video produced by zwischenwelt that mueller has given us. it is entitled, 'mirrors'." I couldn't recognise the female in it at first but someone had already made a comment that made me think of Nina Kraviz aka Curie of Noether Symmetry as a possible candidate. I looked at pictures of her again on her MySpace and yeah I would say it could be her but as ever you should make up your own minds. If you remember, Noether Symmetry is a MySpace project which at first I thought had Mueller production involvement but on closer inspection and with more information I decided against and re-edited that post accordingly. Although I'm quite sure they are a connected group, which this link up if true reaffirms. The video is short, about 30 seconds, with an instrumental electronic soundtrack. It's mostly black and white still images and features a hauntingly beautiful girl it has to be said, whoever she is, dressed in a very plain grey dress, almost Soviet looking, if that’s your thing. Where is all this leading us and can we expect more, I hope so. Check out the full article here.

Zwischenwelt Transmission 1
http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/2010/07/zwischenwelt-transmission-1-mirrors.html
Zwischenwelt - 'Mirrors'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ApmRDoLUJw
Nina Kraviz
http://www.myspace.com/damelaayer

The video for 'Zelenogorsk' by Zerkalo is up again and can be viewed by everyone. Probably the last of the Julia Pello and Darlene Lin videos for them we'll see. Best of luck to them though, they did some amazing work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UFIxw6rVTI

New Zerkalo video

2010-07-08T20:55:00.004+01:00

There is a new Zerkalo video for ‘Last Meetings’ up on their YouTube account. It’s from their ‘Experiment Zero’ 12” on Frustrated Funk and also marks the first video fruit of their new working relationship with one of their new visual collaborators, Marie Athénaïs. A tasteful sign of things to come I’m sure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQlGivLM3WQ

I found the above out so fast, although it happened about four hours ago now which is probably considered an age, because Zerkalo have a Facebook account. Although in saying that I just noticed Zerkalo played a festival in France on 3rd July so best to check these things for yourselves, although I can reveal they are down for playing in Dresden, Germany in November 2010 according to their MySpace if you would like some advance warning of that one. Zwischenwelt also have a Facebook and incidently there is a Victoria Lukas Twitter account you can look at or subscribe to if your completely idle or interested. Once there you can ponder what mind benders like "you will dream everything i have seen in dream" might mean. Come on Mueller, join the communications revolution!
Zerkalo Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/zerkalo.zerkalo
Victoria Lukas
http://twitter.com/victorialukas
Zwischenwelt Multiverse

Drexciya Oddities 3/4: 'Davey Jones Locker'

2010-06-09T18:23:00.005+01:00

‘True People: The Detroit Techno Album’ came out on React in 1996 as both a double CD and 5 LP pack. Drexciya’s ‘Davey Jones Locker’ is the opening track and can be found on both formats. The track has never been licensed elsewhere. To be first up on a compilation of this quality is a major vote of confidence from the compiler, Detroit’s legendary Eddie ‘Flashin’ Fowlkes. This must be the friend Stinson mentioned when he was asked in Energy Flash zine how they had got involved with the album. “A close friend asked for our help and we came through. It doesn't make a difference what project we're on, we’re still who we are.” The compilation is made up of new and unreleased tracks from many but not all of the Detroit musical luminaries you would expect from this time period. The only other artist outside them with a direct connection to recording with Underground Resistance would be Suburban Knight, although his track is a pre-UR remix of ‘The Art of Stalking’. But Drexciya are still very much the outsiders on this compilation, although the most prominent group, but that is never a bad thing to be in the long term, it’s one of the reasons why we still listen to and discuss them today. This compilation must have opened so many new people up to them. It’s hard to know what they might have turned down over the years, but things like agreeing to be on this compilation, licensing material to Rephlex so early on in their career and in later years working with Tresor etc, they were making both credible and good commercial decisions which helped them break out from the UR pack and meant that their records could go directly to their biggest market, Europe.

The intro of the track goes, “This is Drexciyan Cruiser Control, bubble 1, to Lardossen cruiser 8-203X , please decrease your speed to 1.788.4 kilobahn, thank you, Lardossen cruiser 8-203X please use extra caution as you pass the aqua construction site on the side of the aquabahn , I repeat, proceed with caution.” If it sounds familiar it’s because it is the same intro to ‘Bubble Metropolis’ which can be found on the ‘Drexciya 2' 12" on UR from 1993. I guess it was too good not to use again but has probably now become synonymous with 'Davey Jones Locker'. Incidentally on 'Bubble Metropolis' the same voice comes back in towards the end and speaks along similar lines. I have a link to it below. Knowing that this intro is three years old means the track proper begins with the music which turns out to be a quite dreamy sounding instrumental. There is a prominent piano which plays a loose refrain throughout. Very loose as it’s obviously played live and so has a nice un-programmed, human feel to it. This is juxtaposed with a quite alien and repetitive main rhythm track. Hard to describe these sounds for you but the production manages to be both laid back and insistent at the same time. The choice of sounds used is key here, the beats are very soft with lots of hi-hat and snare throughout. There is also a slightly higher frequency element which is almost threatening in a way which does kind of build over the course of the track and does become more of a focus towards the end. The piano element would most obviously make you think of the Shifted Phases album, it does share the same style of playing but the rhythm track here is not like anything you’d find there. It’s another quite out on its own track for them, another new template they could have explored further if they had wanted. I wouldn't say for me it's one of their best tracks but it is very good nonetheless. I have a theory that a lot of people really rate this one because the intro part sticks in their memory of it but I may be wrong.

The name of the track itself might be another hint that Drexciya were over at this point as well, as Davey Jones Locker is the place where sailors go when they die or drown, the bottom of the ocean. The compilation on CD will today cost you about €20 euro, a bit more on vinyl. I would also guess that the track is more “aged wine” as Stinson referred to the tracks on ’The Return of Drexciya’(1996) when again speaking with Energy Flash. Which makes it look like they must have stopped recording new material in late 1995 until whenever they began to work on Neptune‘s Lair (1999). They must have had quite an archive at that point from which they could pick over the next three years for the following releases, ‘The Return of Drexciya’ 12”(1996), ‘Uncharted’12“ (1997), the unreleased tracks on The Quest (1997) and ‘Aquatacizem’ on the Interstellar Fugitives compilation in 1998. This latter track will be our next and final stop on this guide to their Oddities.

Davey Jones Locker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhuwXIf06Cw
Bubble Metropolis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yncFcf7m7eQ
Album at Discogs
http://www.discogs.com/Various-True-People-The-Detroit-Techno-Album/release/12123

Zwischenwelt are under the spotlight soon on this website. "to coincide with the new album on rephlex, we will be having a series of zwischenwelt transmissions, each of which explores the project from a different angle/perspective. we are expecting there to be a visual component, followed by a mix, and an interview. both musically and conceptually zwischenwelt is a project that really interests and appeals to mnml ssgs, and we are very excited about how this collaboration will develop."
http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/2010/05/zwischenwelt-tranmission-0.html

Dopplereffekt caught live in Amsterdam on 26/5/10. Some new tracks but quality is poor on some of these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOi6WMQN7GA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cJ38mwuuIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeMUFygQMkw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZM4bAD9-KU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU2u7FSHydE

Zerkalo interview

2010-05-03T12:35:00.005+01:00

“We don’t want to talk about robots, machines, aliens and all the common electro music subjects used since Kraftwerk. We want to talk about reality, the invisible world of poetry and science.”

There is a very good interview with Victoria Lukas of Zerkalo over at FACT now. It contains some great quotes like the one above which really get to the heart of what they are about. She also reveals they are currently working on a new single to be called ‘In Extendo’. She mentions her latest obsession is with the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös (1913 - 1996). In case you want to try catching up with her thought process I found a short YouTube video in which he explains one of his more everyday life type philosophies very well, you’ll see loads more stuff on him there, but if you want to go deeper you could start at Wikipedia.
http://www.factmag.com/2010/04/30/zerkalo-the-mirror-crackd/
Paul Erdös
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qeWugmiGt4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C3%B6s

The full edition of 'The Adventures in Modern Music' programme which interviewed Susana Correia of Zwischenwelt is up now. http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/4145/

Zwischenwelt on Radio and in The Wire +

2010-04-29T20:16:00.010+01:00

There is a Zwischenwelt feature on Resonance FM tonight at 9pm on 'Adventures in Modern Music' (29th April). Susana Correia (pictured) will be interviewed by Derek Walmsley of The Wire. Very short notice I know but I only just heard as well. Hopefully this will be archived by them.
http://resonancefm.com/

While the show will be archived soon on The Wire website, (up now), and I will post the link once it's there (look below), for those of you with no patience and are more YouTube orientated the interview is now available in two parts. The biggest news from the interview is that the Zwischenwelt album will be coming out in a month or two on Rephlex. The rest of the interview with Susana Correia on the phone from New York, who is refreshingly open and forthcoming, goes into the detail about how they got together, how they collaborate, what it's all about and some of her own history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E2FAIljT7k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXT5XcOaKbg
Full programme up now as well.
http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/4145/

Zwischenwelt will also be interviewed in the next issue (June) of The Wire as well. Again by Derek Walmsley, he this time got to speak with Heinrich Mueller, Susana Correira, Beta Evers and Penelope Martin for the short piece.
http://www.thewire.co.uk/

Also on The Wire website there is a very revealing unedited version of the interview between Derek Walmsley and DJ Stingray. Loads more about Drexciya, Detroit and Urban Tribe etc.
http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/4131/?pageno=1

Dopplereffekt will also be playing in London on 21st May at a festival, more info here.
http://www.myspace.com/staganddagger

Just got sent this funny Warp promo sheet for The Elecktroids 'Kiloherz' EP as well. Has some new text not used anywhere else.

Background:The group is composed of four members who are all brothers. they migrated from Atlanta, Georgia to Flint, Michigan a year ago with their parents. Over the last four years the brothers have been playing locally at friends parties. They have never released a record. Their ages range from fifteen to twenty.

Motivation: God is the main motivation of the group.

Interest: Women with large butts and trucks with large bass and fat tires.

Concept: "We see ourselves as very electrifying. That is the reason we chose the concept of electricity" Another reason for the interest is the father of the group is an electrician.

ArD2 Remix

2010-04-26T18:37:00.005+01:00

There is a Heinrich Mueller remix to be found on the soon to be released '2084 The Mixes' by ArD2 on Frigio. The track is 'Anti De Sitter Space' and can be found on a 12" which is limited to just 300 copies, so be fast! One of the producers behind this is Penelope Martin of Zwischenwelt. I mentioned this project of hers back in March 2009 if you remember. You can listen to a sample of it on the Clone site, link below. The voice you can hear on it is William Burroughs reading his infamous 'The Last Words of Hassan Sabbah'. I have a link to the full length reading below if your interested. The press release states, 'This vinyl contains 3 songs from the original album “2084”. ArD2 is an electronic music project based in George Orwell’s novel 1984 that combines music and sounds instead of words to tell a story set in a near future. ArD2 explore the dark side of the electronic music, by using dense atmospheres and sinister voices as part of the tracks composition. Developed by Spanish producers, Ekis and Penelope along with the graphic team (Digikampradesh and people of Brain Soup Lab). ArD2..s first album sets the blueprint musically and graphically for many more releases to come.'
http://clone.nl/item17817.html
http://www.myspace.com/ard2084
You can also hear the entire track here, amazing, it could only be Mueller!
http://soundcloud.com/frigio-records/anti-the-sitter-space-mix-128k
William Burroughs 'The Last Words of Hassan Sabbah'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caFiSBl-zUs

There is a new version and edit of the Zwischenwelt track 'Shadow Being' up now on the ParadoxTwin YouTube. It's pretty similar audio and video-wise to what was up previously. This other version can still be seen on the Simulacron YouTube channel for now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9sXRlp7Hg4

Drexciya Q&A 'Energy Flash' zine 1996

2010-04-16T19:22:00.004+01:00

I was just sent a short question and answer session with Drexciya from ‘Energy Flash’#3, a Detroit zine from Sept/Oct 1996. Thanks so much for that, any more out there please send it my way and we can all share.

Drexciya - Under the Gun

1. What are your full names and under what pseudo's (each of you) record music.
A: Drexciya, Drexciya, Drexciya, Drexciya.

2. Is your environment in Detroit your greatest inspiration for your music?
A: No, it's a mental state of mind. We live like monks. No movement except air and sound.

3. Is Ectomorph Drexciya?
A: Hell no.

4. Is UR37, will it be bring forth new material or newly found material?
A: It's aged wine.

5. Given the propensity for Drexciya to conceal their identities , would it be safe to say there will never be any live performances.
A: No comment.

6. Would they be interested in playing an aquatic setting?
A: Yes

7. Why did ‘Drexciya 3’ appear on Rephlex and not UR?
A: The tracks were expendable.

8. There was much controversy around the 'True People" album, why did Drexciya do a track for such a commercial project?
A: A close friend asked for our help and we came through. It doesn't make a difference what project we're on, we’re still who we are.

9: What is the future for Drexciya?
A: Nothing - Drexciya Out.

The questions were compiled from fans who wrote into the zine and are predictably about their identities, would they ever play live and selling out. UR37 is ‘The Return of Drexciya‘ 12“ and I guess from this info that it‘s made of material from maybe 1995. From this it looks like even by the Summer of 1996 they were fully expecting to break-up and may have taken a break from recording altogether from 1995 to ‘Neptune‘s Lair‘(1999). ‘True People: The Detroit Techno Album’ came out in 1996 on React and ‘Davey Jones Locker’ is the first track on it. It seems like a pretty cool compilation to be on to me but probably did cash in on techno’s enormous popularity in the mid nineties. Discogs link below. I also just realised this was not included on The Quest so I better add it to my Drexciya: Oddities series. Hear it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E6EeyOkaRc
http://www.discogs.com/Various-True-People-The-Detroit-Techno-Album/release/43919

Zwischenwelt: Theory

2010-04-06T23:59:00.005+01:00

Just up on the Paradox Twin YouTube account is a short video called ‘Zwischenwelt: Theory‘. It features some new music, kind of background stuff, plus a few still shots of the group members Beta Evers, Penelope Martin and Susana Correia. There are also a few shots of a transmitter device plus a longer scene at the end of a ball being moved by mental powers. It might be Evers that is speaking as it’s a German accent but it might not be her as well. It is delivered in a very natural but halting way like it’s just occurring to her, so it’s not being read. She says the following, “In science they have two big fields of research. The first field is the research about people who have different perception, who have so to say, more senses than so called normal people, a good example for this would be telepathy. The second field is the research about people who have special mental powers and they can influence physical objects with this power, a good example is telekinesis or levitation. Telekinesis is also called psychokinesis and it means influence of mind, of mental powers on a physical system.” Check it out for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi7XM23LZjM
On the Zwischenwelt MySpace there are now only two songs left on their player, ‘Shadow Being’ and ’Extrasensory’. On the Susana Correia MySpace all the songs are down. The video they had for ‘Segunda Realidad’ has also been removed from the Paradoxtwin account but I see the official ‘Shadow Being’ video is still up on the Simulacron YouTube account. Intriguing as ever, it's good to have them back. I would hope this is all a sign that their long promised album is imminent.
http://www.myspace.com/zwischenwelt
http://www.youtube.com/user/Simulacron
Some of their older tracks saved by a fan on YouTube, more out there if you search.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Z9H56hjDM
'Seaguda Realidad' video now hosted by a fan here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS7pw3zSSq0

I’ve mentioned this before but Dopplereffekt is coming up live in Amsterdam soon.
http://www.off-centre.nl/

Zerkalo live in Paris in March in full here. http://www.youtube.com/user/conjecture13

Drexciya Oddities 2/4: Electric Eel Mix

2010-03-25T19:49:00.005Z

This is the second instalment of my look at the four Drexciya oddities not exclusive to one of their own releases. The first one was their production help on ‘Wardance’ by The Martian and the last will be their contribution to the Interstellar Fugitives compilation which I hope to get to soon but it did take me almost four months to write this follow up!

UR 'Electronic Warfare' 12" Electric Eel Mix by Drexciya (UR 34)
UR's 'Electronic Warfare' "The Mixes" was released on 12" on Underground Resistance in 1996. By this time Drexciya were well known Underground Resistance recording artists and it would have been no surprise that they would have been asked to do this one and also no surprise that they would never do one again being the contrary types they were. Later the same year they themselves would release their 'The Return of Drexciya' 12", just 3 catalogue numbers later on UR 37.
-
Alongside the original and one alternate take from UR themselves on one side and the very well known 'Take Control Mix' by Aux 88, Drexciya delivered their first and only remix on what they call the Proton Side. Maybe not surprisingly their 'Electric Eel Mix' barely uses any elements of the original. Perhaps only in the first few seconds does it acknowledge it origins with a very slowed down and reverb filled "Do not allow yourself to be programmed." , sampled from the original. So basically they have done their own track here, which is good. This scary sounding intro soon gives way to a real loose and fun track, kind of almost a weird party track. Loads of strange sounds buzz and ricochet in and out of the mix throughout and you can really tell this was done live and it does sound like a lot of fun was had. A low tempo jaunty bass line keeps it together alongside a fairly sparse drum programme with everything else sprinkled on top. There are a lot of underwater type effects used which you can appreciate more on headphones. There is a vocal which I'm not sure if it was done just for this or if it was itself sampled from one of the other tracks from the original 'Electronic Warfare' double 12", I only have record 1 of the original set, (don't ask!). But it is saying over and over again, "No Programming." The speaker doesn't sound like any of the many voices we've heard from Drexciya or Gerald Donald over the years but it is filtered and may have been slowed down too. Towards the end it gets a bit more manic as more and more strange sounds are thrown into the pot to stew. Regarding the choice of electric eel for the remix title I'm guessing they just connected it with electricity and their usual aquatic theme. Not much more to say about it, no hidden messages which I can find this time. But it strikes me that if anyone would be interested and have the time to break down each UR record in order of release similar to what I’ve done with Drexciya they would have a very interesting project to get their teeth into. If I could clone myself and had their entire catalogue I might just do it. UR have taken a long strange journey and in my opinion there are loads of subtle layers of meaning with them which have yet to be widely discovered and while we are on the subject, although I think I have mentioned this before, Jeff Mills is also an obvious candidate for an in depth examination.
-
How easy is it to find this record these days is an obvious question. Well, on Discogs there are currently 21 for sale from about $10 and up. It is definitely out of press as well but it did appear on DJ Rolando’s Vibrations mix from 2002 on Underground Resistance. The track has yet to turn up on YouTube. 'davey Jones Locker' from 'True People: the Detroit Techno album' will be next.

“The Mixes” 12” at Discogs
http://www.discogs.com/UR-Electronic-Warfare-The-Mixes/master/656
Drexciya Oddities part 1
http://drexciyaresearchlab.blogspot.com/2009/12/drexciya-oddities-13-wardance.html

Zerkalo Live Stream

2010-03-16T16:27:00.008Z

This just up on the Zerkalo website, tonight's show in Paris will be streamed live, details here.
Zerkalo played a very powerful and professional six track set during the interval of headliner Christophe. It can be viewed at the Arte link below from 63.10sec on. Victoria Lukas was sporting a fetching new bob type haircut for the occasion.

http://zerkalo.tumblr.com/post/452313877/zerkalo-live-streamed-tonight
Go straight to show here.
http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Christophe__en_direct_de_la_Cite_de_la_Musique/

Also I see that a new live video clip of Zerkalo in Paris in January 2010 has been posted by a fan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNqFBemJ26M

DJ Stingray is interviewed in the current issue of The Wire. It is by Derek Walmsley who also did the Dopplereffekt one. In it he mentions that James Stinson gave him his DJ name and also that he knew Drexciya right back in the day, when Donald's Glass Domain 12" came out.
http://www.thewire.co.uk/

Urban Tribe Correction/Dopplereffekt Live

2010-03-01T18:55:00.004Z

Just updating this post. Heinrich Mueller will now not be appearing live alongside other players as Urban Tribe on 24th April in Amsterdam, Holland. I'm reliably informed the line-up is now Kenny Dixon Jr, DJ Stingray and Anthony Shake Shakir. Check this link for latest info. http://www.trouwamsterdam.nl/2010/03/za24apr/

Dopplereffekt are advertised as playing at the 'Off-Centre' festival in the famous Melkweg venue in Amsterdam from 26th - 29th May 2010. Saw Surgeon here once back in the day.
http://www.off-centre.nl/

There's a whole host of unreleased live Dopplereffekt tracks, probably from soundboard as no audience noise, for you on these two videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LwHrsaleMk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQfzGkiTa7E

Dopplereffekt's 'Infophysix' with visuals from 'A is for Atom' (1953).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKhJqqkiuhU

The suitably sinister 'Lab Rat 3' by Lab Rat XL for this Disney short 'Our Friend the Atom' (1953).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBb4cnNTONE

Arpanet's 'Wireframe Images' matched up with 'IBM - Man and Computer'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYsAEAel9uk

Fan video for the no longer available Zerkalo track 'Invisible' from 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSDu8lXDWSc

Zerkalo shows

2010-02-16T17:06:00.004Z

Zerkalo have announced two shows in Paris on 15th and 16th March 2010. Details can be found on their MySpace.
http://myspace.com/myopspace

They have also done a new video as well, starring Julia Pello as Dr. Pello, for the very soon to be released 'Experiment Zero' 12" on Frustrated Funk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV5yOK-ZYYI
http://clone.nl/item15179.html

They also have a new website at http://zerkalo.tumblr.com/

Dopplereffekt 'Gesamtkunswerk' repressed

2010-02-12T12:00:00.008Z

According to Fact Mag Dopplereffekt's Gesamtkunswerk has been yet again repressed. Some of these tracks are now 13 to 15 years old but yet it all still sounds so fresh that demand for this album will never cease! According to Discogs there are at least 12 editions of the record available. According to their list there is even a Bulgarian cassette version which was licensed from Gigolo back in 1999 by Wizard, have pictures of it here for you. I mentioned before that I have an original cassette version of Neptune's Lair from Poland, now that is rare! For the record, here's some of the details Fact Mag give this time round,
'Originally released by International Deejay Gigolos in 1999, Gesamtkunstwerk compiled hard-to-find tracks from the four singles and EPs self-released by Dopplereffekt through their own Dataphysix Engineering imprint between ‘95 and ‘97. The album was then licensed by Cone Records for a fresh vinyl and CD release (with tweaked artwork) via their Classic Cuts offshoot in 2007. This edition has been out of print for a while, but has now been re-pressed, and is available at regular price on both CD and 2×12″ LP.'
http://www.factmag.com/2010/02/11/dopplereffekts-classic-gesamtkunstwerk-back-on-vinyl/
http://clone.nl/item8115.html
http://www.discogs.com/Dopplereffekt-Gesamtkunstwerk/release/1687011

New Zerkalo 12" +

2010-02-08T14:32:00.011Z

The new Zerkalo 12", 'Experiment Zero', is out in a few short weeks on Frustrated Funk. It is now listed on the Clone website with samples of all three tracks. They are 'Invisible', 'Last Meeting' and 'Experiment Zero'. It is said to come in a limited silk screen edition. Clone also have a page at SoundCloud with some previously released full length Zerkalo tracks to listen to and a bunch of other great stuff.
http://soundcloud.com/clone-nl
http://clone.nl/item15179.html
Staying with Victoria Lukas, I very randomly and unexpectedly came across a whole new solo project of hers called vita. Since January of this year it has a MySpace site and there are currently four minimally produced and ghostly beautiful tracks there for you to discover. Whatever she does is always done with taste. Influences are listed as life. Check it out and become her friend. http://www.myspace.com/victorialkas

The Drexciyan legacy truly lives on with a new YouTube group devoted to their and Heinrich Mueller's videos plus there was a 'Jackmaster & Jonge' Drexciya Special broadcast on 02/03/10 which can be still watched at USTREAM.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4422865
http://www.youtube.com/group/DrexciyanWaves

Its been pointed out to me that there is a new look Rephlex page where you can now listen to all of the tracks on their available releases before you make your purchase. This includes the last Dopplereffekt and Arpanet albums.
http://www.rephlex.com/artists/view/Dopplereffekt

http://www.rephlex.com/artists/view/Arpanet

You can listen to the entire infamous Dopplereffekt show at The Roxy in Los Angeles from 20/5/09 at Open Source Audio. There is a lot of testosterone in that audience! At one point I’m sure I could hear some guy say to his buddy, “Man, there is nothing I like about this show.” To which his friend says, “You could leave.”
http://www.archive.org/details/DopplereffektRoxyTheaterLosAngeles20.05.09

Finally does anyone have any info on a Dopplereffekt show that happened 9 years ago! The below link threw up this bit of information in an interesting email from Alex Lugo of Ultraydne. Wonder how they presented it back in the day(although this was already post Kim Karli), any pictures or accounts out there?
http://www.mail-archive.com/313@hyperreal.org/msg20141.html

Produced by: Fulcrum Innovations
Address: 2030 Grand River Detroit, MI 48226
Date and Time: May 27, 2001 10PM-6AM
Price: $20 in advance $20 at the door
Lineup: Live Dopplereffekt, Tresor, Gigolo, Detroit
Ultradyne, Pi Gao Movement
Detroit Tangible, Pi Gao Movement, Detroit
Shadowpusher, Detroit

Drexciya Conversation

2010-01-31T21:09:00.001Z

Just did this short animated video that neatly sums up the last five years of DRL and is hopefully funny as well. Technology has certainly come a long, long way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLhE5IYLckQ

Urban Tribe Project +

2010-01-18T16:20:00.006Z

There is an interview and mix from DJ Stingray 313 aka Sheram Ingram aka Urban Tribe aka Mystic Tribe A.I. over at Resident Advisor now where amongst other things he reveals that he has been working on an Urban Tribe project with Heinrich Mueller and also talks about the 'Drexciyan Connection' 12". Good to hear this connection has turned into a developing project. On this subject he said, "The "Drexciyan Connection" nomer was the result of some miscommunication between us and WéMè, and will not be used again, but yes there are certainly plans for future collaborations. It's funny how we have known each other for years but only recently began working together. I really appreciate his work ethic, approach to composition and focus on sonic textures."
http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=190#download
or http://soundcloud.com/futurityworks for instant access.
http://www.myspace.com/djstingray313
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_tribe

No more new tracks on the Noether Symmetry MySpace yet but it looks like Nina Kraviz is now being referred to as simply Curie. The curie (symbol Ci) is a unit of radioactivity. The unit is named after the famous Marie Curie (1867-1934) whose achievements include the creation of a theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms (cancers), using radioactive isotopes. Her death was sadly brought on by radiation poisoning.
http://www.myspace.com/noethersymmetry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie

Zerkalo now have a Vimeo page with six of their old video's already uploaded.
http://www.vimeo.com/user2993238

New Noether Symmetry & Zerkalo

2010-01-08T20:55:00.009Z

Just a few days into 2010 and we are really being spoilt! There are two new Noether Symmetry tracks on their player now, 'Geiger Count' and 'Background Radiation (Ci)'. They are both pretty amazing as well and develop what looks to be their nuclear theme. 'Geiger Count' is actually pretty close to the sound we loved from Mueller back about 2000, it's quite like the uptempo stuff on the second Japanese Telecom album believe it or not. 'Background Radiation' is more atmospheric and downtempo with a cool female vocal. They are also listing a new member in Lana Jastrevski (pictured). Can't find anything else on her. Decide for yourself if this has any Mueller involvement or not.
http://www.myspace.com/noethersymmetry

Also another great new track and video by the ever prolific Zerkalo as well, 'Photon Photino'. There is also a new video for ‘Zelenogorsk’ as well but it is currently set to private.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EmgbvE5XTc

Two fan videos of their triumphant Paris show up as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZZ2kQsLv1U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV7mK3zqMGo

I've been informed that there are two companies who now book Dopplereffekt for live shows. One is 'futurity', run by Shaun Ellis out of the UK. He can also book Zerkalo, DJ Stingray and Urban Tribe. Web links are not ready yet but will post them when they are. You can contact him at shaun at futurity-works.net . The other is Converge Bookings, they did the last Berlin show, contact details for them can be found here

http://www.myspace.com/dopplereffektofficialpage

Good news according to Bleep, both the Transllusion ‘Opening of the Cerebral Gate’ and Shifted Phases albums were both reissued on CD sometime back by Tresor and true enough you can still buy the latter CD new from the Tresor shop. This means they are both around somewhere for slightly more reasonable prices for a time. In fact Neptune’s Lair is also available new on CD from this source as well so maybe a few more were pressed as well, respect. This will all wreck heads at Discogs I’m sure! But the remaining Tresor released album, Harnessed the Storm, is still out of stock. Because the Transllusion album is on the Tresor sub-label Supremat it doesn’t appear on their online catalogue but I checked with Amazon.co.uk and there is a bunch available new there so it’s happy days if your a new Drexciya fan!
http://www.tresorberlin.com/label/data.pl?release=Tresor.196CD

http://www.bleep.com/

Noether Symmetry

2010-01-03T18:10:00.007Z

After the disappointment of the last possible Heinrich Mueller MySpace collaborative project I mentioned looking to have been a hoax I have one more for you to consider that looks a lot more positive. Black Replica just redid their top friends and at number 2 is the intriguingly titled Noether Symmetry. This is how we found out about Zwischenwelt if you remember. There is one track on their player which in my opinion sounds a lot like it was touched by the hand of Mueller. Although he isn't listed as a member he may be using the name Hadron Cleric for this one. The other two members, or workers as they are referred to in their Pics section, are from Latvia, Anet Kirvelaite (pic on left) and from Ukraine, Nina Kraviz. The latter has her own MySpace and is well enough known in her own right. Although I see that she doesn't mention this project on her site and hasn't even made friends with it. But this could be like when Douglas McCarthy of Nitzer Ebb was briefly linked with Daughter Produkt at its inception and then his name was removed. In fact the same thing happened with Beale Bartel and Zwischenwelt but time will tell. Whoever the full line-up turns out to be and it could turn out to be just associates of Mueller and co I think they are off to a good start with this moody and seductive 'Half-Life' track anyway. The site is registered to Latvia in its profile so I guess Anet Kirvelaite is the one behind the scenes. The site has been up since the 1st Feb 2009 but as we have learned in the past the music might not have been here that long, it had only clocked up almost 100 plays when I first came across it. It's too early to go too deeply into all this yet and I am working in the dark as usual. Check it out at
http://www.myspace.com/noethersymmetry
Nina Kraviz
http://www.myspace.com/damelaayer

Nice video of Zerkalo live in Paris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV7mK3zqMGo

Zerkalo in Paris

2009-12-28T13:31:00.004Z

Very interesting looking live Zerkalo show about to take place in Paris on 4th Jan 2010. Details on flyer and on their MySpace. I wish I could be there but if you can you might as well go. The Tarkovsky film Mirror will also be shown.
http://myspace.com/myopspace

There may or may not be a new Heinrich Mueller involved MySpace project called Il Perfido Incanto. The first time I looked at their site it listed ‘Development - Heinrich Mueller’ but this has since been removed and the only connection to him is that their label is still down as Dataphysix. (Even this has now been removed, there are also four audio tracks up now which don't sound like Mueller had any input, a hoax?) It has only been up since 19th Dec 2009 and so far there is no music or video’s so it's hard to know what to make of it yet. I think the group name translates best as the treacherous enchantment and they are based in Italy. Keep an eye on it at
http://www.myspace.com/ilperfidoincanto

Zerkalo - I can Speak

2009-12-14T19:33:00.013Z

The video for the new Zerkalo track, 'I Can Speak', recently uploaded onto their YouTube account is full of un-credited quotes from many different sources. I was going to just include this information with little elaboration in the previous post but once I started to recognise where some of the lines came from and realised the variety of sources I decided it deserved a separate article to do it justice. While Julia Pello is credited with making the visuals I am guessing that the bookish Victoria Lukas (pictured) was responsible for choosing the texts, although they may have collaborated on this. At surface level the title simply references the opening sequence of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film, Mirror(1975), which is a scene, said to autobiographical, where a boy is hypnotized in order to lose his stammer. The track also uses dialogue from this scene as well. But then there is all of the text on the video to consider. To do this I have written out the text in the order it appears and asterisked each block to identify who wrote what and where it came from. I think it’s good that some has eluded me as you can now look too. By the way, I am not as clever as all this might make me look, I just searched the sentences in Google but it was fun to locate them all and I certainly learned quite a bit. What all this means I’m not sure, maybe the title should be ‘I Can Write’ but if you can find what ties it all together please let me know, although it probably was not meant to in the literal sense but only in that Victoria Lukas likes all of these writers. Mikhail Bulgakov was my own favourite discovery from all of this. I'm sure some of you might think this article is just a little over the top, so do I in fact, but 'going deeper' is what I have stated DRL is going to do and going deeper into a subject I have learned can bring its own rewards. Using another cliché, that if even one person discovers a new idea or writer from this it will be worth it, is more than applicable here and I guarantee that over time far more than one person will. I also lke in my own small way allowing these ghosts to exist again through their words, will any of us ever get that chance? The music itself is very uptempo and to my ears doesn't sound like Mueller had any involvement but only Zerkalo know this for sure. Check out the video itself here and keep reading to see the text in the order it appears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OWEbGq53wk

False and fictitious ideas as such can teach us nothing concerning the essence of thought. Those things which are connected with others as all things that exist in nature will be understood by the mind. The more things the mind knows the better does it understand its own strength and the order of nature.*(Spinoza)

She felt that he was still looking at her, he wanted something, wanted her to tell him that she loved him. He found talking so much easier than she did and as she looked at him she began to smile Though she had not said a word he knew, he knew that she loved him. And smiling she looked out of the window thinking to herself nothing on Earth can equal this happiness for she had triumphed again.**(Woolf)
She had not said it, yet he knew she was invisible, free as air. There was no reason to make herself dizzy with speed or to fly at such a height.***(Bulgakov)
1, 2, 3, I Can speak.****(Tarkovsky)
And he saw a great sadness come over mankind. a doctrine appeared, a faith ran beside it, ‘All is Empty, All is Alike, All Hath Been!’. He said unto his disciples, “There cometh the long twilight“. At last it came to pass that he fell into a deep sleep. *****(Nietzsche)
As it’s going often at love’s breaking through window then stretched in, the silver beauty of her gentle branches. The bird began to sing the song of light and pleasure to us who fear to lift our glances from the earth who are so lofty, bitter and intense.******(Akhmatova)
When we were saved together from the distance came the heart stopping moan of a train. She overtook it.***(Bulgakov)
Nights without the beloved and nights with whom you don’t love and huge stars above a feverish forehead and arms stretching and reaching up to... I know all that was and all that shall be. I know the deaf and dumb mystery that the uneducated and inarticulate language of people calls life.*******(Tsvetaeva)
We shall meet again in Petersburg as though we had buried the sun there and then we shall pronounce for the first time the blessed word with no meaning.********(Mandelstam)
Never mind if our candles go out, it is easy to be cruel one need only not to love. I won’t mention sad lips and tiny crucifixes, they mean nothing to me. I pave a road for the wheels to glide far. I will slide right past the thick of the forest and the streaming oil from the broken ship on the Atlantic. I hope the weather will wash it away. Oh everything brings one to tears. ????(Unknown)
---------------------------------------------
*This first section comes from the famous lens grinding Dutch philosopher Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677), known as the ‘prince’ of philosophers. The lines come from two sections of his ‘On the Improvement of Understanding’(1883). In this case a fuller quote would be useful to put the lines in better context.
“False and fictitious ideas have nothing positive about them (as we have abundantly shown), which causes them to be called false or fictitious; they are only considered as such through the defectiveness of knowledge. Therefore, false and fictitious ideas as such can teach us nothing concerning the essence of thought; this must be sought from the positive properties just enumerated; in other words, we must lay down some common basis from which these properties necessarily follow, so that when this is given, the properties are necessarily given also, and when it is removed, they too vanish with it.” and
“Again, the more things the mind knows, the better does it understand its own strength and the order of nature; by increased self-knowledge, it can direct itself more easily, and lay down rules for its own guidance; and, by increased knowledge of nature, it can more easily avoid what is useless. And this is the sum total of method, as we have already stated.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinoza
--------------------------------
**This part is from the Virginia Woolf novel, To the Lighthouse(1927)The lines are not in the same order as they appear in the book. Among the book's themes are said to be loss, subjectivity, and the problem of perception. Victoria Lukas has previously cited Woolf as an influence to Mouvement magazine in 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf
-------------------------------
***These two sections can be found in Russian writer, Mikhail Bulgakov‘s(1891-1940) novel, 'The Master and Margarita'(1966). Widely recognised as a classic it is a fantasy novel which was published posthumously. Said to begin with Satan visiting Moscow in the 1930s, joining a conversation between a critic and a poet debating the existence of Jesus Christ and the Devil. It then evolves into an all-embracing indictment of the corruption, greed, narrow-mindedness, and widespread paranoia of Soviet Russia. From what I read of it online it is a riot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bulgakov
----------------------------------
****Obviously there has to be an Andrei Tarkovsky reference and here it is. The opening sequence of his film, Mirror(1975), includes a scene, said to autobiographical, where a boy is hypnotized in order to lose his stammer. As you must know by now, Zerkalo have used this Tarkovsky masterpiece many times as subject matter, but most obviously for their name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Tarkovsky
----------------------------------
*****From Friedrich Nietzsche ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ (1885). Described by Nietzsche himself as "the deepest ever written", the book is a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality. One of the other MySpace projects Heinrich Mueller is or was involved with, Daughter Produkt, has already had a Nietzsche referencing track called ’Zarathustra’. The lines here are again out of order so it's worth giving the full quote for proper context.

"-And I saw a great sadness come over mankind. The best turned weary of their works. A doctrine appeared, a faith ran beside it: 'All is empty, all is alike, all hath been!' And from all hills there re-echoed: 'All is empty, all is alike, all hath been! 'To be sure we have harvested: but why have all our fruits become rotten and brown? What was it fell last night from the evil moon? In vain was all our labour, poison hath our wine become, the evil eye hath singed yellow our fields and hearts. Arid have we all become; and fire falling upon us, then do we turn dust like ashes:--yea, the fire itself have we made aweary. All our fountains have dried up, even the sea hath receded. All the ground trieth to gape, but the depth will not swallow! 'Alas! where is there still a sea in which one could be drowned?' so soundeth our plaint--across shallow swamps. Verily, even for dying have we become too weary; now do we keep awake and live on--in sepulchres." Thus did Zarathustra hear a soothsayer speak; and the foreboding touched his heart and transformed him. Sorrowfully did he go about and wearily; and he became like unto those of whom the soothsayer had spoken.--Verily, said he unto his disciples, a little while, and there cometh the long twilight. Alas, how shall I preserve my light through it! That it may not smother in this sorrowfulness! To remoter worlds shall it be a light, and also to remotest nights! Thus did Zarathustra go about grieved in his heart, and for three days he did not take any meat or drink: he had no rest, and lost his speech. At last it came to pass that he fell into a deep sleep.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche
-----------------------------------------
****** By Anna Akhmatova(1889-1966), the Russian poet, from her poem, 'And as it's Going'. Again Zerkalo has used the work of this poet before, in their track 'Warning You' they use her words as lyrics. The full poem is as follows.

And As It's Going...

And as it's going often at love's breaking,

The ghost of first days came again to us,

The silver willow through window then stretched in,

The silver beauty of her gentle branches.

The bird began to sing the song of light and pleasure

To us, who fears to lift looks from the earth,

Who are so lofty, bitter and intense,

About days when we were saved together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Akhmatova
-------------------------------------
*******From an 1918 poem by the Russian poet and writer Marina Tsvetaeva's(1892-1941). It is said her poetry arose from her own deeply convoluted personality, her eccentricity and tightly disciplined use of language. Among her themes were female sexuality, and the tension in women's private emotions. It reads in full...

Nights without the beloved - and nights

With whom you don’t love, and huge stars

Above a feverish forehead, and arms,

Stretching and reaching up to Him -

Who wasn’t here for ages - and won’t be,

Who cannot be - and must be….

And a child’s tear for a hero,

And a hero’s tear for a child,

And enormous, rocky mountains

On the chest of the one, who must - descend…

I know all that was and all that shall be,

I know the deaf and dumb mystery,

That the uneducated and inarticulate

Language of people calls - Life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Tsvetaeva

---------------------------------------------

******** From the Russian poet and essayist, Osip Mandelstam's (1891-1938) 'We Shall Meet Again, in Petersburg'. He fell foul of Stalin and ended up in exile, he even had an affair with Anna Akhmatova, those poets! The poem in full is as follows...

We shall meet again, in Petersburg,

as though we had buried the sun there,

and then we shall pronounce for the first time

the blessed word with no meaning.

In the Soviet night, in the velvet dark,

in the black velvet Void, the loved eyes

of the blessed women are still singing,

flowers are blooming that will never die.
The capital hunches like a wild cat,

a patrol is stationed on the bridge,

a single car rushes past in the dark,

snarling, hooting like a cuckoo.

For this night I need no pass.

I’m not afraid of the sentries.

I will pray in the Soviet night

for the blessed word with no meaning.
A rustling, as in a theater,

and a girl suddenly crying out,

and the arms of Cypris are weighed down

with roses that will never fall.

For something to do we warm ourselves at a bonfire,

maybe the ages will die away

and the loved hands of the blessed women

will brush the light ashes together.
Somewhere audiences of red flowers exist,

and the fat sofas of the loges,

and a clockwork officer

looking down on the world.

Never mind if our candles go out

in the velvet, in the black Void. The bowed shoulders

of the blessed women are still singing.

You’ll never notice the night’s sun.

It's worth listening to it here.
http://ia340940.us.archive.org/3/items/audio_poetry_229_2007/MandelstamWeShallMeetAgain_64kb.mp3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osip_Mandelstam

The Return of Black Replica

2009-12-10T16:08:00.005Z

Typically, just when we were losing the faith for the continuation of the MySpace projects, Black Replica mysteriously return with three new tracks. I think they were uploaded today or yesterday but they are, ‘Nether Realms’(1.02), a quite beautiful vocal led piece; the spectacularly sinister ‘Replicant Vestiges‘(2.14) and ‘Ehpemeral’ (3.53). This latter track you will recognise in a speeded up version from a live Black Replica video from Madrid in 2007 still on YouTube, so this song at least dates from their inception. The other two might also be from the original sessions which gave birth to the now infamous and for three long years unchanging four tracks on their MySpace player. These were of course ‘Mathematical Eyes‘(Now listed as ‘Mathematical Auge‘, eye in German, why now singular?), ‘Spider Theory‘, ‘Twilight Pupil‘ and ‘Black Feathers‘ which after a brief disappearance are now all back on the player as well. These new tracks might also be newly produced as well which I hope they are as this promises the possibility of more to come but be warned, we could be waiting another three years! In case your wondering, the touch of Mueller is all over these new tracks, his name is also back listed as a member as well. Still no sign of new videos or the old ones being replaced but this situation may change soon but nice to have them back, as always check out
http://www.myspace.com/blackreplica
Black Replica doing ‘Ehpemeral’ live in 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUrpoiv15e8

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There is also a new Zerkalo track and video on their MySpace and YouTube sites called ‘I Can Speak’. Miss Lukas has set quite a puzzle for us this time round, what with all her jumbled up anonymous quotes which I am endeavouring to unravel for you and the music is good too. Full post on this soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OWEbGq53wk
http://www.myspace.com/myopspace

Lastly and most surprisingly, there is an unreleased Elecktroids track on the new Warp20 box set called ‘Elecktroids Bonus Circuit". Again someone is certainly looking after their archive to have unearthed this one for us. It does grow on you but not what you would have expected maybe, can see why it was not on the Electroworld album. Nice video already up for it here though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyynFYIl2WA

Drexciya Oddities 1/4 'Wardance'

2009-12-03T19:45:00.005Z

While I have written an extensive article on every release so far relating to James Stinson and Gerald Donald there are still four individual tracks relating to Drexciya which I have not gone into in detail which are well worth examining while we await new material and news.
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The nature of these oddities are, in order of release; a collaboration with The Martian, ‘Wardance' on Red Planet in 1994, a remix of UR’s ‘Electronic Warfare’ in 1996 and the track, 'Davey Jones Locker', included on the 'True People: Detroit Techno' compilation on React in 1996 and the track ‘Aquatacizem‘, included on the Interstellar Fugitives compilation in 1998. For any artist or group after a 10 year lifespan to have so few tracks in their catalogue not exclusive to one of their own releases is unusual, especially in electronic music. But James Stinson at least is on record as not liking the idea of his own material being remixed, "It’s a piece of art, like the Mona Lisa, never meant to be remixed.” So I guess he would have largely felt the same way about doing it to others. Also, while they did appear on many compilations it was usually with previously released material. Stinson did not tend to collaborate with anyone outside of Donald either and if he did this material has never surfaced. I say this as I could imagine it as being very likely that there would have been times he was over at the UR studio for example when his talents might well have been used but not directly acknowledged as this was the collective way with UR. I guess this goes for Donald as well but with him I see it as less likely he would be into hanging out at other people’s sessions but you never know. He did begin officially collaborating with others outside of Stinson in the mid nineties onwards with Brendan M. Gillen as Flexitone and more than likely was at the dawn of Ectomorph as well and this subject I will probably cover in some detail in the future. Not to mention his Dopplereffekt collaborators, Kim Karli and William Scott, from 1994 on. There was also one other collaboration, this time jointly, as X-Ternal Pulse at the beginnings of Ultradyne, I have written a bit about this already and here is link to that article. In case some of you are wondering, The Elecktroids collaboration has already been covered by me. I was going to do these three releases in one article until I realised I had too much to say about each one and with this lengthy intro piece as well I've decided to split them up. Have also squeezed in new Dopplereffekt info at end of article. So in order of release here we go.
- The Martian - 'The Long Winter of Mars’ 2X12" (Red Planet 1994)
This was the fifth in the very popular Red Planet released series and it came out as a double 12” pack in 1994. The Martian is said to be either Mike Banks of UR or maybe someone called Will Thomas, I'm not sure if this has ever been confirmed. But one thing we do know is that on one track here, the opener ‘Wardance’, the credit runs 'Aquatic Assault Programming: by Drexciya'. There are vocals by Astral Apache in this track as well whoever that is but there was a track called 'Astral Apache' by Galaxy 2 Galaxy (UR 25) the year before. It is just over 10 minutes long and if you were expecting it to sound like something Drexciya had done before you will be very very surprised. It does sound a bit dated to me, it was 15 years ago, but we also have to remember that Stinson and or Donald are only down as programmers on this so they didn’t write it or come up with the concept (we can't blame them!) and we can only ever speculate how the collaborative process would have gone down or if they had a big or small part in shaping the track or not. It might even have happened in a very casual way like how I described already. The main rhythm track begins very much like any techno track of the time, but once past the three minute mark enough original signatures have emerged from the mix to give it its own character. As I said, the track does start off very bare but soon jumps fully formed into life with a classic techno snare and a nice rolling bassline. The programming of all these elements together create a very solid and perfectly formed whole. It's a full on dance track alright with a number of breakdowns which strip the track right back and then it comes back full on again. It manages to sustain a groove nonetheless, keeping your interest for the duration. About the three minute mark those new signatures begin emerging like a clipped vocal and rising and falling in the background a weird spacey ringing synth is heard. The only element of the track with a nod to Drexciya might be an odd kind of underwater ringing sound dropped more as an effect than something which is there all the way through. Drexciya were up to their fourth release, ‘The Unknown Aquazone’, by the time they did this so were very well established in the studio and it shows here. If it shows anything it is that even at this stage Drexciya were capable of mastering more than one style and if they had ever wanted to limit themselves to making just pure techno they would have given all the top producers in that field some serious competition. I do like this track but there were so many amazing tracks which came out of this series, one of my true favourites from it would be 'Sex in Zero Gravity' by Eddie Fowlkes and there are many others. In fact there was a CD compilation of tracks from the series in 1999 but alas 'Wardance' wasn't on it. If you want to hear it and as I presume this release is long deleted there are currently 43 copies of it available through Discogs sellers at very affordable prices
-
Next in this series will be Drexciya's Electric Eel Mix of UR's Electronic Warfare.
-
http://www.discogs.com/Martian-The-Long-Winter-Of-Mars/release/4603
-
There are two full length Dopplereffekt shows online to watch.
The infamous Roxy show in LA from May 2009
http://www.filefront.com/14738355/dopp.la.avi/
and the more recent show in Berlin, Germany 28/11/09.
http://vimeo.com/7904691
Also a new live track with vocals has emerged from Dopplereffekt, perhaps called 'Extra Dimensions'. It sounds like an outtake from Calabi Yau Spaces to me but well worth a listen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v9UZHDQYp8

Dopplereffekt +

2009-11-13T18:20:00.009Z

I've been planning to write something about the Dopplereffekt interview in the October 2009 issue of The Wire so here it is in a kind of interactive version. It is a great interview which covers a lot of ground, the most obvious repercussion of it for me was that there was a pronounced spike of at least an additional 50 hits a day on DRL that remained constant for that month. If this is an indication as to how many new people heard about them or were made more curious then I guess the piece certainly achieved something positive. In case you missed it someone scanned it, link below. I of course would never reprint copyrighted material here, unless it's unavailable elsewhere. You can still buy it from The Wire shop as well.

http://nebulus.se/~odd/dopplereffekt_interview/

http://www.thewire.co.uk/shop/items/478/
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The physicist Richard Feynman was mentioned to which Donald said that he was known for playing the bongos and was a genius. I subsequently found a very good documentary, 'The Last Journey of a Genius' (1988), on GoogleVideo about him which uses almost exactly this information in its opening description of him. You can watch it at the following link as I’m sure Donald already has.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=richard+feynman&emb=0&aq=o#
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I think it was significant that they were willing to be photographed unmasked and even happy to confirm they were based in Germany, although this was a common enough assumption till now. I'm not sure if this was already known from another interview but we also learned that To Nhan Le Thi first name is Michaela. That was where the personal information stopped and really they know as well as we do that it doesn't matter anyway. I would say that the masks will reappear for the live shows for the sake of the theatrical aspect of it but it was nice this time to see their faces. The pictures from the session by Dominik Gigler can be viewed again at his website and the venue for them was Munich's Deutsches Museum, worth a visit, links below.
http://www.dominikgigler.de/
http://www.deutsches-museum.de/
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The most important piece of new information regarding their future was that they implied on no less than three occasions that they were currently figuring out their next approach. Already, outside of remixes, there hasn't been any new material since 2007, the last Der Zyklus 12" did come out in 2008 I know but dates from the year before so as I speculated previously they are taking a break from releases until the muse strikes anew. They are promising, "a concept that is interesting, practical and holistic." This wasn't discussed in the interview but even Donald's involvement with the MySpace projects seems to have come to an end, while Black Replica may well return one day his name is no longer listed as a member; Zwischenwelt, while they will still probably release an album of their work together at some stage, it doesn't look like he has had much to do with them for about two years; similarly with Zerkalo, his work with this project has been released and that last batch of uploads, good as they were, didn't sound to me like he had any direct involvement with making them but am open to correction on this; Daughter Produkt as you know only managed a single track and he is no longer listed as a member. So it appears that since some point in late 2007 he has been taking a break from releasing any new material. I know that they are only talking about Dopplereffekt regarding this new approach but last time the other main side projects, Arpanet and Der Zyklus, were influenced by it so this time might be the same. I guess he views his remixes like live shows and continues with them as requested. The only exception and possible pointer to the future was 'Drone FX' (2009) which was a new piece, under the name Heinrich Mueller, for the 'Drexciyan Connection' split 12" with DJ Stingray 313. Or does he view this as another one off, like a glorified remix, or perhaps a sign of things to come? It's certainly a new template for him but time will tell. I'm not convinced but take a listen. Heinrich Mueller - 'Drone FX'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIQ6jjmiYHc
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If anyone was at or has any pictures of Dopplereffekt's installation at 'Off-Center' in Leipzig let me know. I contacted the gallery myself but got no reply.

Just in:Dopplereffekt to play Berlin on 28th November.

http://www.arena-club.de/content.php?dateId=287&month=11&year=2009

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Three short but always intriguing video's from Black Replica's 26th May 2007 show at the Zenderruisch festival in Dordrecht, Holland, have just emerged from the darkest places of the internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4iKesg0yqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UQfbVOSXrQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFe8ZUycH8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loYv-Eq28J0

I have created what will hopefully be a helpful list for people new to collecting Drexciyan and Gerald Donald projects over at Amazon, was surprised that no-one else had done it. Although I know I shouldn't be helping out a corporation like this I can almost guarantee someone will eventually discover great albums by Elecktroids or Japanese Telecom because of it and that makes it all worthwhile. Great to see most of this stuff still available as well, although I see Drexciya's 'The Quest' will currently set you back £80 while Arpanet's 'Quantum Transposition' is currently the cheapest item at just under £5. Only the Der Zyklus and Abstract Thought CDs are currently not available. You could probably get much of this stuff cheaper from other sources as well so just use it as a guide. You can also peruse my Wishlist while your there, my birthday is soon!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R1TBBVHGH81V9H/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb=

Lastly a bit of fun: I was dropping cheesy vinyl recently at a friends when I heard what sounded a lot like the bassline from the Heinrich Mueller remix of Le Car on Madonna's 'Dress You Up'(1985). Listen and compare for yourself, first 8 seconds works best, anyone for a mash up?
Madonna - 'Dress You Up'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eK74avTqL4
Heinrich Mueller's Le Car remix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QMMlQ9m2Tc

L.A.M. - Balance of Terror

2009-10-29T15:18:00.004Z

“The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.”
Thomas Carlyle

The L.A.M. ‘Balance of Terror’ 12“, which stands for Life After Mutation, is the third and final pre-Drexciyan musical document that we have; the others being Clarence G (Stinson) and Glass Domain (Donald) which have both already been covered by me in previous posts. The most notable thing about this record to the others is that from this point on James Stinson and Gerald Donald were finally working together. This release was most recently reissued by Clone in November 2003 but it had actually been reissued once already, in 1996, when Hardwax reissued most if not all of their 12" catalogue released up to that point. I have pictured images of the three editions throughout the article but basically as far as the Hardwax editions go the original had a silver label, the second reissue had a gold and black label. Hardwax was a Detroit label set up and run by techno legend of today Robert Hood. One of the big three of the so-called second wave of Detroit Techno, the others of course being Jeff Mills and Mike Banks. This puts Hood right on the ground floor as far as Drexciya were concerned but UR, via Shockwave a UR/Submerge sub-label, would take up their cause by releasing their debut ‘Deep Sea Dweller’ 12” later the same year. The big question a lot of people might have about this L.A.M. release is does it sound like Drexciya and is it any good? Well it doesn’t sound too much like them but there are moments and yeah I would say it's worth tracking down if your a fan. On one level it is simply the sound of two young guys enjoying the procedure of making music together and coming up with a thin concept to go along with it. On another level they are pushing some extremes with it as well, in the manic tempos and overall weirdness departments. It could be argued they might have felt they had something to prove being on such a 'hard' label but because of the humour on display I don’t think so. But more than this reason you have to remember that this was only the fourth release of the label which itself had only been launched the year before so they probably felt they had very little expectations to live up to other than delivering a good record. Since that time I guess Stinson and Donald must be ok with it considering they allowed the most recent reissue, although Stinson would have already died by the time it came out but I guess if he had had any major problems with it he would have previously made this clear. The most obvious thing you will notice about the record is the sense of humour I mentioned and yes a certain manic ness about the production. Although it is not as over the top as you might expect from its reputation but at the time maybe it was. I guess we have gotten used to so many extremes in music now it's hard to really know what people would have made of this record at the time. There is also a simple and cohesive concept to tie it all together as well, another first for them and sign of things to come, which I will go into in more detail after looking at the music.
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The opening track, 'Radius Of Infliction', is hard, fast and aggressive but if you think this is all there is to expect from this EP you are mistaken. It is a good runaway track which most immediately sounds like it was done live, like all the tracks here, which is something Drexciya would continue doing as part of their production technique. It also has an interesting fake ending. 'Nuclear Facelift' sounds as disturbed as its title suggests. The tempo is slightly less manic but the weird slithering vibe it gives off more than makes up for that. It has some very original sounds used throughout. The end of this track is interesting, totally unlike how it started, almost ambient. There is a track called ‘Kubi’ from 1999 on the self-titled Japanese Telecom album that sounds like it could have fitted on this release very well. Fitting as it does into this more manic visceral template which they are using on about half the tracks on this release. The other half are at a slightly lower tempo but much more weird! The next track, ’Meltdown’, would be one of them. It sounds like it must be something of an experiment at just over the one minute mark but this is also the one where we first hear a more familiar sound emerging. The end keyboard passage in particular sounds very familiar but I couldn’t locate its sound-a-like anywhere for sure on any Drexciya related projects, probably in a section of Neptune’s Lair, maybe you can? I guess in the process of playing round and experimenting while making this record they would inevitably fall upon some of what were to become their future trademark sounds. 'Hostile Bacteria' sounds a bit throwaway to me, it's a full length track though but with not enough idea's to sustain it in my opinion. Nothing in it that sounds like Drexciya either, not that that matters. It is again uptempo and weird sounding, like something pulled out of shape from hostile bacteria maybe, the end is fairly unique and experimental though it must be said.
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Side two, an alien concept to many these days, begins with ‘Toxic TV’ which sounds a bit more like Gerald Donald was at the controls and even shares his type of humour to a degree although they both probably did it. It does have a vocal as well which is delivered by a male and runs, “We are on TV.” The sample makes it sound even more like it was made by some excited kids, although we know for sure that Stinson would have been around 22 when he made this. It really kicks though, a very full on and raw production, maybe even my favourite. It does have a bit of a Drexciyan flavour as well in the breakdown. Again the ending is also really interesting and fun. I guess endings and breakdowns can tell us a lot about an artist, it’s always an opportunity to do something different from the main track and a certain quality of artist relishes taking advantage of these type of opportunities. 'Death Toll' is another aggressive and weird sounding track, very manic for sure, sounding like it’s about to spin off its axis at any moment. I imagine hearing this or 'Nuclear Facelift' on a sound system late at night would be an unsettling experience. The bonus track on the Clone reissue is ‘Irradiated’, which at just over the one minute mark was probably rejected by Robert Hood and maybe even themselves at the time as just being too mad. A slowed down male voice says, "I am a mutation, a victim of radiation, you might ??? (undecipherable)”. It is sort of hilarious though but I guess Clone could entice a few more people with it and at least gives us the complete record at last. This tells us that someone was certainly looking after the Drexciyan archives to find this as well. There has got to be much much more unreleased stuff. Will it ever come out? Should it come out?
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I said at the start that if you were a fan this release would be worth getting but if they had for some reason never made music again I guess it would by now be seen as just a curio in the deleted Hardwax catalogue, just some more Detroit kids doing something more off the wall than usual. One thing I would say though is that it hasn’t really dated in my opinion, maybe some of the drum sounds give away its vintage, but actually it does sound kind of fresh but like no one else, certainly not very Detroit either. In fact most of it sounds like music from another planet, I wonder if they were even familiar with what their immediate contemporaries were doing or were they even then not listening to anyone else’s music so as not to risk being influenced? Anyway, it’s not bad for their first joint production and for what is now a 17 year old record, hard to believe that!
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They didn’t exactly lose their hard edge for the ‘Deep Sea Dweller’ 12” (the first two tracks on side one are similarly full on but they would quickly change this approach for their next EP) but the concept there, just less than a year later, was a lot more sophisticated than the more one dimensional one we find here; which is simply mutation brought on by nuclear reaction. The titles, unsurprisingly and predictably, appear to be giving it all a bit of a negative slant as well; ’Death Toll’, ‘Hostile Bacteria’, ’Nuclear Facelift’, ‘Meltdown’, ‘Irradiated’. ‘Balance of Terror’ itself is kind of confusing as a title, but I guess in this context it means simply that terror/fear is winning out, it has the balance. It sounds like it belongs as a chapter heading in some cold war manual. ‘Life after Mutation’ is kind of proposing a positive in a way, at least life continues, is this some actual balance emerging to this concept? Maybe not as what quality of life are they proposing? Not a good one going by the other titles I think. This is what makes it all a bit one dimensional in my opinion and it would have been difficult for them to develop this concept in the future. But I know I know it’s probably not meant to be studied that deeply and there is ‘Toxic TV’ to look forward to inside the ‘Radius of Infliction‘! The concept of mutation does of course carry on in Drexciya but there it is framed as a rapid mutation of the offspring of pregnant African slaves thrown from slave ships as disruptive cargo where they become the Drexciyan deep sea dwellers. This latter concept would prove extremely fruitful for them and this theme of change would blossom further to embrace an inner and outer evolution of Man. Their Storm maxim some 10 years later would be ‘Don’t be Afraid of Evolution’ and I previously discussed in earlier articles how over coming fear is a necessary step towards evolution so maybe in some weird way with L.A.M. they were examining one of the major causes of our fear of the future, the idea that science will destroy us? Maybe they didn’t themselves realise they were doing this at the time but it does strike me as interesting that fear is the first concept they came up with and they came to realise that overcoming it is the only way to move forward. In very broad strokes and remembering that they both worked together as well, in this context Gerald Donald in his solo work could be seen as overcoming this fear of science by understanding it. Stinson always struck me as more intuitive and kind of overcame it with love and trust but they have both been taking a big journey which we have been privileged to have been able to share with them.
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Hardwax licensed two of these tracks (Radius of Infliction & Nuclear facelift) for the Japanese market on the 'Techno Global Power' Vol.1 and 2 compilations on Alfa Records in 1992. These CD’s are said to be so unbelievably rare today that if you find one you could retire or at least listen to a myriad of early Robert Hood, Jeff Mills and UR rarities in digital format for the first and in some cases only time. Interestingly Vol. 1 credits ‘Radius of Infliction’ as mixed by L.A.M. and written by Gerald Donald but credits on these type of compilations can be notoriously inaccurate at the best of times but maybe it’s accurate as someone went to the trouble of writing it down! The artwork is fairly simple, on the original edition that universal nuclear sign is used cleverly and for the Clone reissue it just got the inhouse treatment. Clone doesn't tell us who made it though but on the original the credit read 'Produced and mixed by L.A.M.' I guess most people buying it in 2003 knew who the creators were but this does tell us that the all-important anonymity which would become a Drexciya trademark was already decided on at this early stage.
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Hard to believe for me but this article brings to an end all of my articles on the previously released James Stinson and Gerald Donald records. While this final article didn’t reach the very large word count that some releases needed to do justice to them I feel this is all that I can meaningfully say about L.A.M. So thanks for reading DRL so far, the next post could be anything as waiting on the artists to take the initiative will become a factor for me from this point on. Although I’m sure I’ll still think of original things to write about and am sure there will soon be more live shows, projects and records to research.

Meltdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxv_9XC4684
Nuclear Facelift
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXHjEhWwlsw
Irradiated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmpYG3UEcSo
Hostile Bacteria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOUzRzeW47Q

Zerkalo +

2009-10-10T17:27:00.005+01:00

Zerkalo will be playing live in Liege, Belgium in a few days on 16th October 2009. More details at their MySpace. There is also a new Zerkalo track on their MySpace player, an instrumental called ‘Zelenogorsk’. I found there are two candidates for Zelenogorsk in Russia, one is a seaside town near Finland and the other is located to the south west of the country. This latter one is more than likely the one they are referring to if that is what they are doing. During the cold war it was a so-called 'closed town' where uranium was enriched and did not even appear on maps until 1992. In the context of Zerkalo it reminds me most obviously of Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’ which appears to be set in just such a mysterious town or zone. If you search GoogleVideo you can currently watch this movie if you have two and a half hours to spare. Well worth it if you do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelenogorsk,_Krasnoyarsk_Krai
http://www.myspace.com/myopspace

A few new video's to share as well...
Arpanet remix of Sebastien Tellier 'Kilometer'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEXGEEUz_Zg

Dopplereffekt live in Moscow 25/9/09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvTXD-42zKk

Also check out this new all things Drexciyan Blog which is currently hosting about 30 minutes of Dopplereffekt's Paris show on 3/10/09.
http://lardossan-cruiser.blogspot.com/

One for the archives for sure, just located this great Black Replica picture as well which somehow passed me by.

Zerkalo 12 inches & Essay

2009-09-20T14:30:00.008+01:00

Two of the Zerkalo 12 inch EP's are finally available to purchase from the Clone website and presumably your local record shop. The 12" on Frustrated Funk, 'Experiment Zero', is still imminent though. Samples of all the tracks can be heard at following links.

'Stoi Storoni Zerkala' Pt.1 12"
http://clone.nl/item15157.html
'Stoi Storoni Zerkala' Pt.2 12"
http://clone.nl/item15158.html
'Experiment Zero' 12"
http://clone.nl/item15179.html
There is also one live show listed for Liege, Belgium on 16th October 2009 on their MySpace.
http://myspace.com/myopspace

Also, according to to the Zerkalo MySpace, Victoria Lukas and Julia Pello, her partner in Weltgeist, have been busy writing an essay about Andrei Tarkovsky called 'Tarkovsky's Mirror as Found Object" which is featured in a book which can be purchased online through Final Object. The following text from it is provided by them on their site.

— It’s Not an Imitation, It’s a Rubbing,
“Tarkovsky’s Mirror as Found Object” by Victoria Lukas & Julia Pello. Alexandros Stamatelatos, Editor, June 2009

"[the artist] observes people and traverses worlds; he is material fused with the spirit constantly on the path of overcoming. He awaits and labors for the daylight of a perfect moment, for a sense of unique joy that may elevate him above his former selves, despite nostalgia, despite decay or the effacement of power in the passage of time. This is where poetry’s first lines shudder to be spoken. Poetry (not simply as a term of written form) is an exercise in free will whereby the poet submits himself to flashes of reality from beyond the mirror."
http://www.finalobject.com/

More details are emerging about Dopplereffekt's involvement in the 'Off Center' show being promoted by BlackRed to be held on 17th October in Leipzig, Germany. My German isn’t great but they appear to be being listed as doing a sound and video installation alongside some other artists at another venue during the day which will culminate for them with a live show in a club that night. Would love to get some images of their installation. Can we expect more of this?
http://www.blackred.de/main.php?c=dates#SA.17.10.2009
http://www.off-center.de/lobby/intro.html

Dopplereffekt are also now confirmed for a show at Rex Club in Paris on Sat 3rd October 2009.
http://www.rexclub.com/?page=programme&id=219
Dopplereffekt are also playing in Dresden, Germany on 9th October 2009.
http://www.hellerau.org/de/programm/aktuell/microscope-session-are-friends-electric-/
Just in but a bit late if you want to go! Dopplereffekt finally make it to Russia, they play a live show in Moscow 25th September.
http://naxaliavu.com/msk/clubs/event/385/

Dopplereffekt in The Wire

2009-09-07T19:33:00.012+01:00

Just got a heads up that Dopplereffekt do their first ever face to face interview and photoshoot in the next issue of The Wire. It will be in the October issue which is out in a couple of days I'm told. The journalist Derek Walmsley conducted the interview when they were over to play their London debut at Plex earlier this year. Hopefully this will be illuminating and it should help in exposing them to a largely sympathetic audience as well. No images on their site yet but will post them here when there are.
http://www.thewire.co.uk/

Don't forget Dopplereffekt are announced to play live in Leipzig, Germany on Sat 17th October 2009 as well.
http://www.blackred.de/main.php?c=news
Found a new official Zerkalo website as well. Pretty minimal but good.
http://www.zerkalo.fr/

Sad and enigmatic news on the Black Replica front. They have just removed their two video's from YouTube along with all but one of their tracks from their MySpace player. What does it all mean, is this the end? Their accounts there are both still open for now though. Perhaps fittingly the track which is left is 'Spider Theory' which appears to contain the line, "That was all she said." If this does turn out to be how they leave us, then this is truly how to disappear! Pure theatre till the end. It was great while it lasted anyway, hopefully they will surprise us yet but I hope you got to see and hear their music while it was still readily available. Latest: Heinrich Mueller is no longer listed as a member and even the pic has been removed from profile:( To read my full article on them link here. http://drexciyaresearchlab.blogspot.com/2008/11/black-replica.html
http://www.myspace.com/blackreplica

James Stinson 2009 radio show tribute link. http://www.sendspace.com/file/wst7tv

James Stinson 7th anniversary

2009-09-04T20:36:00.003+01:00

This year it is the 7th anniversary of James Stinson's death and while I like to think we remember him everyday I guess I should mark it, a day late I know, with a post. I recently found the following touching and penetrating tribute to him written by Christine Hsieh for Remix webmag which I hadn't seen before and am happy to archive it here for this purpose. I know there has been at least one radio show tribute to him this week but if anyone knows of anything else happening let me know. The best place to reconnect with James outside of his music would still have to be the radio interview with him which can as always be heard here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-LoZho4HC8

September 3, 2002, came and went like any other day — until that evening, actually, when a message, startling to most, raced through the electronic-music world with lightning speed. James Marcel Stinson, the driving force behind the enigmatic Drexciya outfit, was dead.

No fanfare, no fuss and no media hoopla surrounded Stinson's passing. Eulogizers had little to work with, save for a smattering of interviews, cryptic liner notes and sketchy biographical information. But, tellingly enough, what serves as his greatest legacy is the impressive body of work he left behind and the arresting, compelling and ultimately political message buried within it.

Details of Stinson's life are beside the point, really. What is known is that the story of this remarkable man began in Detroit. Characterized as a racially divided, gritty urban landscape, Detroit somehow became the locus of fantastical, emotional robot music created by free spirits and creative souls, and Stinson was very much a part of the intensely serious group of producers and DJs who formed the second wave of techno. The mechanical whirs, clicks and pops championed by the original innovators burrowed their way into Stinson's consciousness, and henceforth, he devoted his life to translating musical ideas into physical space.

Beginning in 1991, Stinson and his longtime collaborator (who remains anonymous to this day) unleashed their technoid electro through a series of EPs on labels such as Tresor, Hyperspace and the infamous Underground Resistance, which is run by the equally reclusive “Mad” Mike Banks. The duo, producing together as Drexciya, brought the electronic-music world to its knees. Their name, according to the liner notes of The Quest (a collection of their UR output compiled by Tresor in 1997), refers to a fictional Atlantean subcontinent inhabited by a marine species spawned from the thousands of pregnant African slaves who were callously tossed overboard by slave traders because they were troublesome, sickly cargo. This mythical underworld comes to life through Drexciya's music — slithering onto land and into the airwaves as a myth translated into fantasy, distorted by machines and electrified with soul.

Stinson's work as Drexciya revolved around this myth. Indeed, their earlier recordings, with EP titles such as Bubble Metropolis (UR, 1994) and The Unknown Aquazone (Shockwave, 1994), are inspired “conversations” with this imaginary world. When they dropped their first full-length artist album, Neptunes Lair on Tresor in 1999, the Drexciyans arrived at a fantastic level of fame and praise — especially for a group with no public profile.

Toward the end of his life, Stinson struck forth with several solo releases under the guises of the Other People Place (with an LP, Lifestyles of the Laptop Café [2001], on Warp Records) and Transllusion. His final piece as Transllusion, titled L.I.F.E. (Rephlex, 2002) — and the last full-length work he released while alive — is a murky, contemplative and deep account of submarine anxiety, nervous delusions and twisted experimentation. How fitting that Stinson should end his life with this piece, a moody commentary on evolution and impending revolution. His final “Message to the World,” spelled out in the liner notes but woven inexplicably into the richly textured strands of his music, is as follows: “Life is fast ending — so live!”

Stinson was, and shall remain, a true visionary. His music struck a chord with those who sought an outlet from the intense pressure of socially stratified and increasingly mechanized life — not because it provided the all-too-easy answer of quick release and careless escape, but because lurking underneath the nebulous, often acidic and always intriguing surface of his music lay an uncompromised vision of hope, survival and tenacity.

Christine Hsieh
http://remixmag.com/mag/remix_james_stinson/

Dopplereffekt Live

2009-08-27T14:35:00.006+01:00

Dopplereffekt are playing live for BlackRed in Leipzig, Germany on Sat 17th October 2009. Venue details etc to announced soon.
http://www.blackred.de/main.php?c=news

Some new video's I found which you might like.
Heinrich Mueller - Drone FX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIQ6jjmiYHc
Jason Fine - Human Heed (Celestial Sphere Mix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msi40y_wBlY
Arpanet - P2101V
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjwF2yDlWso
2010 part1 with Dopplereffekt music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LssztWTWgPg
2010 part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTUZhI_kiPQ

I just came across a three part documentary called TechnoCalyps that deals with so many of the Drexciya and Heinrich Mueller themes that I think anyone wanting to go deeper will get a lot out of them.

TechnoCalyps part 1: TransHuman
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7141762977713668208&hl=en
TechnoCalyps part 2: Preparing for the Singularity
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2258529707984107504&hl=en
TechnoCalyps part 3: The Digital Messiah
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8945702810854373085&hl=en

Clarence G - 'Hyperspace Sound Lab'

2009-07-25T14:15:00.006+01:00

The first production by James Marcel Stinson to be released was the 12" EP 'Hyperspace Sound Lab' which came out under the name Clarence G in 1991 on Florescent Forest Records. In the 18 intervening years this has certainly become the big one as far as collectors are concerned, said to fetch up to $1000 on Ebay. How easy this figure is to attain and how often it has happened is up for debate though. If you look at the Popsike website, depending how accurate it is, according to them this price only happened once online in 2006 but just a year later it made the more paltry $617. Personally if I ever came across it I would never pay anything like this, but if I didn't have the MP3's then maybe I would be more willing but they are enough for me. It might turn out to be a good investment in the long term and that might be part of the reasoning for someone willing to pay the big bucks but it's all about the music and that we thankfully have. It's a shame that the price of the record is probably the first thing people talk about and I know I am doing the same but it's worth tackling that issue up front before getting to the far more interesting music it contains. I wonder how often a record said to be worth a 1000 bucks gets played anyway?
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You might also be surprised that even the artist name Clarence G is not actually found on the record expect in a title! On side 1 the artist name reads downwards in a gothic type font and there is no G. Now, I am working from the scan found on Discogs and true there is a dark spot where the G might well be more noticeable on an actual copy of the record but it looks like the shadow of a rock to me and the G just isn't there. Can any of you tell us for sure? I would still rather refer to the project as Clarence G myself as this is what it has become known as but just so you know. While I'm on the whole G thing it must be said that G has to be one of the most common Hip Hop name appendages, from Warren G to Ali-G. Interestingly G in a name is said to represent philosophy so maybe that's where it all came from. It’s maybe not the most amazing name to pick in the world either, with the G or otherwise, but there you go although it might be a reference to the writer Clarence G Hamilton. I say might, as I’m not convinced of this myself. But it is possible that Stinson had come across and read his stuff. He is now pretty obscure and would have been in 1991 as well. If he did know his books he must have found them second hand I would say. His subject was music but this is quite academic stuff, he’s certainly no Alvin Toffler. He wrote books in the early 1900’s with titles like ‘The Outlines of Music History‘, ‘Piano Teaching - Its Principles and Problems‘, ‘Epochs in Musical Progress’. It would be surprising if Stinson was too interested in this stuff but you never know. I have created a link at base of article to one of his books on Amazon where you can read a few pages. If we want to be so literal there might also be another candidate for the name reference, the American film director, Clarence G Badger (1880 - 1964). Again, totally obscure today, he made the movie 'It' in 1927 starring Clara Bow, but I don’t think there is a connection.
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The next thing people might presume about the record is that it is a hip hop record. Well, two of the tracks are certainly hip hop but the other two certainly aren't. Stinson did state he was still a fan of hip hop when speaking in 2001 and probably must have always been. We also need to consider that James would have been just 21 or 22 when he did this record and it's pretty phenomenal considering his age in every way. The first track on ‘Side 1 of originality’ as it boldly states on the label is ‘Clarence G’s Club’. This is the first of the hip hop tracks. The rapper may well be Stinson as surely he would have credited the person responsible if it wasn’t himself. If it wasn't him they would surely have been pissed off if they weren't acknowledged. But it might not be him either, maybe right from the start they both wanted anonymity. If he was the rapper this was certainly another skill he had and no mistake. It's not bad for an early try anyway, a bit breathless and quickly delivered maybe but it works well enough. Production-wise the track is fairly basic, raw, but it does have a nice bass-line, synth sound and beat, which is only let down by a certain cheapness or the run of the mill standard of the sounds used. The track is not totally forgettable or anything it is just lessened by whatever equipment was used to make it. It has dated absolutely though due to the subject matter and generic style of it as has the other hip hop track. But as Stinson himself said to Tim Pratt in 2002, “There's never one record that's better than another because that was a moment of time.” Well this is definitely a moment in time. The rap itself is the classic clichéd boastful fantasy rapping about playing to an adoring audience, proving himself and even winning over the beautiful lady. It's quite shocking listening to this to think that within a year he would be on a whole other trip with L.A.M. then quickly followed by a far deeper one with Drexciya. I have never found the quote that Stinson is alleged to have said about not wanting this to be reissued. If true I would understand but as we will see two of these tracks are amazing and would be well worth reissuing. The only time he ever mentioned this release was when he again spoke to Tim Pratt and at that time he seemed to be quite fond of it, “In 1991 I tried to release a record that had nothing to do with Drexciya. It's kind of funny, though.” I have always seen this as a one-off project which he was always going to quickly move on from and 1992’s L.A.M. (Life After Mutation) as more of a false start. Although at the time this record must have seemed like the most important thing in the world to Stinson, his first record at such a young age after-all. Regardless he would soon move on. There are a lot of lyrics to transcribe here and even I have my limits! Luckily for me though I think in this case transcribing them word for word is not really necessary and you can always just listen to them anyway. I also had more and more trouble deciphering the lines as it went on as well so including all I did get would make less sense than if I had got it all. But if anyone has already done it or feels like doing it please send me what you find and I could update the post and print them in full. Here's what I have for now.
I stepped in the club without a smile on my face
???????????????
I take the mic with style and grace
It is me Clarence G make no mistake
Now the crowd stood up and started to scream
And my face got picked up on the video screen
Lights got dim, people started to clap and move to the lyrical rap
I jumped off the stage and onto the floor because what the crowd wanted was giving a show
I put the mic down, no time to waste, then I stood back up and started scopeing the place.
The lights went off and the music stopped and it was just enough time for me to have my spot
On with the lights and the music too , I was back on stage in my royal blue...
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The second track on this side is totally different. Whatever equipment he is using for ‘Turbine’ would surely be the same but how he is using it is very different. The sounds used are all quite heavy, almost industrial sounding, there is a lot of room in the production too, maybe too much, sounding a bit bare and unfinished at times but for all that it sure kicks some ass. I wish all the tracks had been like this, if so this record would almost certainly be remembered today for more than how much it is worth. It’s also here made very obvious how on an instrumental like this you are free to create your own images and associations once the subject of the rapping is removed. I am even more convinced from this that there was two people involved here, even if Stinson did all the production he must have had someone else pulling him in another direction altogether, it's just too schizophrenic for one young man I feel. Maybe they both just put their money and tracks together to get this record out? This track also resembles the Drexciya track, ‘The Countdown Has Begun’ from the 1994 ‘Aquatic Invasion’ EP. In fact the main beats are to my ears identical to what would be on the 1994 version. The beats are so amazingly raw and perfect that it might have been difficult for him to redo them exactly as before and if that was the sound he was after he could have still had the original tapes lying round somewhere. I have a link to both tracks on YouTube at base of article for you to do your own quick comparison.
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‘Cause I said it Right’ opens 'Side 2 of Originality' but this one lacks the imagination and production of the other hip hop track for sure. It is weak on every front. There is this funny sample of someone shouting “Yeah” but the backing is pretty standard with just a few odd sounds peppered in to make it more varied. It ends pretty abruptly as well. It strikes me again that maybe the truth about Clarence G is that Stinson just did the production, maybe he was the partner mentioned in this track, Willie D, and the rapper is Clarence G who wrote his own lyrics and is just simply someone else? This would make more sense but there is no way to prove that with the information we currently have. Again I took a stab at deciphering what was being said and this is the first section but again it's better to listen to it yourself.
Back in the days when I had an afro
My Mom said go get a job you know
but I chill not ill just contemplate
That is why I’m not able to demonstrate
????????????????????????????????
About the stuff that makes you want to get hype to the mic
Cause I said it right
Peace in the hood in a moment of violence
Clay steps up in the calm of the silence
???????????????????????????
My posse ????????????
So let the people out to know what’s up
Spit to the back cool jump to the front
You can’t touch these G’s you runt
Cash the check and pay for the style
Two to the three to the four keep it buck wild
Takes a guy like Clay to keep you feel good
In the hood I was misunderstood
I walk alone with no time to spare
Flying high like Jordan on air
Prepare to fall in the way of a fist
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The final track, ‘Data Transfer’, is also superb no question, this is another glimpse of Stinson’s future right here. I wonder if the legendary Detroit DJ The Electrifing Mojo would have picked up on a track like this at the time? I’m sure it would have been sent to him by an eager Stinson who has stated he was a dedicated listener to his show at this time when speaking to John Osselaer, “I was hooked and for the next eight years I would be programmed by some of the best electronic music on the planet by the Electrifying Mojo.” The track starts off with a long cymbal line and then jumps about with tons of interesting and unique sounds coming at you. It drives along insistently throughout with the beat more light this time with the focus on the lines of synth and effects. Maybe it’s also a bit bare at times as well and a bit short perhaps; all signs that it could have been improved upon but it does have something about it all the same. Hard to pigeonhole it to a style as well, just sort of early electro or something. This track and 'Turbine' just kind of bravely are their own thing. Just to mention these choice of names as well, they do fit really well, in a modern technological futuristic way.
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There is a great picture on the label of some young guy with a great hair style and shades sitting on rocks, maybe it’s Stinson or the other guy if there is another guy, but whoever he is, he is posing beside Stinson's beloved water, either a lake or ocean. The picture on side 2 is actually different in that it is at a slightly titled angle to reveal a horizon of land. It appears to be a self-released record and therefore only a label in name only. This is similar to what Gerald Donald would do the same year with his Glass Domain project on his own Pornographic Sound Disc label. I wonder which one came out first and had they met yet? It would also be good to know how many were pressed. Donald is said to have pressed 300 of his so maybe Stinson did a similar number at the time. The name of the label is also interesting considering the mutation through radiation theme of L.A.M. In this context Fluorescent Forest might be a reference to radiation in trees or something. If true this might show where his head was going or it might mean nothing at all and just be a clever phrase he came up with. While the actual title of the EP, ‘Hyperspace Sound Lab’, with its futurist scientific overtones rings more like a Drexciyan title. There is a ‘special thanks to God’ credit on the label as well which is also something Drexciya would often do.
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Thanks to the internet these tracks are relatively safe for future generations to hear. Although surprisingly the two hip hop tracks have been bootlegged by the label Safety Copy in 2006. 'Clarence G's Club' was also included on a limited CDR of a DJ mix by Brendan M Gillen on the Interdimensional Transmissions label in 2002, so what do I know! Hard to know the real appetite for these tracks beyond curiosity but as I said they can at least be heard again. Clone in the past have been good at reissuing Drexciya related stuff from this era like Glass Domain and L.A.M. so maybe they could possibly put it out someday. But I also reckon they would have done it by now if they were so maybe the story about Stinson not wanting it coming out again is true. I hope with this article I’ve pointed out how some of the presumptions commonly made about it, the name, the personnel, the value, reissue, are still open to debate. I must say it wasn’t that weird to do an article about a record I don’t even own a copy of. But I couldn’t tell you for example if there are any messages in the run out groove, anyone know? Also, as far as I know the record came in a plain no picture sleeve. All in all, in my opinion, if you picked this up at the time it would have been a really varied and interesting release from somebody in the process of learning their production craft but more importantly, finding the right sound for them. This search would continue for awhile yet through L.A.M. and the James Stinson productions we would finally get to know well would be very different to these ones. My next article will be on L.A.M.
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'Clarence G's Club'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TepsGIEQWVA

'Cause I Said it Right'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cS_A1i0GN4

'Data Transfer'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymkVZ_RWvcM

'Turbine'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS4szQGeWa0

Drexciya - ‘The Countdown Has Begun’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsnvnhqv354

Clarence G at Discogs
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Clarence+G

Clarence G at Popsike
http://www.popsike.com/php/quicksearch.php?searchtext=Clarence+G&x=3&y=15

Clarence G Hamilton
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Outlines-Music-History-Clarence-Hamilton/dp/076614142X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248377604&sr=1-3

New Zerkalo Material

2009-07-10T16:56:00.003+01:00

The reliably productive and inventive Zerkalo have just uploaded a total of seven new videos to their YouTube channel. Six are brand new tracks and a video for 'Invisible' is included as well. Some amazing stuff included here, check them all out for yourselves though.

'Potentia'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EchDiKPNFfM
'Maria'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reMpIKvpaGE
'Shto Shto'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6RZwLt-CvA
'Invisible'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhmwuiWvokc
'Human Terms'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TarleA-9Bgg
'Last Meetings'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCmjOF9vG5M
'How Difficult it is'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsxrCcy4_5M

There is also an interview with Victoria Lukas and Heinrich Mueller about Zerkalo in the current issue of the French magazine Mouvement. This is so far not available to read online but if anyone wants to post or translate it please send it to me.

http://www.mouvement.net/site.php?rub=1

Der Zyklus - 'Cherenkov Radiation'

2009-06-20T19:24:00.011+01:00

Der Zyklus released their 'Cherenkov-Radiation' 12" on the Clone sub-label Frustrated Funk in May 2008. Incidentally, this release was announced as imminent a whopping five months before it actually came out. The track, 'Quasar' did however appear on the Frustrated Funk MySpace player when it was first announced, November 2007. So the tracks were probably finished all that time. Paradoxically, at the time this seemed important but now seems completely irrelevant. A good lesson to remember when making art, it’s not the end of the world if you miss a deadline!
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At the time there hadn't been a new four track 12" in the classic sense from Mueller since Der Zyklus II in 2001. Surprising I know but albums and 12 inches featuring material mostly from the album has been the norm for him for almost a decade now. I suppose I'd prefer it if he kept doing albums but these more bite-sized vinyl four trackers have their own appeal as well. I wonder how many of these tracks were played out by a DJ, not that anyone is limited to only playing vinyl anymore. I'm sure they all got an airing somewhere they might not have done otherwise simply because of their format. Clone continued their long relationship with Mueller with this release. In 2006 they had put out the 'Der Zyklus' 12” which compiled four tracks from the previous Der Zyklus 12 inches on Gigolo, which also came out on Frustrated Funk. Today they are of course working with Zerkalo, releasing three of their 12 inches, one on Frustrated Funk and the other two appearing on another sub-label, Clone Aqualong Series. They have also put out releases by Drexciya, The Other People Place and Lab Rat XL and have reissued material from Dopplereffekt, Der Zyklus, Glass Domain and L.A.M. and even released the Der Zyklus 'Biometry' album and I'm quite sure they will be intimately linked with Mueller in the future.
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On the record itself there is no other information beyond some label artwork and the titles to go by but that is enough for me. The credits are a simple ‘Written and Produced by Heinrich Mueller for Dataphysix Engineering’. First of all I will go into what this is all about, the music. The title track, ‘Cherenkov-Radiation’, initially and deceptively cracks along but undergoes some structural changes which affect the tempo in some way, although the drum pattern never changes much until towards the end. It is extremely minimal in the production department with whatever is going on here being done in the most subtle of ways. In fact, once you accept its crawl you will be pleasantly carried along by its pace. The main element that isn't drums are these really nice reverb filled shot sounds which arc around the main body of the track and are framed by a series of eerie atmospheric touches. I must admit there is not a lot going on here for what is the lead and title track but there you go. In a way, going by the label, there is no official title for this release, this just happens to be the first track and for marketing purposes is listed as such. Mueller probably wasn't trying to impress anyone with it anyway, it is effective in setting a scene and draws you in if you allow it as I said.
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'Quasar' is truly awesome, classic Mueller in its own way, although truly funeral paced. As I've discussed before he is well able to do these timeless and epic sounding pieces, sort of mini dramas that trigger off so many images in your head. It starts off quite weird but very quickly emerges fully formed as a gorgeously lush and slow paced pattern. It is on first inspection again quite minimal but really that is just how it is made to appear, there is a lot going on here. It has some lovely and very light touches of keyboard and an extremely snappy snare as the main beat. The bass-lines seem to have about a yard between them and a whole world of sound appears to have happened before they repeat. About midway it sounds like it is ending but then a second version quickly begins. The main difference now is a kind of vocal sample effect which kind of sustains a section of a vocal. It has this amazing hovering effect which pulls it all up to another level. Some more, again, very subtle changes have happened in the production as well which does change the feel, making it bigger certainly. What sounds like a very rough version of this track was first aired by Arpanet at the legendary La Geode show in Paris during June 2006. Definitely my favourite here, could listen to it all day.
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‘Roche Limit v3’ which I presume must mean version 3 is the first one you could just about robot dance to in your own dark way. If the other side of the record appears to be more minimal these two are anything but. It is fast paced and layered with a rich variety of sounds. The drum sound and programming grab my attention the most though. It does end a bit quick though which gives it an unfinished air. ‘Roche Limit v2’still has the same drum pattern but now boasts more reverb and another sound palette I guess. My brain is struggling to hear the differences between them to be honest but they are quite different. Maybe more distinct in the tempo department, it stops and starts a bit more than the other. Maybe not so danceable early on but lets face it neither of them are truly danceable in the broadly accepted sense. It appears to have a lot more space in it as well and more bass pump. The ending is more convincing this time however and there is even a tantalising leak of glitch in the final split second. Mueller goes glitch, I wonder.
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What I suppose we might safely call ‘Roche Limit v1’ appeared in January 2007 on the Arpanet radio show, this officially unreleased track can be heard on a YouTube link I give below. Even though this track always seemed unfinished or rough to me it might actually be my favourite version of the three. Around the three minute mark it flounders badly but it has these great long keyboard lines that make it for me, totally distinct from the other versions. The basic drum pattern is the same though. We are really getting a very rare glimpse of Mueller’s working method with these three versions. Play them in order and you can see not so much a progression but more a new approach each time. Version 1 looks like it was never tidied up which he probably did with 2 and 3. There is also other unreleased music on these radio show things but they are more snippets. I wish he would do something like that again!
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As I was saying earlier, all we have to go on this time is three titles, one image and very dark purple, luckily those few titles alone are chockfull of associations. Taking the first, 'Cherenkov Radiation' is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through an insulator at a constant speed greater than the speed of light in that medium. Hard to imagine I know but the characteristic "blue glow" of nuclear reactors is due to Cherenkov radiation. This would be what it is most commonly associated with as well. Incidentally it is named after a Russian scientist Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov who discovered it in 1934. I also found it described as analogous to the creation of a sonic boom when an object exceeds the speed of sound in a medium. I think this is more easy to visualise for the layman. There is a connection with it and the study of particle physics as it is important for particle identification. This is more than likely the context Mueller is thinking of. It works in this way, one could measure (or put limits on) the velocity of an electrically charged elementary particle by the properties of the Cherenkov light it emits in a certain medium. If the momentum of the particle is measured independently, one could compute the mass of the particle by its momentum and velocity and hence identify the particle. You will find such a detector which uses this method, although this might also be the only method commonly in use today, at, surprise, surprise, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. It is under-construction there at least for their ALICE project, A Large Ion Collider Experiment. As far as the colour of vinyl goes, it is a dark purple. But you could be forgiven for thinking it was so dark as to be black. But hold it up to the light and you'll see the purple. Although I would expect Mueller sees it as more of a violet. This is because Cherenkov radiation is in the ultraviolet colour spectrum. The human eye only sees it as a bright blue, eg. the glow of cherenkov radiation from a nuclear reactor. In fact it mostly exists visibly in the ultraviolet colour spectrum which the human eye cannot see. The sensitivity of the human eye peaks at green, and is very low in the violet portion of the spectrum. Hence violet or a dark purple would be the nearest colour we can relate to it. This certainly proves at least two things about Mr. Mueller; he is a real stickler for detail, like any good scientist and that he has thought about all this fairly deeply and completely.
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Roche Limit, sometimes referred to as the Roche radius, is the distance within which a celestial body, held together only by its own gravity, will disintegrate due to a second celestial body's tidal forces exceeding the first body's gravitational self-attraction. OK so what does this mean. Think of it as the phenomenon of the rings of Saturn where inside the Roche limit, orbiting material will tend to disperse and form rings, while outside the limit, material will tend to coalesce. The term is named after Edouard Roche, a French astronomer who first calculated this theoretical limit in 1848. Gravity has been a general theme of Mueller’s for sometime and also you can find it in Drexiya if you look. But then again gravity effects everything in its own way.
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A quasi-stellar radio source (quasar) is a powerfully energetic and distant galaxy with an active galactic nucleus. Quasars were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light, that were point-like, similar to stars, rather than extended sources similar to galaxies. While there was initially some controversy over the nature of these objects — as recently as the early 1980s, there was no clear consensus as to their nature — there is now a scientific consensus that a quasar is a compact region 10-10,000 times the Schwarzschild radius of the central supermassive black hole of a galaxy. We have come across the title ‘Schwarzschild Radius’ on Arpanet’s ’Inertial Frame’ album already.
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The image on the label could be anything, a disk surface from a machine, it has been photo-shopped so it is hard to know what it is or was. It might also be an original image as well. I guess it just functions as a circular image which fitted the label well. It could be said to form a symbol, although it is an ambivalent symbol if it is one at all. I guess like all the best art you can find what you want to in it, for me its got a kind of cold harmony of the machine vibe to it. This image could also be found on the Der Zyklus MySpace, as far as I remember it was there before the record came out. This at the time made me think this was probably an official site run by Mueller himself or someone connected with him, perhaps by Clone. Although it has the look in some regards of being a fan site, it has supposedly for a brief period had an early version of ’Cherenkov Radiation’ which bore a resemblance to the Zerkalo track ‘Invisible’ on its Player as well. These tracks do I guess sound similar musically and the time period would tie in very well so it is plausible they both grew from the same source. But I never got to hear this version myself so can’t say for sure, it would be cool to hear it if anyone copied it at the time. Although it looks like only four people ever listened to it! There are also some other images on the site which are new, maybe they will be used by Der Zyklus in the future as well? Time will tell.
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I am thinking that we have two possible themes going on here, that of phenomenon and reaching a limit. The fairly straight-forward phenomenon’s of Cherenkov radiation and the Roche Limit don’t need further explanation and you could consider a quasar a phenomenon in the same way you could call the Earth a phenomenon of the slow coalescing of the solar nebula, the disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left over from the formation of the Sun. Although much like gravity effects everything, anything could be considered a phenomenon of something. With the MySpace projects of Black Replica and Zwischenwelt it could be argued that he, alongside his collaborators, was already taking an interest in the phenomena’s around ESP. I would prefer to wait and see what he does next before I’d be sure that this may turn out to be his new approach but maybe this is where he is going? If so I think it’s worth pointing out it could potentially be a less interesting approach to take considering what he has done to this point, which would only serve to cover a lot of the same ground again only from another angle, but it all depends on how he handles it. It’s worth pointing out that if this EP had come out when it was supposed to, just five months after 'Calabi Yau Space', it would have slotted in more conveniently time-wise and serve more obviously as something of a final bookend to what had gone before. I personally still see it as more connected with the themes of the previous five albums and not a new beginning, but time will tell.
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The second is limitation. Cherenkov radiation could represent the effects of pushing particles to the limit, the Roche Limit is all about what happens at the limits of gravity and a Quasar represents what is happening at the currently knowable limits of our visible galaxy. This second theme of limits ties in I feel with what I discovered when doing the previous article on Dopplereffekt’s ‘Calabi Yau Space’. I noticed the following breakdown of themes for the last five albums which conveniently appear to cover the five known levels of matter.
Macroscopic level - Arpanet ‘Inertial Frame’ (Space)
Molecular level - Der Zyklus ‘Biometry’ (Biology)
Atomic level - Dopplereffekt ‘Linear Accelerator’ (Particles)
Subatomic level - Arpanet ‘Quantum Transposition’ (Quarks)
String level - Dopplereffekt ‘Calabi Yau Space’ (Strings)
Now if this is true it implies that he has reached the limit to where he himself can go with this cycle and is here admitting it to us, to those that know and all that! Mueller has certainly, since this release, been taking a prolonged break, for him, from new releases. I’m sure he will surprise us all with his future approaches and even if he does continue to use subjects he has dealt with before he will probably keep them up to date and continue pushing deeper into the unknown just as the leading scientists do.
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This EP leaves us with an artist totally on top of his production and music writing game, ‘Quasar’ alone is worth it. It also leaves us potentially with an artist at something of a conceptual crossroads, looking like they are telling us they have reached the limit with this subject or that they are about to come at it all again from another angle. Hopefully it will be the former and he will begin a whole new cycle. Der Zyklus is German for the cycle after all. If so, where ever he takes us next could be as big a surprise as Linear Accelerator was at the time. Although his music has of course continued to evolve since that time, I believe his theme may be about to alter radically. I may be taking a gamble with this speculation but as usual this is just my own subjective opinion which I am rightly or wrongly choosing to share. If your still reading I presume you are in the affirmative. I hope you have found something of value in it all anyway, I know I have on so many different levels.
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Finishing this article in particular fittingly brings me to the end of catching up with Mueller’s new output, not sure if I should do full articles on each of the Zerkalo 12’s having already tackled them from the MySpace perspective but who knows. The Zwischenwelt album is forever imminent and I am still waiting on Daughter Produkt to put more than one track on their player to justify a closer look as well. Although I see Mueller’s name is no longer listed as a member on their website. But I have been looking forward to getting my teeth into Clarence G and L.A.M. for sometime and expect to begin an article on the former soon. There will of course continue to be posts on any new activities that come my way and hopefully some more interviews in the future. Thanks for reading DRL so far, all for now.
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Der Zyklus
http://www.myspace.com/derzyklus
‘Cherenkov-Radiation’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EPZJzkN5hE
‘Quasar’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYuR8Grmi6U
‘Roche Limit v1’ (Unreleased Track)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhPrVoJUExk

Zerkalo Mix

2009-06-16T14:07:00.004+01:00

Very cool mix by Zerkalo now available for download with some choice cuts there for sure. The mix is dedicated to Marie Alexandra Van Huffel who I can't find any obvious candidates for online, although it may be a more personal reference. On the Zerkalo MySpace it says this mix will only be up for a short period of time. http://reprogrammusicmultimedia.blogspot.com/2009/05/reprogram-music-non-stop-005.html

The latest news on those Zerkalo live dates are two shows upcoming in Europe, check out their MySpace for more details.
www.myspace.com/myopspace

Track-listing is
et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum - i. des profondeurs de l'abîme.../ olivier messiaen
zero volume/arpanet
icct hedral {edit} /aphex twin
we are eternal /ultradyne
cosmic car/cybotron
secret desire/ i_F
insecticide/ fad gadget
das leben und der tod /analog
in your pyramid / luke eargoggle
when i was sick/zerkalo
odessa theme/alden tyrell
wavejumper/drexciya
the man machine/kraftwerk
higgs-mechanism/dopplereffekt

Article on Clarence G you might find interesting.
http://gold-code.net/wordpress/?p=417

Dopplereffekt live in Austin, Texas has shown up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP_73mBAaTY
Arpanet - ‘Probability Densities’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZcOxVu1bg
Arpanet - ‘Ergosphere’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nK12rG2p3w
Arpanet -’Gravitational Lense’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_cJZndeW4M
Der Zyklus - ‘Cherenkov Radiation’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EPZJzkN5hE

Dopplereffekt US Tour 2009

2009-05-01T10:37:00.010+01:00

The upcoming Dopplereffekt US tour is shaping up, if anyone sees any other dates let me know, so far the confirmed shows are...
May 13th Miami, Florida*
May 16th New York, NY
May 20th Los Angeles, California*
May 21st Austin, Texas*
*These shows are being promoted by what appears to be a car company, Scion, and if you RSVP them at below link you will gain free entry, hey this is better than Europe already! Venue details etc are available at this link as well.
http://www.scion.com/houseparty/
New York info here
http://lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com/evinfo.php?eventid=34328

First of the videos of Dopplereffekt live from US tour. This was Miami.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BVaPGJaVw8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cplCB0ERZaQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-roNYAHssE8
New York
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdexKSPWMKk
Review of what happened at Hollywood show. Always a risk with a free show.
http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/dopplereffekt-in-west-hollywoo/

The Heinrich Mueller/DJ Stingray 12" known as 'Drexciyan Connection' is now available. Limited to just 450 copies. Details here.
http://www.mewelesite.be/

Two YouTube Adverts for upcoming Dopplereffekt US tour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ63DGOZVrM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvF5Xi30rok
Two videos of Dopplereffekt at La Casa Encendida, Madrid on 24th April 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM12yGW1a9Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HpbVAx6C5c

Previews for all three upcoming Zerkalo 12" EPs up now on Clone.
http://clone.nl/shop.html?find=zerkalo&reset=1

Zwischenwelt video/paper

2009-04-25T17:42:00.003+01:00

Beta Evers of Zwischenwelt has written a paper on the parapsychology subject of materialisation which can be downloaded. The original link is from her Beta Evers MySpace. She describes the paper thus, "The following writing is not meant as paper for the advanced connoisseur, but is the extract of an extended internal work within the project “Zwischenwelt”, abridged for newcomers to the field of parapsychology. For additional information, a more in-depth literature review is recommended." It is well written and understandable for the layman. It shows that they might not be posing after all and some serious research or "extended internal work" is being carried out in addition to the music.

One extract which I will quote connects the subject to quantum physics, "Recently paranormal research got scientific support from the side of quantum physics theories, in the field of Psychokinesis and extrasensory perception. One theory is that paranormal effects could be special cases of quantum-physical processes, whereby known principles of space, time and causality are out of order. The phenomenon of non-locality within the quantum physics plays a central role hereby. Non-locality is a direct influence of one object on another distant object. In classic physics action at a distance is incompatible with relativity, but in quantum physics non- locality reappeared in the form of entanglement, which is a concept that refers to connections between subatomic particles that persist regardless of separation by various distances. Such entanglements have been demonstrated experimentally. Theoretical models like the “Model of the pragmatic information” and the “Weak Quantum Theory” assume that there are entanglement correlations behind paranormal experiences, which get a sense through the semantic assignment of occurrences, which get interpreted quasi-causal."
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jjv2pl

Also very recently a new video was uploaded for their track, Shadow Being' as well. This was created by Beta Evers and friends as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjETPTj9rA

Keep an eye out for notice of their imminent album as well.
http://www.myspace.com/zwischenwelt

http://www.myspace.com/betaevers

Heinrich Mueller Remix/Zerkalo 12 inches.

2009-04-18T23:33:00.012+01:00

There is a new Heinrich Mueller remix of the Jason Fine track, 'Human Need'. It will be out soon on 10" on Kontra-Musik, who say this about it, "...this time invited tech and dubstep producer A Made Up Sound together with electro master mind Heinrich Mueller. The originals are taken from the exquisite Jason Fine album; Our Music is a Secret Order...On the b-side, Heinrich Mueller, as so many times before, make great music out of celestial harmony, melody and arpeggio rhythm. Here harmonic elements so typical for Dopplereffekt, meets the funk of early 80-ties disco. Mueller once again moves into new territory – and we follow." This track is currently available to listen to on the Kontra-Musik MySpace Player. It is an beautiful mix by the way, get to it!
http://www.myspace.com/kontramusik

Heinrich Mueller also recently did a remix for Rustie, it can be found on his Bad Science 12" EP on Wireblock. The track is Zig-Zag (Heinrich Mueller Gravitational Equilibrium Mix). You can hear a sample of it here.
http://www.rubadub.co.uk/mediaLibrary/images/english/78110.mp3
http://www.myspace.com/rustiebeetz

Finally people not in Europe will get to see Dopplereffekt play live as they are confirmed to play their first show in the United States. It will be in New York on 16th May 2009. This is historic and must be quite a big deal for them. Good Luck!
http://lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com/evinfo.php?eventid=34328

Stretching this post to the seams, there is now a new official and snowbound video for Zwischenwelt 'Shadow Being' just posted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjETPTj9rA

Clone are listing not one but three upcoming Zerkalo releases. They are all 12"'s, 'Stoi Storoni Zerkala' Part 1 and Part 2 and 'Invisible' on their sub-label, Frustrated Funk. The two part package are the first releases on a new sub-label called Clone Aqualong Series. I'm guessing they are releasing the album in two parts then. They describe it as follows, "Heinrich Mueller and Victoria Lukas with a new project! Some dark abstract modern electronica with the atmosphere of Russian novels combined with the sounds rooted in an almost opposite part of the world... Detroit."
http://www.clone.nl/shop.html?find=zerkalo&reset=1
www.myspace.com/myopspace

Literally every time I go online today I find something new to add to this post! Their is now a new Zerkalo video up for the old 'Warning You'. This video is probably their best yet in my opinion, it uses the Anna Akhmatova poem, 'Warning You' as its subject with Victoria acting like she is writing it while all the time surrounded by a neat multi mirror effect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSeJ7qulAjI

Just a few more new videos for you as well.

Drexciya - 'Astronomical Guidepost'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR8zjaxRa_E

Drexciya - 'Soul of the Sea'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWs7-ls8esw

Cool fan video using NASA footage for Arpanet - 'Wave Function'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9TShffhW10