Octobird Salad #7 | Pacific Planets

I tend to go off topic. No 2020 dystopian megafuture, no winterly cold digital abysses. Instead: Which instrument would you bring on a desert island? … on a strange planet … to communicate with people there … or at least to just hang out and watch the two moons …

…fairly stoned.

In the variety of experimental house music, a handful of artists have emerged in recent years, who have given a very own coloring to the washed-out concept of world music. Far from squeezing cultural assets of non-Western cultures into banging club tracks, but also from subordinating themselfes musically to the researched cultural heritage in false humility by simply creating a prettied blueprint. Instead they trace back their own club culture as a contemporary kind of rite and ecstasy to the origins of this music, which functions far from egocentricity and self-expression. Be it as a musical concept or just as an ingredient in experimental club music.

Probably the most consistent in this ranks are Don’t DJ (which I unfortunately stupidly DJed twice in this set … sorry; /). With their percussive polyrhythms and impulsive monotonous structures, they build bridges between non-western tribal music and the raw idea of techno. The 12th Isle label preferably uses color palettes and publishes wonderfully quirky tracks, impregnated with pale pastel memories from a imaginary Caribbean vacation in 1974(ish). And then there are formations such as Groupshow (with Jan Jelinek), Tru West or even Transllusion that are deeply influenced solely by their clearly audible improvisational character.

TRACKLIST:

Pacific
Untitled (Blue)
Fly Timoun
Repercussion
Silent Elektro
Speedway
Chilazon 2
Syrian Rue
Pet Hair Magnet
Alternative Currents
Forget About It
Moment 4
Chasing The Loophole In A Relentless Spiral Of Self-indulgence

Octobird Salad #6 | I still don’t know what I did last Summer

Damn, the last winter of the decade! Outside, in front of the clubs, queues doze in puddles and slowly soak themselves up with mud. Inside, as a precaution, the soundtrack of the indivual is bashing down the faces in a minor key in order to push the impending depression back into subconscious. And I’m crouching here in my over-heated flat and still don’t remember what I did last summer.

Time to put my smartphone into the video recorder to recapture.

It was definitely a happy one. Always nice and LoFi, but most companions out there already realized that there’s need for more than a 64bit tape plugin on an 808 beat to make everything 12bit.

World Crime League cruises with us through a wonderfully wonky, housy album thing, cheerfully wagging their feet between throttle and brakes. Sweely and Ex-Terrestrial inject their light-footed acid house with springy breakbeats and rewind our listening habits back into the next subgenre of the 90s. And Marco Bernardi shows that he can do totally, completely different than dystopian and dissonant. Same Ingredients but with loads of sugar. A nice dessert before the next rough meal.

Last but not least, it is still a tongue-in-cheek pleasure to look back on a decade of tape rewinds, in which we’ve been daydreaming all nights in long forgotten associations of a brighter future.
Not to be imagined if, from 2020, completely new genres may pop up again. Then it’s over with cozy!

TRACKLIST

1 Palmbomen II – Pure Tibet [Beats In Space Records]
2 World Crime League – Palm Haze [Temporize Records]
3 Dreems and Jamie Blanco – Percussive Racing Cars [Futureboogie Recordings]
4 Leo Anibaldi – Universal [Safe Trip]
5 Sweely – You Don’t Really Want Me [Lobster Theremin]
6 Marco Bernardi – Space Coral [Futureboogie Recordings]
7 Nackt – Let’s Go Shopping [Left Hand Path]
8 RIP Swirl – Possessed
9 Ex-Terrestrial – Urth Man [Pacific Rhythm]
10 SFV Acid – Trader Joe [SFV Records]
11 Junk Runner – Nanofax [Pr0gramma]
12 Leonardo Martelli – Alice [Antinote Recordings]

Octobird Salad #5 | Mind-bending Monotony

Oh my dear Analord! I just realise that it’s been quite a while since my last recorded confession. So forgive me as I have been hiding in dark places jamming out tunes. What actually brought me back into recording another episode of Octobird Salad was a quite significant update in my gear arsenal. I just recently got myself a pretty good deal on an Allen&Heath Xone:DB4 mixer. And as most A&H DJ-Mixer this one is in particular great for straight on Techno music, advancing the gracile art & craft of carving out elements and layer them over a workspace of four decks.

Preeminently I went for a certain style of Techno I think I first encountered through the one and only Developer. A hypnotic and driven sort of music, embedded in evolving textures and floating hi-hats, worn by a straight four to the floor kick drum. It vehemently refuses catchy hooklines and replaces it with repetitive textures and sequences to drill itself a path into ones subconscious.

Another representative of this guild is probably Luke Slater under his alias Planetary Assault Systems. Unbelievable he only managed to get on my radar two or three years ago. Especially on his recent releases on A-tone Records (a very courageous, offbeat offshoot of the Berghain label Ostgut-Ton) he indulges these style elements with immense sensitivity. His current release Plantae is no exception from this development.

And just before it might get a bit too repetitive, we take the branch into the relatively sluggish rhythms of electro. Not only to carry the current release of my trusty companion Vortex Traks into the world. With Kafkactrl’s “Entropy Model” they travelled again into harsher areas, which are personally always my favourite.

Last but not least, Animistic Beliefs deserve a mention. While the finally played track still makes use of the usual tools of electro, particularly on their current release Mindset: Reset they managed to give the genre a very personal touch. Perfectionist, smooth and yet playful enough to let both sides of your brain play table tennis together.

TRACKLIST:

1 Etienne Jaumet: For Falling Asleep (Christian Vance Slow Burning Saxless Remix) [Versatile Records]
2 NHK yx Koyxen: Parallel Displacement [-ous]
3 S Olbricht: T
4 Donato Dozzy: Back [Tresor]
5 Staffan Linzatti: Dizziness [Balans Records]
6 Planetary Assault Systems: Give It Up [Mote-Evolver]
7 Developer: Over the Eurphrates [Coincidence Records]
8 Simon Haydo: Contortions [MindTrip Music]
9 Israel Vines: Afterever [Interdimensional Transmissions]
10 DJ Spider & Franklin De Costa: F Planet [Berceuse Heroique]
11 Ekman: Doomsday Argument [Crème Organization]
12 Kafkactrl: Occam’s Razor [Vortex Traks]
13 Animistic Beliefs: Digitone X005 [Solar One Music]

Octobird Salad #4 | Unrestrained Sphere Diving

Warp Records just rereleased B12’s Time Tourist Masterpiece. A-Ton Records keeps going on to release the Chronicles of The 7th Plain. Who is nobody else than Luke Slater, rather known for driven Techno Bangers.
But these classics are a dreamy proof of how much warmth can be wiped out of a digital DX7 Synthesizer from the early 80s. And this heritage miraculously continues into present days with artists such as Reedale Rise, Stereociti or Charlton.

Always nice and deep, but not a bit pretentious!

Octobird Salad #1

Episode 1 of what hopefully become a series (if I’ll find the tyme).

You can also download the mix here!

TRACKLIST

Morphology – Linear Fractures [Vortex Traks]
Andrew Red Hand – Bass Agenda 86 (Ghostwerk Remix)[Detroit Underground]
Dark Vektor – Wires (Hydraulix Remix)[Titan’s Halo Records]
Mike Ash – Reset All Parameters
Rutherford – Spoken Word [Brokntoys]
Liðvarð – Bivrost Breaks [Occult Research]
Delta Funktionen – The Classified Sector [Radio Matrix]
Gesloten Cirkel – Submit-X [Murder Capital]
Israel Vines – Wwkd [Eye Teeth]
Privacy – Apex Predator
London Modular Alliance – The Mind Is A Terrible Thing [Brokntoys]
Morphology – Irregular Satellites (DeFeKT Remix) [Zyntax Motorcity]
The Exaltics – Imoeh
Gosub – Low Volume Lovers [Frustrated Funk]

Inhalts-Ende

That's the bottom of the sky.