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12"
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KOM 486EP
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$16.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/10/2024
After the great response to the launch with Deer Jade and David Hasert/Niconé, Komapkt's lively split EP format is going into the next round. Always true to the motto: Only killers, no fillers! Brazilian born come Berlin resident Joyce Muniz teams up with Algerian born come Rome resident DJ producer Sara Bluma for their phenomenal Kompakt debut Beats & Lines, an uplifting electro disco affair with plenty of pop appeal. The good vibes between Sara and Joyce are definitely contagious! London's Hardt Antoine is back to the mothership with a bang! "I Will" is a sensual, percussion-driven house anthem for those morning hours, when spirits are high and the sense of unity is palpable. "La Mosca" is taking a more hypnotic approach, putting a joyous chant of unknown origin to good use.
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LP
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KOM 479LP
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$29.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 4/26/2024
Dettinger's Intershop and Oasis have long been held, by many fans of ambient and electronic music, to be some of the finest albums in their field. Produced by the mysterious Olaf Dettinger, about whom not much is publicly known, they were some of the earliest full-lengths released by the then-nascent Kompakt, and in many ways, they both articulated and defined the sound that would come to be known as Pop Ambient, while also existing, somehow, to the leftfield of any clearly recognizable genre. Beautiful, sui generis works, it is a rare pleasure to see them being reissued on vinyl for a new generation of listeners to embrace. Oasis, released in 2000, refined the palette that Dettinger had explored on its predecessor, Intershop. A blurred crusade of ambient texturology, its unassuming patterns, and subtle, incremental dynamics, admit to real beauty, and a kind of abstract sensuality that you don't often experience with music that is, perhaps, similarly tooled, but not as poetic. Through seemingly simple gestures -- whether lushly expansive repetitions, hyper-acute tremolo tones, or ear-tickling rhythms -- it builds complex emotional resonance. It's no surprise to discover Oasis is held in high esteem by artists like Panda Bear of Animal Collective, who once said of Dettinger, "For us, he was the dude." There is, of course, other music to know Dettinger by, too -- his three excellent EPs for Kompakt, Blond (1998), Puma, and Totentanz (1999), the latter of which, Michael Mayer once argued, "invented dubstep." There is also a small, yet graceful run of compilation contributions, many of which can be found on Kompakt's Total and Pop Ambient series. All this music has plenty to recommend it, sharing a clarity of purpose, and a rare, human warmth and depth. But Intershop and Oasis are the releases that distil Dettinger's singular vision, and allow him, should he wish, to claim his place as a modern master of ambient and electronic music.
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KOM 478LP
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$29.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 4/26/2024
Dettinger's Intershop and Oasis have long been held, by many fans of ambient and electronic music, to be some of the finest albums in their field. Produced by the mysterious Olaf Dettinger, about whom not much is publicly known, they were some of the earliest full-lengths released by the then-nascent Kompakt, and in many ways, they both articulated and defined the sound that would come to be known as pop ambient, while also existing, somehow, to the leftfield of any clearly recognizable genre. Beautiful, sui generis works, it is a rare pleasure to see them being reissued on vinyl for a new generation of listeners to embrace. Originally released on CD only in 1999, Intershop was Kompakt's first artist full-length. The music here simmers and broods, with opulent banks of tone marking out territory for rhythms that seem to be built from the clacking detritus of technology -- hisses, thunks, knocks. Bass is deployed carefully, each drop a dubbed-out depth charge; drones spin and spiral, warping and weaving between the beats. There is, of course, other music to know Dettinger by, too -- his three excellent EPs for Kompakt, Blond (1998), Puma, and Totentanz (1999), the latter of which, Michael Mayer once argued, "invented dubstep." There is also a small, yet graceful run of compilation contributions, many of which can be found on Kompakt's Total and Pop Ambient series. All this music has plenty to recommend it, sharing a clarity of purpose, and a rare, human warmth and depth. But Intershop and Oasis are the releases that distil Dettinger's singular vision, and allow him, should he wish, to claim his place as a modern master of ambient and electronic music.
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12"
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KOM 483EP
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This 12" is the inauguration of a new split EP format on Kompakt. More hits on one record. Less environmental impact. Everybody wins. Deer Jade is hailing from the picturesque Lake of Geneva, an area about which the late Jean Paul Belmondo had to say a thing or two. Her infectious smile and uplifting energy behind the decks already made her a household name in clubs and festivals around the globe. This solo debut is an expression of her strong self-confidence and in-syncness with the world surrounding her. "Jukurpa" might be just one of the most flamboyant house tunes you'll come across this year, readymade for swaying to on an early summer morning dancefloor. "Cosmic Dream" is of a more introspective nature, putting gentle psychedelic synth movements to good use. There's a lot of heart in Deer Jade's music. David Hasert & Niconé shed rays of sun galore with this lost in reverie deep house jam. Built around a catchy as hell soul vocal and occasional piano outbursts "Wasting My Time With You" will certainly be one of our favorite tunes to waste time to.
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12"
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KOM EX131EP
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Kompakt Extra is kicking off the new year in style with a fantastic new double header by Raxon. This Egypt-born, Barcelonese powerhouse has left his scent marks all over the place in recent years. He has developed an instantly recognizable sound and that's no small feat in these times shaped by so much formulaic dullness. "Your Fault" sees the Catalan hot shot in an exuberant disco mood. Mind bending chord progressions foiled with Raxon's trademark vocal stutters guarantee for wonderfully twisted hands in the air moments. With "Beskar" the listener is entering Star Wars nerd territory. Musically speaking, this is a stealthy, funky as hell trance-not-trance juggernaut. 2024 is off to a good start.
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12"
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KOM EX127EP
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After three so elegant, as well as successful EPs on the mothership, you can sometimes get cocky. Jonathan Kaspar invites himself to the Speicher party and really lets his hair down. "Topper" may or may not refer to Charlie Sheen's epic performance in "Hot Shots". It certainly takes no prisoners either. The track rattles and squeaks like an old feather bed while... oh, let's leave that to your imagination. After such an exhilarating burst of exuberance, comes "FEZ" to smooth the waters. An arpeggio that seems quite serious at first glance doesn't quite manage to get past Jonathan's riotous mood unscathed. Half he pulled it, half it sank into him. Nobody gets out of here without a hangover.
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12"
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KOM 482EP
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Good things take time. What's 17 years? Not even a quarter of Keith Richards! 17 years lay between Heiko Voss' debut album Call Me Killer and the incredible follow-up 3:30 Minutes To Live, which saw the light of day in 2022 on Michael Mayer's "other label" IMARA. There are serious voices saying that the '80s were only really complete with the release of this album. Now it took the blink of an eye of a year for the remixes to be finished. And they turned out so well that Michael Mayer licensed the 3 Remixes for Heiko Voss without further ado. Running back guru Gerd Janson was an early adopter of the album. Highly motivated, he twirls "Follow Your Line" rhythmically somehow in the direction of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill." How did he do that? Never mind. It grooves like crazy and keeps even larger floors moving. ADA, the Hamburg grand dame of techno pop, has taken on the in tongue speaking funk banger "Talking Man" and dipped it in fairy dust. The result is probably the most sensational, soulful club track ever. Honestly. The package is rounded off with a powerful dub version of "Follow Your Line" by the IMARA boss himself.
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12"
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KOM EX129EP
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Speicher is going back to its classic double header split EP format. Hunter/Game are no strangers to Kompakt, having released a number of singles and the Adaptation album back in 2016. "Reload" was written in cooperation with Buenos Aires based U S H N U and it's a total corker of a proto trance inspired track -- the kind of trance that would have graced Dorian Gray's Sunday morning dancefloor. Kompakt welcome the ever-excellent Bawrut to the family. Hailing from Madrid, he has been one of the most creative forces in recent years, carving his own niche of percussion-heavy, psychedelic techno. "Clapa" is an unpredictable monster, taking so many twists and turns, causing such confusion that your synapses will give up making sense out of the chaos and book a flight to the Bahamas.
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LP
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KOM 480LP
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Dear gourmets of audio-aesthetic rapture, dear sound poets, please welcome -- Pop Ambient 2024. Twenty-four. Twenty-four can be divided by two, four, six, eight, twelve and itself. If something can be divided by itself, it is not really divisible. Truthfulness knows no formulas. Beauty knows no formulas. Beauty saves the world for no reason whatsoever. Featuring T.Raumschmiere, Mikkel Metal, Yui Onodera, Blank Gloss, Sono Kollektiv, Triola, Thore Pfeiffer/Niko Tzoukmanis, Joachim Spieth/Głós, Sono Kollektiv, Tetsuroh Konishi, Reich & Würden, Alex Linster, Joel Jaffe, Segensklang, and Ümit Han.
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12"
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KOM EX130EP
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KOMPAKT presents the long-awaited "two-tracker," cold-pressed and remixed. The Voigt Brothers meet Helmut Geier and vice versa, or: Kölsch meets Löwenbräu. So let's welcome the megahit "W.I.R." by Wassermann from 2000 in a brand new DJ Hell remix, and a remix by Voigt & Voigt of DJ Hell's "Anything Anytime" anthem from 2017. Two classics that go down like liquid gold. It comes from the heart.
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CD
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KOMP 180CD
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Dear gourmets of audio-aesthetic rapture, dear sound poets, please welcome -- Pop Ambient 2024. Twenty-four. Twenty-four can be divided by two, four, six, eight, twelve and itself. If something can be divided by itself, it is not really divisible. Truthfulness knows no formulas. Beauty knows no formulas. Beauty saves the world for no reason whatsoever. Featuring T.Raumschmiere, Mikkel Metal, Yui Onodera, Blank Gloss, Sono Kollektiv, Triola, Thore Pfeiffer/Niko Tzoukmanis, Joachim Spieth/Głós, Sono Kollektiv, Morgen Wurde, Tetsuroh Konishi, Max Würden, Reich & Würden, Alex Linster, Joel Jaffe, Segensklang, and Ümit Han.
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CD
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KOMP 178CD
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Kompakt unveils the third volume of Jörg Burger's Velvet Desert Music compilation series, dedicated to music that hits the sweet spot between the cinematic, the (pop) ambient, and the psychedelic. With Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3, Burger and his friends wander afar, taking trips away from, or adjacent to, the dancefloor that's acted so long as the crucible for the Kompakt aesthetic. Because it's such a broad church, Velvet Desert Music admits all kinds of new experiences as well, with Burger looking for music that "leads out of the desert into the velvet universe." The roster has changed, with new contributors Flug 8 and Seb Martel, both with his trio Las Ondas Marteles and with Chocolate Genius and Zsela as La Finca, joining regulars The Novotones, Mount Obsidian, The Golden Bug, Paulor, and Sascha Funke. Burger himself reappears, too, alongside Fritz Ackermann (of The Novotones), Max Würden, and Thore Pfeiffer, in The Velvet Circle. A Mount Obsidian remix of "Sacrosanct" by Burger's The Black Frame -project is a swirling treat for the ears. Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3 is a triumph of a compilation that takes the psychedelic visions of its predecessors and looks for the desert within, a dusty kiss, a road-movie hallucination flickering on the listener's eyelids, a cinematic projection from deep inside the mind.
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LP + 7"
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KOM 473LP
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LP+7" version. Kompakt unveils the third volume of Jörg Burger's Velvet Desert Music compilation series, dedicated to music that hits the sweet spot between the cinematic, the (pop) ambient, and the psychedelic. With Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3, Burger and his friends wander afar, taking trips away from, or adjacent to, the dancefloor that's acted so long as the crucible for the Kompakt aesthetic. Because it's such a broad church, Velvet Desert Music admits all kinds of new experiences as well, with Burger looking for music that "leads out of the desert into the velvet universe." The roster has changed, with new contributors Flug 8 and Seb Martel, both with his trio Las Ondas Marteles and with Chocolate Genius and Zsela as La Finca, joining regulars The Novotones, Mount Obsidian, The Golden Bug, Paulor, and Sascha Funke. Burger himself reappears, too, alongside Fritz Ackermann (of The Novotones), Max Würden, and Thore Pfeiffer, in The Velvet Circle. A Mount Obsidian remix of "Sacrosanct" by Burger's The Black Frame -project is a swirling treat for the ears. Velvet Desert Music Vol. 3 is a triumph of a compilation that takes the psychedelic visions of its predecessors and looks for the desert within, a dusty kiss, a road-movie hallucination flickering on the listener's eyelids, a cinematic projection from deep inside the mind.
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12"
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KOM 472EP
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It's been a few years since Captain Mustache took a ride with Kompakt -- 2021, to be exact, when he released the Everything single, and subsequently made an appearance on that year's entry in the Total series. But this visionary French producer has been busy, indeed fiercely productive, ever since, appearing on Helena Hauff's Return To Disorder and John Digweed's Bedrock, collaborating with Dave Clarke, Popof, The Advent, Paris The Black Fu, Keith Tucker from AUX88, and two beautifully eloquent albums, Tourbillon Nocturne and Indigo Memories. But with The Super Album, Captain Mustache returns to Kompakt with his most sublime collection yet. On The Super Album, the Captain soundtracks an imagined "whole day for party people." It's a day in the life, but all in service to the pleasures of nightlife; the dancefloor is The Super Album's beacon, your body the pliable material molded into evocative new shapes by this dense, hypnotic, brilliantly pop album. Featuring guest appearance from Speakwave (aka dynArec), Arnaud Rebotini of Black Strobe, Amanda Lear, Play Paul, and Foremost Poets.
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2LP
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KOM 477LP
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Double LP version. I Talk To Water, the fifth album for Kompakt by Danish producer Kölsch, is the artist's most personal statement yet. While all the trademarks that make his music so popular and powerful are still present -- lush, melodic techno; swooping, trance-like figures; sensuous, shivery texturology -- I Talk To Water is also a deep and intimate rapprochement with family and history, a beautiful, finely detailed document of loss and memory, and a tracing of the long, unbroken thread of grief that runs through our lives once we've lost those we loved. The emotional core of I Talk To Water, then, is a cache of recordings by Kölsch's father, Patrick Reilly, who passed away in 2003 from brain cancer. With time rendered elastic by the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, its sudden, alienating shifts in everyday living, Kölsch found himself reflecting on his father's passing and ongoing spiritual presence, thinking about how best to memorialize such a significant figure in his own life. Those recordings opened a gateway, of sorts, for Kölsch to move through -- a way to bring past and present together and entwine them in a sensitive, poetic manner. Recordings of Reilly appear on three songs across I Talk To Water. Also featuring Perry Farrell.
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CD
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KOMP 179CD
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I Talk To Water, the fifth album for Kompakt by Danish producer Kölsch, is the artist's most personal statement yet. While all the trademarks that make his music so popular and powerful are still present -- lush, melodic techno; swooping, trance-like figures; sensuous, shivery texturology -- I Talk To Water is also a deep and intimate rapprochement with family and history, a beautiful, finely detailed document of loss and memory, and a tracing of the long, unbroken thread of grief that runs through our lives once we've lost those we loved. The emotional core of I Talk To Water, then, is a cache of recordings by Kölsch's father, Patrick Reilly, who passed away in 2003 from brain cancer. With time rendered elastic by the pandemic and its associated lockdowns, its sudden, alienating shifts in everyday living, Kölsch found himself reflecting on his father's passing and ongoing spiritual presence, thinking about how best to memorialize such a significant figure in his own life. Those recordings opened a gateway, of sorts, for Kölsch to move through -- a way to bring past and present together and entwine them in a sensitive, poetic manner. Recordings of Reilly appear on three songs across I Talk To Water. Also featuring Perry Farrell.
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2LP
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KOM 460LP
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The 23rd edition of Kompakt's annual compilation series Total. Total 23 kicks off in a disco mood with a well-tempered double punch from label co-founders Michael Mayer and Jürgen Paape. Jörg Burger calls out a trippy new genre named Cinematic Dance before C.A.R. and Patrice Bäumel resurface with a club mix of their early 2023 single "Four Down." Sofia Kourtesis' sultry remix of Perel "Matrix" finally gets a well-deserved vinyl release. "Ice Cream Cake" by Cologne's newcomer M.A.P.E. helps cool things down a bit before another debutante, Argia from Madrid makes her first entry to the Kompakt catalogue. Gui Boratto's recent single "Drink In Paris" raises the energy levels just in time for Reinhard Voigt's ruthless closing track "Endlich XXL," an ode to some of the best things in this world: beer and techno. Also featuring Lhana Marlet and Eduard Weber.
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12"
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KOM 469EP
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Drei Remixe für Andreas Dorau -- Unsichtbare Tänzer follows on from the extensive series of remixes for Andreas Dorau that have been produced by Wolfgang Voigt since the mid-1990s under a wide variety of project names, but also by Michael Mayer, Tobias Thomas, and Reinhard Voigt (Forever Sweet) released on Ladomat. The limited 12" Unsichtbare Tänzer will be released as an edition of 500 copies, hand-numbered and signed by Andreas Dorau and Wolfgang Voigt.
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12"
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KOM EX128EP
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The sun is getting stronger in our northern hemisphere and the festival season is looming around the corner. This calls for a new Speicher release from someone who knows how to deliver joy in abundance: Kölsch. The first track's name "Cold Air" might be somewhat misleading as it is a hell of a heater. Same goes for the heavy polka hitter "Environ" on which Rune is conjuring the vibes of his legendary Speicher debut from 2010, Loreley. As you've come to expect from the man with the hat: This is 100% primetime customer satisfaction with heart and soul.
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CD
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KOMP 177CD
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The 23rd edition of Kompakt's annual compilation series Total. The lively dance begins solemnly with Kollmorgen's deep-subtle minimal gem "Muddy." Making her debut is the wonderful Argia with the somewhat misleading title "No Concept" -- the Madrid native indeed has a very precise plan. Also, our number one hit guarantor, Jürgen Paape, is represented here with his brand-new super hit "Alone In Italy." His colleague Michael Mayer is also in top disco spirits with "Talmi." One of the secret weapons of the current season comes from Stephan Barnem and Futuristant. "Don't Cry" is a passionate new wave belter for eternity. Jörg Burger proclaims a new, trippy genre: cinematic dance, before C.A.R. and Patrice Bäumel slowly raise the energy level in the "Four Down" club mix. John Tejada then cruises calmly at the desired cruising altitude while the cabin crew serves refreshments. "Duration" by Barnt/Mayer pays tribute to an artist formerly known as Prince with grand rave romanticism, and about Rex The Dog's summer smash hit "Change This Pain For Ecstasy," there's really nothing more to say. The Thuringian force of nature Robag Wruhme must not be missing here, of course. "Fire" once again shows him in top form, with one of the dirtiest basslines in techno history. Joining us from London is Hardt Antoine, who spells "understatement" with "All We See." And finally, Reinhard Voigt featuring Eduard Weber bring it all together -- live from the grand Comedy Barn of folk music.
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12"
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KOM 464EP
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The formidable Rex The Dog returns with his first single for Kompakt in three years, Change This Pain For Ecstasy, a slow-burning disco-glitter stomp that's charged with analog energy. Pushing his self-built modular hardware set-up to its limits, "Change This Pain For Ecstasy" is taut and thrilling, stripped-back and pulsating, with sweeping chords shimmering through a classic Moroder arpeggio, as a delirious voice sings out a psychedelic raver's plaint for liberation, pleading for you to "take away my sorrow and this pain". Deeply emotional, it's also a masterwork in tension and release, dizzy with snare-rush peaks, and dark, humid valleys where Rex is bound to the patch bay. On the flipside, Rex gives us "Moto", which tickles your ear with cymatic phenomena, its gentle vibrations building, beautifully, into a monster-piece of stealth techno. Rex's DIY synths work overtime as he chases patterns and phases through circuitry, wielding the tones until they erupt into a spray of pointillist pizzicato. The sounds here crackle and corrode, the textures so tantalizing, so sensual, you can almost grab hold of them with your hands. It's great to have Rex The Dog back, making livewire, yet deeply human techno, alive and bursting with electricity.
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CD
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KOMP 176CD
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Agartha, the debut full-length album by Japanese producer Wata Igarashi, is a mysterious, divine thing. Named for the mythical secret kingdom, understood as a complex maze of underground tunnels, perhaps designed by Martians who colonized the Earth tens of thousands of years ago, it's a similarly mystical, perhaps even cosmic trip -- but this time, exploring an inner, deeply personal cosmos. Beautifully detailed and bustling with rich incident, it takes Igarashi's music to new places, which still retaining his unique sonic imprimatur; in this respect, it's perfectly at home with Kompakt. An eloquent producer and DJ, Igarashi has been releasing techno for eleven years now. Throughout, Igarashi has consistently explored his unique approach to techno and electronic music, one that's eloquent and poised, even when it shifts into more psychedelic terrain; he's a master at balancing the sensual and the functional, and he has an unerring ear for the right texture, the right tone, at the right time. He brings all of this into Agartha, his most thorough-going expression of self to date. For Agartha, Igarashi had a strong concept he wanted to explore. Visualizing specific scenes from an imaginary film based on the titular secret kingdom, he created soundtracks for those scenes, spending time during the pandemic in his studio, working away carefully at the ten tracks here. Given his background in creating music for television and advertisements, Igarashi is well-placed to explore the marriage of the sonic and the visual in such intimate ways, but freed from commercial concerns, he let his imagination run riot. He also drew on a rich palette of musical influences -- techno is in there, of course, but you can also hear the smoky, improvised jazz of the likes of Miles Davis (to whom the album's title is an indirect nod), and the minimalism and systems music of Steve Reich. The latter is particularly pronounced on the gorgeous, beatless drift of "Floating Against Time", where an arpeggiated sequence lingers, lovingly, around your ears for nine blissful minutes, coasting across swooning drones and waves of ambient noise. "Ceremony Of The Dead", originally composed as part of a Sony 360 Reality Audio spatial sound concert, is a deep pass into systems composition, with various patterns overlaid and interlocking, before a wordless vocal rises from the depths, a gorgeous counterpoint to the swarming textures that gather across the track. On the other hand, tracks like "Burning" and "Subterranean Life" nudge toward Fourth World territory, painting deluxe dreamscapes of uncertain provenance; the title cut is an abstract drift-world, Igarashi painting an alien tableau dotted by shape-shifting creatures.
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KOM 461LP
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LP version. Agartha, the debut full-length album by Japanese producer Wata Igarashi, is a mysterious, divine thing. Named for the mythical secret kingdom, understood as a complex maze of underground tunnels, perhaps designed by Martians who colonized the Earth tens of thousands of years ago, it's a similarly mystical, perhaps even cosmic trip -- but this time, exploring an inner, deeply personal cosmos. Beautifully detailed and bustling with rich incident, it takes Igarashi's music to new places, which still retaining his unique sonic imprimatur; in this respect, it's perfectly at home with Kompakt. An eloquent producer and DJ, Igarashi has been releasing techno for eleven years now. Throughout, Igarashi has consistently explored his unique approach to techno and electronic music, one that's eloquent and poised, even when it shifts into more psychedelic terrain; he's a master at balancing the sensual and the functional, and he has an unerring ear for the right texture, the right tone, at the right time. He brings all of this into Agartha, his most thorough-going expression of self to date. For Agartha, Igarashi had a strong concept he wanted to explore. Visualizing specific scenes from an imaginary film based on the titular secret kingdom, he created soundtracks for those scenes, spending time during the pandemic in his studio, working away carefully at the ten tracks here. Given his background in creating music for television and advertisements, Igarashi is well-placed to explore the marriage of the sonic and the visual in such intimate ways, but freed from commercial concerns, he let his imagination run riot. He also drew on a rich palette of musical influences -- techno is in there, of course, but you can also hear the smoky, improvised jazz of the likes of Miles Davis (to whom the album's title is an indirect nod), and the minimalism and systems music of Steve Reich. The latter is particularly pronounced on the gorgeous, beatless drift of "Floating Against Time", where an arpeggiated sequence lingers, lovingly, around your ears for nine blissful minutes, coasting across swooning drones and waves of ambient noise. "Ceremony Of The Dead", originally composed as part of a Sony 360 Reality Audio spatial sound concert, is a deep pass into systems composition, with various patterns overlaid and interlocking, before a wordless vocal rises from the depths, a gorgeous counterpoint to the swarming textures that gather across the track. On the other hand, tracks like "Burning" and "Subterranean Life" nudge toward Fourth World territory, painting deluxe dreamscapes of uncertain provenance; the title cut is an abstract drift-world, Igarashi painting an alien tableau dotted by shape-shifting creatures.
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12"
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KOM EX125EP
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Barnt and Michael Mayer set their sights firmly on the peak time dancefloor -- the result is two stunning cuts of techno euphoria. Weirding the groove and updating the emotions, Speicher 125 is a monster. Speicher 125 is a most auspicious collaboration between two great, inimitable voices in techno: Kompakt co-founder Michael Mayer, and Magazine's own Barnt. They've both been productive of late, Mayer with his Brainwave Technology EP in 2021, Barnt with his first release on Kompakt, ProMetal Fan Decor Only Product in 2022. Of course, they're also busy with their respective record labels, and international DJing schedules. You may already have heard their first track, which appeared on Michael's & album from 2014, the psychedelic "Und Da Stehen Fremde Menschen". For Speicher, though, they set their sights firmly on the peak time dancefloor -- the result is two stunning cuts of techno euphoria. On "Teller," Barnt and Mayer unleash a synth storm, tense and thrilling. Percussion piles up against the incessant buzz, but before too long we're submerged in waves of dense texturology, making the track an object lesson in tension and release. "Duration" is a bittersweet anthem about "life long love". A moving voice tells us about "faith in life" while gleaming, synths, choral swarms and snares shower down from above to form an epic tale about duration and devotion. Weirding the groove and updating the emotions, Speicher 125 is a monster.
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12"
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KOM 459EP
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Kompakt are still harvesting the fruits of those past days in seclusion, the cabin fever induced creative outbursts, ideas that would probably have never surfaced without these enforced trips to our inner minds. Lockdown transcendence. "Don't Cry" by Italo-Brazilian DJ producer Stephan Barnem and Futuristant is another impressive testament of those days. Secluded in Stephan's studio in Northern Italy, the duo subconsciously conjured the spirits of one of their mutual favorite bands, Depeche Mode and created a fierce, boombappy neo new wave smasher contrived to send rays of hope into the darkest corners of this mad world. Kompakt had to add a gratuitous beatless version to the EP that amplifies the cinematic depth and healing potency of this song. If "Don't Cry" echoes the dark brooding euphoria of Depeche Mode's Music For The Masses era, the flipside cut "Elysium" harks back to the synthwave happy days of their debut Speak & Spell. It's a wonderfully careless track that's bringing a dearly needed breeze of fresh air to today's discerning dancefloors. Boys don't cry. Save your tears for another day.
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