Techno | Minimal | Tech-House CD 54 Items

The music of Amir Telem wanders through the human consciousness like a mighty endorphine storm with torrential downpours of happiness-inducing neurotransmitters. The analogue thunder of the bassline rolls through our nervous system until it finds its grounding in the stomping of our feet, the stroboscopic flashes of digital lightning bath us in the dazzling light of pure euphoria. It leaves us with a feeling of freshness and peaceful calm similar to what lingers in the air after a summer rain. In hearing distance to Progressive House, Melodic Techno and Neo Trance, Amir Telem opened up his very own groove universe, and his album Art Of Compassion reflects the stunning elegance of his unique sound. From the sunlit melodies of Sage Tear and the housey updraught of Krishna to the kaleidoscopic escalations of One More Prayer, from the broken beats and electroid 80s vibes in Do You Believe In Magics to the vocal tracks Fight It and Mode Of Service, the stylistic bandwidth is a truly enlightening trip, especially when enjoyed as the coherent story this album tells.

Music From Memory are excited to present the first compilation of works by British electronic pioneers MLO aka Peter Smith and Jon Tye. Titled ‘Oumuamua’ and second up in the Virtual Dreams series, the compilation is an in-depth artist focused release containing twelve thoughtfully selected tracks that touch on highlights from the duo’s discography as well as newly (re)discovered music drawn from a vast archive of unreleased pieces, sketches and extended jams recorded between 1993-1995.

MLO’s ambient explorations began when Pete and Jon, having first met in rival punk bands during the late ‘70s, found themselves with unlimited access to an incredibly well-equipped studio, having been hired to produce an Icelandic pop star’s record in the early ‘90s. Particularly charmed by the Korg PS 3300 and an Emulator 2, Smith and Tye were also deeply fascinated by outer space and set about developing a musical landscape informed by both this new state of the art musical equipment and what lay beyond the Earth’s limits. Painting with a palette informed by classical minimalism, new age and the works of Cluster & Eno; the duos primary colours were drones, sustained tones, washes, calming tides, gentle temple bells and soft angelic voices with flickering glimpses of percussion and drums that hinted at the possibilities of a dance floor.

‘Oumuamua’ is a collection of music to get lost-in, a wander down the mazed, mirrored corridors of the subconscious. Peaceful, flowing, fresh-water patterns, drawing the listener toward a mediative, inner space. Not strictly ambient, rather the music rests temporarily within the boundaries between drum ‘n’ bass, library music, soundtracks and Techno. Or how Jon Tye himself puts it: “It really feels like music from a different place, a different time, made by different people.”

Artwork by Vica Pacheco, design by Steele Bonus, liner notes by Dr. Rob

'You Are Eternity' is the third album to be released on Stroboscopic Artefacts and comes from two of the minds who have shaped the label since its earliest days: Dadub. Recorded over a period of two years, but containing fragments and ideas that stretch back a decade 'You Are Eternity' has been mixed together to form a continuous piece rather than twelve discreet tracks. The effect? An immersive journey that encompasses the descriptors brutal, ferocious, ambient and aqueous.

14 tracks incl. 6 bonus tracks & 7 videos!

“We have always been very fortunate to meet and know many talented producers. In recent years, we have been exploring those relationships with different remixes and collaborations, and every time something exciting came out. That’s why we started our Synchronicity project. To challenge ourselves making inspiring, fun and beautiful music.‘Synchronicity’ means "the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. This very well describes how our path led to the place we are now – somewhere between the club and indie scenes.” – WhoMadeWho. Kompakt welcomes back Copenhagen’s WhoMadeWho. Tomas Barfod’s penchant for electronic music poetically juxtaposed with Tomas Høffding and Jeppe Kjellberg’s respective backgrounds in rock and jazz, gives their music an electrifying combination of sounds, merging a variety of influences to produce a unique sonic fingerprint that is emotive, irresistible and immensely satisfying.

First missive on new label from Simon Gabriel, late of 2 Bridges NYC, and Georgia’s Justin Tripp. Disarming and timely cornucopia of stateless, off-kilter tendencies. Cryptic puzzle of pop, tech, noise, bangers and outsiders. Nu-digital folklore, disembodied voices, Midi caprices. Through-line of vital currency. Designed to confound and excite. Early ‘00s slimline mixtape packaging, built for repeat plays.

For this uniquely personal retrospective spread over twelve vinyl discs, Sven Väth takes us back to the early days of his DJ career. On What I Used To Play we meet great pioneers of electronic music, gifted percussionists, obscure wave bands, and innovative producers of a bygone 'new electronic' era. Rough beats and irresistible grooves from the identification stage of house, techno, and acid remind us not just how far electronic music has evolved over the past four decades, but how great it was to dance to EBM, techno, and house for the very first time.

If there is one protagonist of the electronic music scene who has remained curious, innovative and at the very cutting edge of music for over four decades, it's Sven Väth. His multi-layered artist albums and Sound of the Season mix compilations have been defining the genre for over two decades, and even today, he is constantly on the lookout for the next top tune to add to the highlights of his next set. At least, that's the case when he's not producing them himself as an artist or remixer. "Actually, it's always been part of my DNA to think ahead," and nothing had been further from his mind than looking back at his past, but when in spring of 2020 the international DJ circuit had to be scaled down to virtually zero, the 'restless traveler' suddenly had time. Time to stop and reflect on "how it actually was back then, at the very beginning of my career..."

"It was a great trip and with every track, beautiful memories came flooding back".
In the London apartment, he had just moved into, Sven has set up a "little music room", where he cocooned himself for several days, "to look way back for the first time and review my musical journey through the eighties, so to speak."

The interim result was six thematically oriented playlists with a grand total of 120 tracks from 'early 80s' to 'Balearic late 80s', together with excursions into afrobeat, European new wave, and EBM sounds and a few epochal techno/house tracks from the USA in between. From these 'Best of Sven Väth's favorites', the project What I Used To Play crystallized. Sven remembers how the Cocoon team reacted to his proposal: "They found the idea of making a compilation out of it MEGA from the beginning and everyone said 'Sven, go for it', but then, of course, the work really started, namely, to clear the rights and to get clean sounding masters of the up to 40-year-old tracks. There was also disappointment, of course. We couldn't clear certain titles because the rights holders in the USA had fallen out with each other or simply disappeared from the scene. In short, it wasn't easy, but now I can safely say we got the most important tracks."

Finally, after two years of research, curation, design, and administrative fine-tuning, the "little retrospective" from 1981 to 1990 is available. The exquisitely packaged, and three-kilo heavy box set is not only physically impressive, WIUTP is also the definitive record of Sven Väth's musical development. On each of the twenty-four sides of vinyl, you can trace track by track, what influenced him during which phase, and how he took off as a DJ from his parents' Queen's Pub straight into the spotlight at Dorian Gray. There and at Vogue (later OMEN), Sven became the style-defining player in the DJ booth that he still is today.

The first LP from Scorn since 2010’s Refuse; Start Fires, ​Cafe Mor ​is Mick Harris in his happy place. Which just happens to be in studio, demolishing all standards and rules for electronic bass music, and embodying the darkest, deepest sound in dub. ​Cafe Mor ​takes risks outside of the conventional Scorn apparatus, and with these risks come substantial rewards. The album is comprised of powerful dub excursions, from the deep dark dank of the front two tracks Elephant and The Lower The Middle Our Bit, and gaining steam towards the ultraviolence of Mugwump Tea Room to Never Let It Be Said to the Crushing Death Kick of Who Are They Which One. A quick drive under the lights with a lasered out snare on Dulce, then we come across the appearance from ​Sleaford Mods ​frontman​, Jason Williamson,​ on the standout track on the LP, “Talk Whiff”. A cruise around the Midlands sighting the Broke Fridge and Tinder Surprise, with an instant classic refrain: “Talk Whiff // I’m a busy person // I’ve had enough of it” Cafe Mor culminates in the all-in-one dub affair Sa70, letting rip all the new mixer and fx techniques of Harris’ most recent incarnation of Scorn. The album is the official soundtrack for all smoked out backroom deals, situations and arrangements, cancelling all small tours, and mongoose rhinocharging the bass to level 24. All tracks Created and Mixed ​by MJ Harris in the Lad’s Old Room B14 Mastered​ by Daniele Antezza for ​Dadub Mastering Studio Artwork​, ​Layout ​by ​MachineTM

Tresor Records is proud to announce forthcoming special editions of its entire catalogue of Drexciya and related projects. 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of James Stinson and the releases of the Transllusion and Shifted Phases albums. In recognition, the rightsholders, their families, and the label have commissioned Detroit-based contemporary artist Matthew Angelo Harrison to re-conceptualize the covers of Tresor's Drexciya-related catalogue. These editions will be released sequentially, bimonthly, starting early-September 2022. Three months after the album release of 'Neptune's Lair' in September and its companion 12" 'Hydro Doorways' being released in October, 'Harnessed The Storm' and 'Digital Tsunami' are coming on November 11. They are followed by the release of Transllusion in February 2023. The series is completed by the long-awaited re-release of 'Shifted Phases – The Cosmic Memoirs Of The Late Great Rupert J. Rosinthrope' - at the end of March. These records, individually and as a catalogue, represent some of the most crucial moments in the Tresor label history, with the sound and mythic world of Drexciya undoubtedly inspiring generations.

It’s common knowledge that KOMPAKT’s Total series serves as our yearbook, a musical wrap up of the past 12 months. Therefore it doesn’t come as a surprise that this year’s edition is informed by another pandemic year, where dancefloors were still mostly deserted and the devastating developments in Eastern Europe. Kompakt’s A&R team still kept on foot on the imaginary dancefloor, while scouting different realms apart from the big room euphoria. Anyway, brain dance has always been a key ingredient to our catalogue.

The Voigt brothers are opening this year´s vinyl edition in an unusually romantic fashion. ‘Why’ combines a bubbly FM bassline with lush washes of looped guitars. High off the (presumably high) heels of her recent album ‘Jesus Was An Alien’ she delivers a spanking new excursion into her sonic world, ‘The Hill’. Our Mexican friend Rebolledo makes his first ever solo appearance on Total with his trademark hypnotic desert sound. Jürgen Paape is calling a spade a spade with ‘Le Monde À Changé’ – The world has changed indeed. Our prodigal son, Matias Aguayo, returns to the mothership with ‘Cinco Y Rojo’. An exercise in Chicago-esque groove theory paired with a cheeky visitor from Denmark. Spot the reference and win a pair of hooves. It’s hard to find a quality party around Cologne without Jonathan Kaspar on its bill. Rightly so, as he continues to hone his craft as an impeccable DJ and producer. Michael gives the tremendously talented Danish singer songwriter eee gee a proper Mayer treatment and Kompakt founding member Jörg Burger closes off the festivities with a groovy midtempo chugger that reminisces ‘Blue Lines’ era Massive Attack as much as the late Andy Weatheralls low slung psychedelia.

Techno legend Jeff Mills and keyboard wizard Jean-Phi Dary embark on an exciting, ground-breaking musical trip that takes Techno and electronic dance music to a new level. In the past Jeff has spoken of the need to, "take a few steps back and try andassess what has been done, and what might need to be approached to be able to go forward." Paradox: Live at Montreux is the result.

2022 repress

Hot as lava! Broken English Club delivers the 4th chapter of Jealous God! Comes as usual with a Mix CD.

2 x CD in deluxe 4 page digisleeve,cmyk+special panton, U V Matt, 12 page booklet ,cmyk+special panton , including new sleeve notes by Andrew Harrison.Sticker. Orbital missed their actual thirtieth anniversary due to lockdown, but it gave Paul and Phil pause to think and find a way to celebrate their past that was actually about the future. Unlike other Best Of’s, the ‘30-Something’ album contains reworks, remakes, remixes and re-imaginings of landmark Orbital tracks based on the duo’s unrivalled live show. Satan, The Box, Impact, Belfast and more appear in new 30-something guises, familiar yet new, time reversing, yesterday becoming tomorrow. Plus new track ‘Smiley’ Also including remixes from Yotto, Anna, Jon Hopkins, Dusky, Joris Voorn, Logo 1000, Eli Brown, Shanti Celeste and more. Deluxe 4x 180 Grs Vinyl Boxset , with Slip Mat & 12’’x12’’ Booklet. / 2 X CD editio

‘Lucky Number’ is the first of two releases for picnic this year. It features collaborations with kindtree, uio loi, Theodore Cale Schafer & Panphilia. Artwork by Eyrie Alzate Additional Artwork by Alexandra Ragg Mastered by Joseph Buchan

UXY Dosing© (ud) is a maximalist genre of electronic music that refers to sound productions that make for a radical succession to the minimalist genre, regardless of style and aesthetic practice though mainly associated with the field of sound arts.

More precisely, it designates that which embraces heterogeneity and allows for complex systems of juxtapositions and collisions, in which all outside influences are viewed as potential raw material. However, UD relies more on singular experimentation rather than the addition of musical characteristics attached to specific genres. Subsequently, UXY Dosing© gives birth to MDM (Maximal Dance Music) which, beyond a sole matter of genre, remains linked to the high consumption of dextrose associated with milk, which de facto shares the same acronym as MDM (Maximal Dextrose & Milk). Read : Dextrose, energiser or poison?

Xhin's debut album on Stroboscopic Artefacts, 'Sword', showcases the breath of his vision. As the second full-length release on Stroboscopic Artefacts, 'Sword' stretches the remit of the label's identity ever further. Produced and recorded in Singapore, Xhin plucks sounds from the outer edges of electronic music and fuses them together. Xhin's approach revels not only in a hybrid sound palette but it's also an album designed for multiple contexts. It's a record typified by duality. Xhin's process seamlessly traversed analogue and digital production, and 'Sword' harbours electronic music that ranges from brutal club sounds to deep and delicate murmurs.

Having already proven that he is capable of maintaining sonic quality and distinction over the course of a full original program, Chevel (a.k.a. Dario Tronchin) now makes his LP debut for Stroboscopic Artefacts. His other S.A. contributions (including the inaugural entry in the label's singular Monad series, the "One Month Off" EP, his participation to the label's five-year retrospective series) have already hinted that a more complete exposition of his unique inner world would surface, and here it is at last. Over the course of his young career, Chevel has gained a mastery over several compositional elements: Polaroid-like slow melodic fades, sharp ricocheting beats, and simply making one's headphones feel like a viable means of physical transportation. All of these elements come into play shortly after the needle hits the grooves of 'Comb' a euphoric introductory track marked by a spectral panning sequence and by beats chopped with a culinary expert's sense of elegance. The drum kit sounds that feature throughout are used sparely but – either because of this or in spite of this – provide maximum impact upon the listener's nervous system. The almost 'far Eastern' use of 'block' percussion on 'The Windrunner' and 'Low Roof' perfectly complements the synthetic sheen produced... more

The third entry in Lucy's trio of adventurous full-lengths is visually introduced by artwork of a pearl-bearing shell, designed by Stroboscopic Artefacts' resident visual artist (and Lucy's brother) Ignazio Mortellaro. This drops a subtle hint as to the nature of its contents: just as a pearl slowly forms within its enclosing body in response to organic challenges, Lucy's work is also a kind of crystallization of memory and experience into an artifact of great value. Listeners to this album will be struck immediately by how different it sounds from past Lucy productions, while still retaining the feel of relentless questing that defined his previous two solo LPs Wordplay for Working Bees and Churches, Schools, and Guns (or, as Lucy himself defines the feeling, the equal valuation of ''precision and exploration''). Initially feeling like Lucy is guiding his listeners on a slow and slightly apprehensive down-river trip through the Amazon, or some similarly thriving but as-of-yet undiscovered terrain, the album is enriched by several layers of ambience and by the wordless, improvisational (yet still somehow narrative) vocals and flute of Jon Jacobs. Without a doubt, it's an album with an ''initiatory'' atmosphere that listeners should commit themselves to hearing in one sitting, with as little interruption as possible. However, unlike many initiatory rites, this is no arduous ordeal at all: great care has gone into connecting each chapter of the album with the same silver thread of entrancing story-telling. On standout pieces like ''She-Wolf Night Mourning'', electronic arpeggiation and persistent synthetic flutters perfectly merge with the unique tone colors of resonant acoustic percussion and pensive woodwind. Elsewhere, pieces like ''A Selfless Act'' reconcile technoid pulses with melancholic, yet intoxicating echoes of Mediterranean musical traditions. Interestingly, many of the tracks on Self-Mythology refer to old legends and well-known fairytales (e.g. the opening track which references Baba Yaga's magical hut), or to more broadly defined states of consciousness (''Samsara'', which features an especially strong, sustained choral interplay between glassy synth sequences and earthy flute sonorities). This is where the album is truly unique and relevant in its ambition. The interplay between the graphic design, the vocal and flute performances of Jacobs, and the sound design chosen by Lucy aims to be an intimate audio autobiography of its creators while also referring back to the stories that have shaped human destiny for millennia. This work is a meditation upon the reciprocity between personal hopes and fears and collective dreams and nightmares; an exploration of the endless interplay between the universal and the deeply individual. It is the tale of that uncanny process by which our own conscious experience draws from the pool of archetypal information, while also contributing to it.

The tension between the natural and artificial, the body and mind, are central themes in electronic music in general, and Techno in particular, as the means of creation, focused around technology and interactions with machines, contrast with the emotional response to sound, the mystical ritual of collective dancing, and the ethos of liberation and tolerance embedded in the culture it produced. Were navigating a world of engineered pleasures, big data monitoring of movements and consumption habits, and falsely objective representations of reality, further blurred by a reduced attention span and several opaque layers of cultural interpretation and political manipulation. Manichean simplifications are used to create hate and fear in order to achieve domination and impose limits on freedom, and the irrational belief in endless growth, increasingly disconnected from nature, led to massive environmental destructions and waves of unprecedented extinctions of species. Our primal sensuous perception, vastly more abstract, emotional and sensual, make us feel the world as an ambiguous realm we are part of, but not in control of ; a complex network of interacting forces and enigmatic patterns, a matrix of overlapping desires. Rebuilding our bonds with nature, Reconnecting with our senses, and spreading love in the process becomes an essential act of resistance. Hyper Opal Mantis is a triptych on 3 states of desire, and the first long player of Kangding Ray for Stroboscopic Artefacts. Hyper is the primal, sensual lust, Opal is the emotional catharsis, a blissful desire for love. Mantis, like the insect it refers to, is the destructive, fatal attraction.

Flowers From The Ashes is the latest multi-artist project to bear the acclaimed Stroboscopic Artefacts imprimatur. There is a sensibility of decadence and corroded grandeur etched within its four album sides, reminding us that historically ''decadent'' times have nonetheless resulted in some of the boldest acts of individual and collective creativity. Like the floral theme that has remained a consistent feature of S.A.'s graphic presentation, the music here equally presents fragility and intensity in a way that really drives home this visual metaphor for good, while still holding out the promise that similar creations will be seeded in the near future. Though many of the artists involved have set of residence outside of their native Italy, all contribute here to make a captivating portrait of a shared spirit and cultural memory. The album opens with ''Errori,'' deceptively fragile sonic ornaments crafted and suspended in space by Blackest Ever Black artist Silvia Kastel. This is followed closely by the mellifluous, warming glow of percussionist Andrea Belfi's ''Spitting & Skytouching,'' and then by the resolute electric bass patterns and luminous fog of ''Lux et Sonus,'' from Eeri label head Marco Shuttle. Hospital Productions alumnus Ninos du Brasil open the B-side with a similarly dense, amorphous construction built from tribalistic chants and rhythmic patterns, to be followed by Mannequin label boss Alessandro Adriani's ''You Will Not Be There For The End,'' showcasing his distinctive take on the 'paranoiac breakdance' aesthetic of classic EBM. S.A. veteran Chevel rounds out the first record in the program by interlacing several percolating synth lines together into a richly conversational piece. The journey continues with ''Starving The Mind,'' an undulating mini-epic from S.A. founder Lucy that is animated by his signature balance of seductiveness and concentration. The bright, biting acid synth tones of ''prv-hh3-x'', by Lory D, then takes a sharp right turn into an invisible metropolis ruled by reflective high fashion and hidden intrigue. The imposing architecture of ''Virgo Rebellion,'' designed by modular synth futurist Caterina Barbieri, acts as an excellent companion piece, and sets up the closing ''4g'' from Spazio Disponibile co-founder Neel - a crepuscular serenade that accurately sums up much of the foregoing activity.

Lucy and Rrose, now coming together as The Lotus Eaters, have established themselves separately as techno artists who are just as comfortable operating in the uncharted area of experimental music. Running their own labels (Stroboscopic Artefacts and Eaux, respectively), they have gained a cult following, both influencing and challenging the direction of techno. Their first collaboration took the form of mutual remixes. Lucy remixed Rrose, taking on his modern classic Waterfall while Rrose remixed Dadub for Stroboscopic Artefacts, and shortly thereafter contributed an extended EP as part of SAs Monad series. Eventually, the idea of working together became inevitable. Several intense sessions in Lucys Berlin studio followed, using mainly analog hardware. These sessions gave birth to a new project, starting with two EPs signed Lucy and Rrose, called The Lotus Eaters (sa) and The Lotus Eaters II (Eaux). With the Desatura album, the first release signed under the project name The Lotus Eaters, their common work is refined further, also becoming a live act which will debut at ADE (Amsterdam) 2018. With Desatura, Lucy and Rrose explore themes of physical density, emptiness, and space, creating sonic objects which can be rotated and viewed from multiple perspectives. Eschewing the typical instrumentation of techno, the duo use synthesized sound and feedback as fundamental sources to generate both textural and percussive elements. A sense of tension and weight emerge from sources that cannot be easily pinpointed. The resulting album forms a complex narrative from a paradoxically simple and restrained set of sound sources. A mysterious and profound accomplishment.

Hot on the heels of his preliminary EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts, Embryo, which paved the way to the present album, and two years after the landing of his 2016-released inaugural LP, Montagne Trasparenti, Mannequin helmsman Alessandro Adriani returns with his highly anticipated full-length debut for SA, Morphic Dreams. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, Morphic Dreams is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements i.e. Water, Earth, Air and Fire here represented by the A, B, C and D-sides. Fluid and enveloping, the A-side bathes the listener in some zero-G uterine vortex, pitching and rolling from the slo-burning exotic sensuality and tribal spell of The Tropical Year to the trunk-bending, arpeggiated fast-track pulse of Storm Trees, through Raindances feverish electro swing. Entering a further abrasive, minerally rich phase, the B-side unleashes Adrianis dark side with optimum conviction. Deeply anchored in earthly materiality, this new evolution stage starts off to the frantic Italo bass of Dissolving Images, rushing headlong into a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of fractured reflections and nasty Giallo-like ambience. The delirious body stretch sequence then rather abruptly swerves onto a calmer flux with Dust/Mist, a much enticingly hip-swaying collaboration with Simon Crab, ex-member of the seminal 80s UK industrial-experimental band Bourbonese Qualk, before Casting The Runes engulfs us into a tormented world of swollen eeriness and disquieting esoterism. Back to a widescreen showcase of droney distortions, nasty acid swashes and other quirky drum programming, Hors De Combat opens a new chapter, shortly followed by the playful bass intricacies and modular jeu-de-piste of Invisible Seekers, featuring Avian affiliate and longtime friend Shawn OSullivan. A further mind-expanding piece, C-side closer Crow deploys its blackened wings wide and high as a chaos of martial percussions and liquefying synths slivers crash past the red-hot skyline. A fluttering melodic interlude, Things About To Disappear blazes a clean trail for Make Words Split And Crack to flourish, slowly but surely blooming into a nonstop grandiose twelve minute-shy finale geared up with the stirring cacophonic force of a Ligetian symphony and something of an epic-scale Kubrickian soundtrack.

Fünfzehn + 1 is a commemorative compilation celebrating 16 years of Ostgut Ton – and the first glimpses of light at the end of a long dark tunnel for parent club Berghain.

Originally planned for release in 2020, the music focuses on the interwoven nature of the label and the club in its multitude of different spaces and musical facets. Ostgut Ton artists and close affiliates worked together in pairs to make music dedicated to five different floors, each represented by a specific 12" vinyl. The result is a diverse selection of sometimes functional, other times more abstract sonic tributes; musical homages to spaces they have both influenced and been influenced by.

With the pandemic having forced the club to close temporarily, the collaborative nature of the 5x12" boxset represents an attempt to transcend varying degrees of isolation and to wrestle with memories of music and space that had been inaccessible. But certainly not forgotten.

Limited to 100 copies. These funds will be used to cover a bed for residence at the orphanage, food and water for the child, educational classes for the year, medicine and psychiatric support, clothing, stationary and transport to the orphanage. The remaining funds will be directed towards Olive Kids’ ‘Gaza Emergency Appeal’, a project seeking to purchase 6000 hygiene packages, 600 food packages, 2,000 Covid-19 tests and fuel for hospital generators. Includes unlimited streaming of Palestine via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, Flac and more.

Total turns 21 this year, and Kompakt’s venerable compilation series couldn’t have asked for a more auspicious coming-of-age collection. If Total 20 was consolidation against the odds, the Kompakt crew producing for a dreamt-of dancefloor in an uncertain future, then Total 21 feels abuzz and alive with possibilities. Significantly, it’s the first Total in some time that’s streamlined down to a single disc; this makes Total 21 even punchier than usual, a joyous, reflective, and always thrilling 75-minute audio scan of the world according to Kompakt.

As with every instalment of Total, there’s a deft balancing here of Kompakt regulars and new blood. Of the latter, there’s a first appearance by Kollmorgen, remixed by Patrice Bäumel into an astral torch song; Amsterdam’s Nicky Elisabeth, offering up Roman FLÜGEL’s pulsating, arpeggiated remix of “Celeste”; and Captain Mustache swoops down into view, Play Paul in tow, with the dream-like electro lift-off that is “Everything”. Jonathan Kaspar also drops by with a new track, “Von Draussen”, a stealthy and lethal floor-hugger with prowling bass.

Elsewhere, there’s the lead track to Michael Mayer’s astonishing recent EP, “Brainwave Technology”, which not-so-gently spears the tech-futurist babble of AI, transhumanism and posthumanism, soundtracked by one of Mayer’s typically lush, glimmering soundscapes. John Tejada reaches back to the heyday of glitch and dub techno with the gorgeous “Spectral Progressions”, while the brothers Voigt & Voigt, on “Nicht Mein Job”, seem reinvigorated by the interwoven patterns and funky minimalism of the Profan days. Not to be outdone, Jürgen Paape kicks Total 21 with “La Guittara Romantica”, a chiming and lilting lullaby for woozy late-night reflection.

Throughout, it feels as though Kompakt are taking a moment to both breathe in the dust of the past and look forward to a bright future. Perhaps that’s why, on “Fasson”, Sascha Funke seems so confident, with pinprick melodies bouncing around a hall of audio mirrors, or why THE Bionaut returns with “Blue Sky Motor Lodge”, a song so moistly melancholy, so enduringly lovely, it’ll make you weep tears of joy. Robag Wruhme gets a little delirious on the ticking, twisting “No”, and then GUI Boratto mops everything up with the bubbling, bumping glam-stomp “Wake Up”.

That’s not all – spring for the digital and/or vinyl edition and you’ll get a new cut, “Happy”, from Michael Mayer, and Marc Romboy & C.A.R.’s “I Am A Dancer”. But however you choose to play it, now Total’s turned 21, it’s your duty to throw it the celebration to end all celebrations. Let the party begin, and don’t forget to bring a party favo

Porter Ricks is a collaboration between Thomas Köner and Andy Mellwig. After the Re-release of the legendary album “Biokinetics", which is superb subaquatic dub techno, we re-release Porter Ricks first album on Mille Plateaux. The album demonstrates the move to a kind of discoid funkyness with an underlying almost organic rhythmight. But still its not music for beautiful souls. Instead, it combines funkyness with alien sonic fluxes and the rhythm of a killing mover.

Holographic Prism' is the final chapter of The Sky Trilogy by Purl - a three chapter volume of works, exploring collective dreams of celestial origin. features mixes from Svlbrd, Lav, Slow Dancing Society, Coppice Halifax, Warmth, Deflektion, Innesti, & Svartholtet.

This marks the final installment of Radius's "Interpolation Tapes" series, lovingly re-mastered in Echospace. All previously unreleased material culled from the vaults, these masters were one of the first Demo Tapes of the Radius project and where many of the sound sources for the series were conceived. We've spent months doing our best to restore the old tapes from our Tascam 688, an 8 track cassette recorder purchased and abused since 1992 and to our ears still sounds quite impressive even by modern standards. We've had nearly every component replaced and re-calibrated to bring this obsolete machine back to life, it's been a truly nostalgic experience re-visiting and redesigning these masters. The first mix is an unreleased version rewired and reshaped by the cv313 project, taking cues from the original source material and developing it into an ocean of analogue bliss! We truly hope you enjoy reliving these magical times of music, very inspired by all that was happening in those years, there was just something in the air, an undeniable energy, long may it live on...

With his new album, Year Of The Living Dead, Vienna-born and LA-based producer John Tejada finds a blissful extended moment of balance between the new and the familiar. Anyone who’s followed his career to date, which has included four previous albums for Kompakt, outings for storied labels like Plug Research, Playhouse and Cocoon, and numerous remixes and collaborations – most recently, his Wajatta duo with actor and musician Reggie Watts – will immediately sense the warmth and eloquence that Tejada brings to his gilded, pliant techno and electro hybrids. But there’s more here, too; an explorer’s glimmer in the producer’s eye, as he gets to grips with new ways of working and being, while offering a reflective opening for the listener, something echoed in artwork by graphic designer and ‘contemplative artist’ David Grey. “The album was started using tools I was unfamiliar with, which became an interesting exploratory process,” Tejada says. “Staying away from the obvious and having to re-learn simple things was a fun challenge.” You can hear these new creative pulsions pushing the eight tracks on Year Of The Living Dead ever-forward; the album has an unique cast, and though there are trace elements of the genres Tejada has indulged previously, he’s never quite put them together this way before. There’s the dubwise glitter sprinkled across the moody opener “The Haunting Of Earth”, the kind caresses found amongst the deftly woven textures of “Sheltered”, and the churchy melancholy, all hymnal and golden, of “Echoes Of Life”. Year Of The Living Dead also speaks obliquely to its moment, though Tejada works this implicitly, allowing the strange circumstances of 2020 to cast their inevitable shadow without being obvious or didactic. “The production process began right before lockdown and continued through what felt like a very serious time for all of us,” he recalls. “Not being able to see or touch our loved ones made me feel we are all like ghosts. We can observe from a distance but cannot really be there. We are isolated and alone.” And yet, Year Of The Living Dead’s tenderness offers an out for that anxiety and loneliness, its intimate immensities gifting the album a redemptive and compassionate core. Compact and glistening, Year Of The Living Dead sculpts unassuming beauty.

KÖNIGSFORST – following the 1997 release of ZAUBERBERG (KOMPAKT 370.1), Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS project returned with KÖNIGSFORST, a full length that has stood the test of time as a template for introducing fundamentals of 90’s techno into the principles of contemporary electronic music.

Originally released in 1998 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS “BOX”, KÖNIGSFORST is now released on his own label KOMPAKT on CD in its original artwork.

Please note: This CD is a single release of the GAS BOX released in 2016.

KÖNIGSFORST brings glimmers of light into Voigt’s dark, magnificent forest. Melodic strings and brass are added to his signature layers of ominous intensity. The forest path is laid out by muffled kick drums as classical music loops incessantly swirl with no direction.

ZAUBERBERG – Wolfgang Voigt’s most fundamental (and foreboding) release under his alias GAS and perhaps of all in his untold discography – finally stands alone once again and is released in the way its original splendour.

Originally released in 1997 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS “BOX”, ZAUBERBERG is now released on his own label KOMPAKT on CD.

Though this narcotic symphony is not the first release under the GAS moniker, ZAUBERBERG is the first to disclose the true nature of Wolfgang Voigt’s unified sound and ideology as GAS. Layers of ominous intensity supported by muffled kick drums as classical music loops incessantly swirl with no direction, ZAUBERBERG is the definitive GAS album and a perfect starting point for those not familiar with his music.

Please note: This CD is a single release of the GAS BOX released in 2016.

POP – the album that has become widely recognized as the defining moment in which Wolfgang Voigt brought us into a clearing of his deep, psychedelic forest. A landmark release in the GAS odyssey that drew international attention, POP was originally released in 2000 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint MILLE PLATEAUX. POP was heralded by Pitchfork at the time of release as being “an exercise in sonic texture… pure sonic velvet, the layered drone radiating a palpable warmth.”

POP has since been reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS “BOX” (now out of print) and finally now, POP is released on KOMPAKT – for the first time on CD in its original artwork.

Please note: This CD is a single release of the GAS BOX released in 2016.

On his fourth album proper, Now Here No Where, Danish producer Kölsch (aka Rune Reilly Kölsch) is charting new terrain. Fans of his ‘years trilogy’ – 1977, 1983 and 1989, released on Kompakt over the past decade – were privy to a kind of sonic diary, an autobiography, tracking the artist’s early years through three albums of superior, meticulously rendered techno. Calling in collaborators where needed – most notably, the strings of Gregor Schwellenbach – there was still something deeply personal going down, not quite hermetic, but internally focused; the albums proved not only Kölsch’s mastery of his chosen form, but also his capacity to make techno personal, individual, and to trace histories of the self through music. But on Now Here No Where, Kölsch finds his feet firmly planted in the present. Reflecting on his new album, he notes, “It is fascinating to write about memories and feelings that have had years to manifest and develop, but how would I approach current emotions?” It’s a good question: our past coheres through the narratives we build around memories, but the moment we’re in, the newness of the now-ness, is harder to navigate; this story is as yet untold. For Kölsch, this makes Nowhere Now Here “an album about life in the year 2020.

Two decades. Twenty years. Twenty compilations. Over 400 tracks. Over two days of total playing time and countless coloured dots. If someone would have told us in 1999, when we put together Total 1 that this would turn into one of the longest standing compilation series in techno world we would have laughed out loud. But here we are – in the year 2020 which will probably go down in history as the most difficult period ever for club culture. But we won’t stop doing what we’re doing. Music is our oxygen. We’ll dance together soon again.The Total series has always been like KOMPAKT’s yearbook and to say it with the late Frank Sinatra: It was a very good year. Our family of artists delivered a strong heterogeneous mix of uplifting sounds, from the lush reveries of Robag Wruhme and Soela to the stark primetime bangers of Marc Romboy or Anna & Kittin and everything in between. Notable new entries to our crew are the Londoner Kiwi with his wonderfully careless “Hello Echo” that picks up the camp disco vibes Justus Köhncke made a staple in our repertoire. Amsterdam’s David Douglas delivers an appetizer for a full course meal. His quirky pop approach sits comfortably between fellow dutchmen WEVAL’s abstract beats and Agents OF TIME’s opulent Italo Disco. Yotam Avni blends Detroit techno with new age jazz that reminisces the sound of ECM artists like Jan Garbarek or John Surman. The man with the hat, Kölsch also picks up jazzier notes in his very own big room style. Youngblood Jonathan Kaspar appears twice, fortifying his status as one of the hottest beat smiths of our hometown Cologne. Total wouldn’t be Total without our permanent staff present in full force. As per tradition, KOMPAKT’s founding fathers, Voigt & Voigt, Jürgen Paape, Jörg Burger, Michael Mayer as well as our Berlin outpost Sascha Funke all deliver exclusive gems that also feature on Total 20’s double vinyl edition. May Total 20 become your trustworthy companion in these uncertain times.

It’s taken Yotam Avni a little while to get to his debut album; almost a decade, really, since his debut 12”, “That’s What The World Needs”, on California’s Seasons Limited imprint. During that time, the Tel-Aviv based producer has refined his productions, tightening the groove and paring everything back to bare essentials; the power in an Avni cut is its combination of piston-pulse propulsion and a deep, but gently applied, musicality. This combination gives his techno productions added heft on the dance floor, but also a lyrical sensibility that places him squarely in a tradition of techno legends who somehow manage to make the four-to-the-floor a space of poetic intensity, of rigorous joy. Avni’s been on Kompakt’s radar for a while, first appearing on the label last year, with his Speicher contribution, “Mañana Mañana”. (“Track For Agoria”, from that EP, also appeared on Total 19.) The connection immediately made sense – dance music that managed to feel both lush and streamlined across the same great gasp of late-night energy. But with Yotam Avni Was Here, he’s taken a huge leap. After a brief intro, Avni sets his stall with “Beyond The Dance”, which features slow-moving vocal melisma over sculptural, melting tonalities, a tintinnabulating, harpsichord-like two-note phrase pacing out the track. Then “It Was What It Was” comes into view, its strip-light textures suddenly placed into sharp relief by a muted trumpet figure that hangs in the air, melancholy and pensive.

All tracks written, produced, mixed by AOS at the FXHE studio 1. Track 13 '1993' does not exist on CD version though is listed on the Tracklist on-back of CD cardboard case.

Copy close to NM

Oh, lovely appearance of death, No sight upon earth is so fair; Not all the gay pageants that breathe, Can with a dead body compare.– Charles Wesley, A Funeral Hymn for a Believer, 1780. So begins New Atlantis, the fourth full-length album by longtime Berghain resident Efdemin aka Phillip Sollmann. The words, sung by 60s California art icon William T. Wiley and embedded in glowing drone swells, set an otherworldly tone for Sollmann’s first solo release on Ostgut Ton. Over eight tracks, New Atlantis oscillates between fast, kaleidoscopic techno, multilayered drones and acoustic instrumentation, fusing for the first time Sollmann’s deep dancefloor productions as Efdemin with his sound art and experimental music projects. The latter include 2017’s Harry Partch- inspired Monophonie performance and 2018’s Panama / Suez EP with Oren Ambarchi and Konrad Sprenger. Long drawn to utopian musical traditions, Sollmann took inspiration for New Atlantis from Francis Bacon’s unfinished 17th century novel of the same name, which describes a fictional island devoted to social progress through the synthesis of art, science, technology and fashion. In the story, Bacon imagines futuristic ‘sound houses’, which contain musical instruments capable of recreating the entirety of the sounds of the universe; a 400-year-old prophesy of today’s digital sonic reality. Through Sollmann’s lens, Bacon’s vision ebbs and flows over 50 minutes in varying speeds and colors, emerging as a tapestry of different utopian musical traditions – through billowing synth lines, early Detroit techno, resonant wooden percussion, trance, droning organs, dulcimer, electric guitars, hurdy-gurdy, just intonation, poetry, hymns and murmuring voices. Sometimes they merge into epic, rhythmic journeys like the 14-minute long title track; other times they appear as a briefly open sound portal (“Temple”), or in the forlorn human voice on “Oh, Lovely Appearance Of Death”, calling to be freed from jail of the human body and pass into the afterlife. Like previous Efdemin albums on Dial, New Atlantis veers off the techno path to explore other musical territory. Here however, Sollmann occasionally abandons the club entirely, returning only to push its boundaries with other instruments, mythologies and psychedelic story telling.

Detroit’s pioneering techno giant Robert Hood is next to take the reins of the DJ-Kicks mix series. His timeless 22 track offering includes four of his own new exclusives, and will come on CD as well as with a 2 x 12” vinyl sampler.

The Best Omar S, newest album simply reflects the singer, songwriter/producer's brilliant career-always vogue, forever moving forward, yet transcending trend to find its place among the classics. The 11 selections gracing album, produced by Omar S is just what you never expect from a modern entertainment LEGEND!!!!
(The Best) strides into action with "Time MO 1"(Mix by Norm Talley) before moving into the romantic "Ah'Revolution", a sultry ballad that sounds as if it was written especially for Amp Fidler's caressing lead vocal. Even so Omar S contributes five songs of instrumentals the snappy upbeat "Chama Piru's", "Bugging Out", "Bitch,,,,,I'll Buy Another one", "You Silk Suit Wearing MuLaFuuk'ka". If you are into melodic keys "Smash" features the classic solos from O B Ignitt and Kyle Hall. “Take Ya Pik Nik” is an easy listening track. The "Seen Was Set" and its funky up rhythm sample mixed by Norm Talley and legendary Big Strick on shout outs. The Best has time and time again shown his versatility with collaborations from across the pond “Bugging Out” with Tom Buggs. If you are looking to be inspired, "On Your Way" featuring Divinity on lead vocals, the lyrics serve as a reminder for fellow artists to keep in mind their responsibility in leading the world's youth. The international hit "Heard Chew Single" with John FM on lead vocals will take this album to the #1 spot for Resident Advisors Album of the year.
Reviewed by O.G. Bobby Johnson

Two thrilling tracks and a bonus CD "mixtape" are three good reasons not to sleep on this.

To say Maya Jane Coles had a big year in 2011 would be an incredible understatement. In the space of twelve months, the 24 year old East Londoner went from a hotly tipped favorite of house music connoisseurs to, well, pretty much taking over the world. It is our extreme pleasure to announce that her first commercially available DJ mix is coming this year, in the form of a DJ-Kicks mix in April.

“I wanted this mix to showcase my diversity,” she says. “I don’t just do one thing and I wanted it to reflect that. Most of the mixes I’ve put out there so far have been house-based, but I also produce stuff under the Nocturnal Sunshine moniker, which is more two-step/bass influenced stuff. This mix evolved into something that wasn’t just four-to-the-floor.”

Berlin producer Robot Koch is back for his third full length release, “The Other Side”.

Although Robot Koch has an international reputation as being “One of Europe's finest producers of the beat generation“ (Low End Theory), he is much more than just a beatmaker… “(Post)-dubstep infused Electronic Hip Hop“ is far too constrained a label to understand what this producer is all about. Instead of following the sound of his previous albums “Death Star Droid” (“Essential listening” – Bobby Friction BBC) and “Songs For Trees and Cyborgs“ (“Music for a modern age that has rarely sounded so good” – Boomkat), Koch takes the genre defying ingredients from these previous records to another level. There still are some of those “Galactic ten ton beats and space age melodies“ (Dazed and Confused) that made the previous albums staple drops in the playlists of Mary Anne Hobbs, Starkey, Daedelus and Gaslamp Killer to name a few, but there is a new dimension to Koch's production and songwriting that didn’t show on his previous records.

The cinematic vibe of tracks like “Nitesky”, the quirky and moody feel of “Bugs” and the electricity of “Tapedeck” show how Koch more than ever manages to create intimate and timeless pieces of music that are soulful, deep, mysterious and that will appeal to fans of cutting edge Electronica and modern pop music alike. This is the most personal record of Robot Koch to date. Instead of going for big name features Koch teamed up with lesser know artists like Kansas based vocal talent John LaMonica, long time friend and theatre composer Nielson and mexican singer/songwriter Graciela Maria to find the right voices for his compositions. John LaMonica infuses his whimsical and heartfelt melodies that breathe an air of darkness and nostalgia with Koch's fresh and forward thinking instrumentals to create something that fans of Radiohead, The XX and Jamie Lidell should not sleep on.

After the release of the John Robinson collaboration album (“Robot Robinson” – Project Mooncircle) earlier this year, it seems surprising how extensive Robert’s output is, but don’t be mistaken, this album is a longer term project than just releasing the songs Koch made in the last year. Some of the songs found on “The Other Side” were made seven years ago.

Containing ten exclusive tracks and six previously released cuts, this Paul Kalkbrenner album soundtracks a new film in which Kalkbrenner stars as a Berlin-based dance music producer and DJ who finds himself institutionalised after a heavy night of drug-fuelled debauchery.

The second album "opa*q" was one of Rei Harakami's early works. It was released in 1999, one year after his sensational debut "unrest," and re-released in 2005 as a special edition with two bonus tracks. This album, which became a masterpiece of the Japanese techno scene, has been out of print for a long time, and its reissue has been long awaited. "I had originally planned to release a single with two remixes, but I thought since it's a CD, I wanted to put more songs on it, so it kind of turned out to be like an album. In this album, I'm doing what I like to do while being a bit nervous." - Rei Harakami

CD reissue of Rei Harakami's third album, "red curb," which was created in a personal way, is a masterpiece that has garnered acclaim from many quarters and solidified his popularity. "In making the third album, I was thinking that I should do only what I like, or rather, I can only do what I like... By the way, I thought I would retire after releasing this album, but that did not happen." - Rei Harakami

The CD reissue of Rei Harakami's 4th album "lust", which includes the classic songs "joy" and "owari no kisetsu"!! The reissue includes new liner notes by Carlos Nino, who has collaborated with Rei Harakami. Four years after his third album "red curb," this album includes "joy," one of Rei Harakami's best-known songs, and "owari no kisetsu," a cover of Haruomi Hosono's song, in which he takes on the challenge of singing vocals for the first time.

Japan's world-famous masterpiece by the late Rei Harakami has been revived! The long-awaited reissue of the CD written by Rei Harakami for "Colors of the Dark", the contents of the planetarium projector Megastar-ii cosmos at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan), is now available!! "I created this album for a planetarium project, with the idea of sustaining the atmosphere for over 30 minutes so that you may fall asleep. Ikuko Harada from Clammbon reads the poem by Shuntaro Tanigawa. I really don't mind you falling asleep while listening." - Rei Harakami