The Arsonists & The Architect

After a long hiatus, Eric Cloutier returns to his Palinoia label with three tribal techno groovers intentionally built to get the entire dancefloor moving. Having grown up surrounded by the hardgroove sound, Eric latched on to the style and has regularly incorporated it in to all his sets for the last few decades. Passionate about the style, and recognizing it being over-cooked and watered down as a current hype and trend, Cloutier felt the need to use his talents and knowledge of the history of the 90’s tribal sound to refocus things in a manner only he could do. This three track EP - the first of two in the set - Perpetual Booty Grooves will do exactly what it says on the label and endlessly whip a room into a frenzy. All three cuts on this record end in perfect locked grooves, allowing any DJ to keep the vibe going and never letting the audience exit their fugue state. 

PALINOIA011
Eric Cloutier - Perpetual Booty Grooves Vol.1

A1 : PBG001
A2 : PBG002
  B : PBG003

PREORDER NOW

[PALINOIA011] Eric Cloutier - Perpetual Booty Grooves Vol.1

FLAC Download Available ::: Tracklist https://www.eric-cloutier.com/episodes/03-dyschronometria
"Focus Shifting" by Tilman Zitzmann : http://www.geometrydaily.com

The ideology of hypnotic techno was these swirling, trance-like arrangements and steady evolutions and peaks of every track, but most importantly a sense of time dilation was the ultimate goal. Sucking people into a vortex of sound, historically these cuts were all pushing into the eight-minute realm and were meant to be layered in long, delicate sections. There’s a massive crossover in sound palettes to this and the Undulate mix, just in a 4/4 structure, though the entire style became a predictable mess over overused formant filters and an overindulgence of the VST Omnisphere. At times driving, at others calming, yet never letting up from a focus of sucking you in, mix three of “The Arsonist & The Architect” is about Dyschronometria or “distorted perception of time.”

The Arsonist & The Architect

The Arsonist & The Architect : 03 Dyschronometria

FLAC Download Available ::: Tracklist https://www.eric-cloutier.com/episodes/04-supine
"Balance" by Tilman Zitzmann : http://www.geometrydaily.com

Taking a step back is a prerequisite to making sure your longevity in this scene remains sturdy and grounded. Everyone should push pause once and a while, relaxing their ears and minds before returning to the crucible. I’m no stranger to ambient musings, and this last year and a half I’ve spent countless hours listening to calming music, but for this, I felt a more appropriate applique would be the descriptor of side-rooms of yesteryear. Brooding, pensive, at times rhythmic, and best enjoyed with headphones, number four in “The Arsonists & The Architect” is all about the chillout room.

The Arsonist and The Architect

The Arsonist & The Architect : 04 Supine

FLAC Download Available ::: Tracklist available here : https://www.eric-cloutier.com/episodes/01-undulate
"Smaug" by Tilman Zitzmann : www.geometrydaily.com

While not a category I’ve really seen anyone else apply to this sound, for me, it’s the first word that comes to my mind when I hear these uneven, pulsating, off-kilter complexities that this entire mix is comprised of. There’s confusing time signatures, wonky percussion, entrancing pads and synths, and a rhythm structure that sometimes breaks itself before it comes back together. To say this mix was a challenge to construct is an understatement, but I’m exceptionally pleased with the result. Succumb to a tidal wave of rhythmic hypnosis with mix one of “The Arsonist & The Architect” - Undulate.

The Arsonist & The Architect : 01 Undulate

FLAC Download Available ::: Tracklist https://www.eric-cloutier.com/episodes/02-vespertine
"Allignment" by Tilman Zitzmann : www.geometrydaily.com

The moments before the sun drops below the horizon are unique. A sense of mystery and of the supernatural descend upon the surroundings and you can’t help but notice the electricity in the ether. Such transitional moments in an open-air party environment are pristine opportunities to turn the revelry into a bacchanal. Envisioning the fog rolling in as the sun disappears while playing for an audience clearly open for a journey, this mix begins as daytime party vibes but becomes a tribal warehouse by the close, edition two of “The Arsonist & The Architect” lets night fall - Vespertine.

The Arsonist & The Architect : 02 Vespertine

FLAC Download Available ::: Tracklist https://www.eric-cloutier.com/episodes/05-influence
"A Moon Year" by Tilman Zitzmann : http://www.geometrydaily.com

Detroit means a lot to the techno world. At a point in time, it launched an entirely new genre. As a place, it birthed an entirely new cultural phenomenon. But as a genre, it has a unique and highly discernable sound that has touched every corner of the planet, giving an immeasurable amount of producers inspiration to their creativity and a formula they’ve looked to emulate. Mix five for “The Arsonist & The Architect” spins the concept on its head slightly - this entire mix is dedicated to the place I grew up in and that helped me cut my teeth as a DJ. I’ve constructed the session without a single Detroit artist - only those that are from abroad and were inspired by the sound this city gave to the world. “Influence” is about what Detroit did to techno on a global scale.

The Arsonist & The Architect : 05 Influence

FLAC Download Available ::: Tracklist www.eric-cloutier.com/episodes/08-tectonic
"Orbits" by Tilman Zitzmann : www.geometrydaily.com

Dub could easily be described as the Occam’s Razor of the techno universe - sometimes the simplest creation is the most functional one. It takes an immeasurable amount of time to successfully get this to sound pristine, particularly when cutting to wax, but the dedication and patience needed to transcribe these blankets of sound from studio to lathe properly is a meritorious endeavor. It should come as no surprise that number eight of “The Arsonist & The Architect” is focused on a sound that I’ve championed for years. This one is headphone-focused as no laptop speaker will do these sub frequencies justice. A blanket of swelling chords, a warm bath of bass bliss, and just the right amount of surface noise and tape hiss to subconsciously melt away time and space - “Tectonic” is here to build worlds in your mind.

The Arsonist & The Architect : 08 Tectonic

FLAC Download Available ::: Tracklist www.eric-cloutier.com/episodes/09-panacea
"Materialize" by Tilman Zitzmann : www.geometrydaily.com

Legendary sessions happen without planning or precognition. They almost always are the after-hours or transitional shifts when audiences are at their loosest, bordering on heading home and calling it quits. Keeping them engaged and really turning their brains to putty is an art in and of itself. Those waning hours, when energy and audience are both dwindling, calls for a keen sense of shamanistic guidance as well as an educated record bag full of rollers and percussive grooves. Progressive as a descriptor will elicit eye-rolls from some, winces of pain from others, yet it is impossible to deny the elevated state one can invoke when presented artfully in the proper context. As we near the end of “The Arsonist & The Architect” as a series, it’s worth giving the faithful followers something to cure all that ails them, resolve all their worries, and make their post-party a memorable one. Herein lies your “Panacea.”

The Arsonist & The Architect : 09 Panacea

vinyl only mix recorded out of the personal desire to bring dub techno back to whence it came...

tracklist will not be posted for this one, but feel free to drop the comments with id's, if you're so inclined.


Eric Cloutier - Dub Explorations

Due to multiple requests for it, I scraped the audio from my live stream from Hör Radio here in Berlin, boosted the audio a bit, and set it up here as a FLAC for you all to download and enjoy remotely. 

Original video stream : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyFLLQFUH4s

Live on Hör Radio

Hör Radio : 22.10.2021

Eric Cloutier - Strange Signals Pt.1

recorded live from unit in tokyo back in 2011, this was one of the first events in japan after the tsunami and fukushima disaster. peter and i were invited to come help the country heal, and an epic and emotional evening was had by all in attendance - extremely memorable night that i now want to share with everyone. 

there's some dodgy mixing for the first six or so tracks due to the monitors having an unbelievable delay in them that was remedied just as the club was filling up nicely, so things improve after about the 30min. mark. 

other fun facts are that i made a bet with russ from mindgames that i could play for at least 90min. without a single snare drum, allowing people to get completely lost in the music without having a structured groove to unify everyones dancing, and he was impressed with my theory once he saw the result.

i also got lost in the stairwell backstage for 15min. and needed help finding the club again. :-P

100% vinyl mix. 

Eric Cloutier - Live At Unit, Tokyo - Enter The Labyrinth 5.3.11

Kinetics EP

PALINOIA010 Preorder

PALINOIA010 B2 Feph - Settlement Research SAMPLE

PALINOIA010 B1 Feph - Low Immortals SAMPLE

PALINOIA010 A2 Feph - Reasons Unknown SAMPLE

PALINOIA010 A1 Feph - Kinetics SAMPLE

Acid Camp: 10 Year Anniversary

Fulcrum

"Dive into a two-hour voyage curated by Eric Cloutier, weaving through ambient, downtempo, droney techno, trippy rollers, warm dub - a compilation of rare selections for an unparalleled auditory journey."

Thank you again to @ogazon and @rinsefm for this opportunity to melt your brains.

Rinse FM for Ogazón

Perpetual Booty Grooves Vol.1

PREORDER

[PALINOIA011] A1 Eric Cloutier - PBG001 [PREVIEW]

[PALINOIA011] A2 Eric Cloutier - PBG002 [PREVIEW]

[PALINOIA011] B Eric Cloutier - PBG003 [PREVIEW]

@xdb and I went back-to-back in @tresorberlin 's incredible upstairs, Globus, closing out 2025's DOWN residency with an all-vinyl ride that ended far, far too early. Here's all six of our hours together for you to enjoy as much as the crowd that was there with us that night.

Eric Cloutier & XDB Live at DOWN, Globus, Berlin 13.12.2025

Taken from the "Heuristic EP" by Eric Cloutier on Palinoia.

PRESALE LINK : http://www.juno.co.uk/products/eric-cloutier-heuristic-ep/622240-01/

Heuristic EP

Heuristic

Recorded live at ://about.blank in their garden, opening up for Omar-S at the always enjoyable Away party.

All vinyl, mostly house. :-P

Live at Away : 07.08.2017

Eric Cloutier - Live at Away : 07.08.2017

Jane Fitz (@janefitz) is, by and large, one of my absolute favorite DJ's on this planet, and her invitation to do an (almost) all-night long B2B was something I absolutely could not pass up. I chose to meet her on her medium as well and carted over a couple cases of vinyl for us to play all wax for the entire set - something I've also not done in a long time and thoroughly miss. 

Here's three of the six hours we did together for your enjoyment. No tracklist will be available because...honestly...I don't even know what we played - hahah! ENJOY!!!

Jane Fitz B2B Eric Cloutier - All Vinyl, All Night

Jane Fitz & Eric Cloutier - B2B Live at The Pickle Factory : 30.06.2017

[PALINOIA005] A1 Eric Cloutier - Apeirophobia FULL

PLEASE READ BELOW THE TRACKLIST!

01. Elias - Imagination [#07]
02. Jeremy - B2 [#10]
03. Robi Uppin - Fade [#06]
04. Da Kine - Sunshower [#02]
05. Da Kine - Ganja Mist pt.2 [#05]
06. Drain Pipe - Low Life [#04]
07. Ronin - Coming Over To You [#09]
08. Da Kine - Mellow Tip [#02]
09. Da Kine - Samoa [#05]
10. Monsoon - Night Cap [#03]
11. Jeremy - Where the Heart Is [#08]
12. Elias - Dub Soda [#07]
13. Jeremy - Sensitive pt.2 [#08]
14. Elias - Explain [#01]
15. Elias - Selce Nights [#07]

This is a long-overdue homage to one of the best house labels ever conceived. At only ten releases long, and almost entirely created by both The Timewriter and Terry Lee Brown Jr., Driftwood hit the mark every single time with some of the smoothest deep house around. 

It took me quite a while to complete the series, not to mention a good amount of money, but the hunt was worth every penny. I've owned the entire series for about six years now, but just now am finally getting around to compiling a mix of only driftwood tracks. 

Total respect goes to the Driftwood label, Jean F. Cochois AKA The Timewriter, Norman Feller AKA Terry Lee Brown Jr., Hakan Lidbo, Robi Uppin, and Jonathan Axelsson. Special thanks goes to my friend Travis Wolf for originally pointing this label out to me back in 2002 and for kicking off an obsessed passion for this Imprint.

Enjoy...

Eric Cloutier - Driftwood Records Mix

Kicking off a new concept for Palinoia, I'm presenting a previously unreleased Donato Dozzy track that I first heard in his infamous "DDKH" mix from many moons ago. I regularly harassed Dozzy about this in hopes he had plans for it, but after almost a decade of being questioned he told me to just put it out myself, provided I was doing a track for the B-side.

Knowing full well I couldn't make anything nearly as gorgeous as Donato's underwater techno groover here, I decided to go for something a bit more upbeat and party friendly, all the while as wiggly as the masters' contribution.

Pre-order Vinyl

B Eric Cloutier - Ekpyrosis SAMPLE

A Donato Dozzy - Aquatica SAMPLE

@janefitz and I really do enjoy doing our B2B sessions. There's a scant amount of planning that goes in to these other than maybe an overarching idea of what we want to start and end with, and maybe a couple Discogs links for reference points mixed in. But that is literally it. We trust each other, and we're confident we can do it, and do it damn well. As always, she's on the audiences' right, I'm on the left, and we go one-for-one the entire time. No escape!!

This recording from October of 2019 at OHM in Berlin is her and I opening the party from zero and doing six hours of tension building hypnotics. Many thanks to the @patternsofperception crew for allowing us to do this, and for letting us use the Rane 2016 even though you've never touched one before.

Enjoy!!

Jane Fitz & Eric Cloutier - B2B At OHM 25.10.2019

Apeirophobia EP

Apeirophobia

Eleutheromania

everyone has been asking me for a downloadable version of this mix, and thusly...here one is. 

video version can be seen here : http://www.studior.tv/shows/eric-cloutier/

Eric Cloutier - Live on Studio-R 12.20.12

Recorded live at Motif Wein Bar in Berlin. Since the volume of the bar has to largely left low to not disturb the neighbors with the wafer-thin floorboards living upstairs, now you can actually hear what I was playing a little better, and with improved low end.

Eric Cloutier - Live at Motif Wine Bar : 02.09.2020

Detroit Born, Berlin Based
Tresor / Globus Resident DJ

A self-described "record digging psychopath," Eric Cloutier’s standards are representative of the pre-social media craze and arguably the old adage of letting music speak for itself. Cloutier’s twenty-plus year commitment has been built upon his integrity as a DJ and authority as a selector. His reputation as an unequivocal, dexterous force is increasingly becoming one of note. He’s a DJ for whom quality - above all else - is the watchword.

Eric Cloutier || Palinoia

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