„lab.oratory“ – the men's club within the the Berghain Berlin. A venue as rough and relentless as it's unapologetic soundscape: made to make you fuck. This playlist is a -Collection of tracks that channel the club's unique musical signature or are Ostgut 

Inhale lab.oratory Berlin | A Playlist inspired by the Berghain Men's Club

Shifted - Control

Oderbruch

Menschen und Mauern

Buy/stream: https://kompakt.fm/releases/agartha_lp_dl

‘Where is Agartha? What is the specific region in which it lies? Along what road, through what civilizations, must one walk in order to reach it?.’ Saint-Yves d’Alveydre in 1886

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 colonised 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, a label that’s always encouraged artists to make the visionary music they need to create, to take risks and make sideways steps into uncharted territory.

An eloquent producer and DJ, Igarashi has been releasing techno for eleven years now, appearing on such imprints as The Bunker NY, Delsin, Midgar, and Time To Express; he has also self-released his productions via his WIP net label. 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. Visualising 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.

Agartha’s conceptual framework means that everything on the album sits perfectly together; listening to it in one sitting is a dizzying, lush experience. Its imaginings of inner landscapes recall, in some respects, the nautical, aqueous mythologies of the Drexciyan universe, though from different perspectives. But the result is Igarashi’s own creation, a deluxe, enchanting trip through the visionary Agartha of this unique producer’s cinematic mind’s-eye.

Agartha

Wata Igarashi - Searching

Some kind of up and down yes (asusu remix)

Taken from: VC-118A - Waves of Change - Delsin Records - 157dsr

buy vinyl: https://www.delsinrecords.com/release/7731/vc-118a/waves-of-change
buy digital: https://chaindata.bandcamp.com/album/waves-of-change

On his fifth album as VC-118A, Samuel van Dijk (@mohlao) is using his evolved electro practice to explore the notion of change - a universal constant which keeps us barrelling towards unknown futures.

With 2021’s Spiritual Machines, van Dijk presented a new approach which took his established (and celebrated) sound into downtempo and experimental pastures. Now the Dutch artist builds on that premise with a clear-sighted focus on the idea of change, as forces and factors in our present moment accelerate the states of flux within our lives.

Crooked machine rhythms remain the driving force behind VC-118A, but it’s the treatment of the drums and the richly developed layers around them which tell the story. The sources are largely analogue, from a trusted bank of outboard tools ranging from 606s and 101s to ample modern and vintage effects and various modular systems, but these sounds are carefully sequenced and shaped with digital processes to create the nuanced tones and textures which envelop Waves of Change. Crucial to the spatial immersion of the album is the subtle drop in tempo, widening the rhythms and leaving room for the atmospheric sound design to have a greater impact.

The fluid synthesis and sound design which permeates tracks like ‘The Deep’, ‘You’ and ‘Replace Image’ might well be considered a sonic metaphor for the ever-shifting state of the universe, while the reliably crisp rhythmic structures applied to the likes of ‘Heat’, ‘Club’ and ’Elektri’ have a metronomic quality as steadfast as time itself.

It’s the extended immersion of ‘Motherboard’ which offers the most complete summation of the album’s qualities at the midway point, coursing through subtly vivid soundscapes guided by elegant, constantly probing drums. The snatches of voices which emerge through the mix are those of van Dijk’s parents, sampled from a discovered box of tapes from the mid-80s when they were both sound artists. Thematically, the samples also embody the sense of change van Dijk was striving for making this album, capturing a moment in time for his now-separated parents when their lives were very different.

Balancing the disciplines of machine-powered sequencing and hand-shaped sound to render his ideas in sonic form, the continued evolution of VC-118A results in another mesmerising record steeped in craft and loaded with intention.

Buy @ Delsin Shop

VC-118A - You (taken from 'Waves of Change' 157dsr)

FLIKK

RELIC

Citrus

"Floating" by Drawat is an aural odyssey that invites you to lose all sense of gravity. The track is built on a foundation of driving breakbeats, but they don't propel you onto a dance floor—they lift you into the stratosphere. A lonely, melancholic piano melody weeps gently through the ether, while mysterious synth pads unfold like a cosmic nebula, creating a soundscape that is both expansive and deeply intimate. This is the kind of sonic architecture that recalls the golden age of ambient electronica, echoing the ethereal, mind-bending spirit of pioneers like The Future Sound of London. "Floating" isn't just a song; it's a state of being, a journey to the quiet, serene space between thoughts.

Floating

Having remixed Depeche Mode and DJ Hell as well as releasing a new Fixmer/McCarthy single with Douglas McCarthy (of Nitzer Ebb), 2017 has already proven to be a productive year for Terence Fixmer. With the new Force EP, the Berghain resident follows up on 2016's Beneath The Skin EP (O-TON 97), offering four stylistically different but congenial Techno scenarios for club use.

Buy 12"

Terence Fixmer | Melting Planets

Melter EP

Bell (Original Mix)

Shedding the Past

Flat Axe

Estrange

The Lower Upside Down

Over the past four years, Hayden Payne aka Phase Fatale has earned a reputation as a techno innovator, both for the broad spectrum of dystopian electronics included in DJ sets as well as his deep understanding of synthesis and sound design in his own productions. Having previously released on labels such as Jealous God, Payne made his Unterton debut with last year’s Anubis EP. Since then he has settled into residences at both Berghain in Berlin and Khidi in Tbilisi, released his first LP on Hospital Productions and kicked off his own label BITE with a collaborative EP between himself and Silent Servant.

On his debut 4-track EP for Ostgut Ton, Reverse Fall, The New York native has sharpened the rhythmic contours of his productions, creating an imposing wall of sound within the techno framework. Inspired in part by Crash, J.G. Ballard's dystopian novel on the fetishization of car crashes, Reverse Fall is uncompromising motorized, cybernetic techno – infused with haunting soundtrack-like flourishes reminiscent of films by directors John Carpenter and Dario Argento.

A night drive accelerating at the pace of a dark, melodic bassline and distorted hi-hats. “Reverse Fall” is available across streaming platforms, as a single track and as an instant gratification download with the purchase of the full digital release.

Listen at
Apple Music: https://itunes.apple.com/album/reverse-fall-ep/1394765995
Bandcamp: https://phasefatale.bandcamp.com/track/reverse-fall
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/de/album/66459102
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/42DjPohwGNsWkjnurRI1iz?si=P9S-wDG0S9yb__2L3l00Cw

Taken from the forthcoming Ostgut Ton EP: Phase Fatale | Reverse Fall [O-TON 113], out July 13, 2018.
Pre-order EP on 12" vinyl or in digital formats: https://phasefatale.bandcamp.com/album/reverse-fall

All info: http://ostgut.de/label/record/219
Artwork: Richard Söderberg, https://www.instagram.com/sabotage999 | Layout: Yusuf Etiman

Catch Phase Fatale on the road: https://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/phasefatale/dates

Phase Fatale |  Reverse Fall

‘Scanning Backwards’, @PhaseFatale’s second full-length album following his 2017 debut album for Hospital Productions, is music about control. Using the connection between weaponized sound and psychological manipulation as a conceptual foundation, Hayden Payne explores the ways in which music – and sub frequencies in particular – are used to influence thinking and to synchronize emotions and behavior: from military technology to sound systems and the physicality and sexuality of queer techno culture.

Taken from:  Phase Fatale | Scanning Backwards
out January 24, 2020 on Ostgut Ton [OSTGUTCD48/LP34]

Buy ‘Scanning Backwards’ as 2x12" LP, digipak CD or in digital formats: https://www.berghain.berlin/shop/releases/phase-fatale-scanning-backwards/

Listen at
Bandcamp: https://phasefatale.bandcamp.com/album/scanning-backwards
Boomkat: https://boomkat.com/products/scanning-backwards
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4Vszky1GAUnME7GqMJJVkB?si=eV6nkqn6RiW8aWAtQjwXyQ
YouTube: https://youtu.be/cfVE-Kz8dYc

Known for his innovative post-punk takes of dance music as featured on EPs for unterton and Ostgut Ton, the Berghain resident draws on his background as both a guitarist and sound engineer to create a heady mix of broken rhythms, noise-, and shoegaze-inflected techno, often at slower tempos. The result is music with space and pace to expand, highlighting the intense rushes of frequencies found in both sonic warfare and functional dance music. Over eight tracks named after a combination of historical and fictional narratives from literature and science fiction, Payne’s rhythmic excursions explore different manifestations of sound as power – specifically within the context of seeing Berghain as an instrument itself. This is also reflected in the album artwork, taken from an early flyer for the SNAX party series and an obvious ode to the fetishization of power dynamics.

In his own words: “All tracks on the album, no matter the style, were tailored to sound a certain way in Berghain – something I figured out through years of dancing in the middle of the floor, DJing as a resident and investigating what frequencies really penetrate the body. This includes speech and high-frequency, brain-penetrating instrumentation and drilling textures that I had not utilized so often before, but which I think also have an effect on thought and memory. It's especially true in a space where gay and fetish roots combine with music in unexpected ways, almost in a cultish manner. A musical and physical deprogramming and reprogramming, psychic driving and de-patterning, the erasing and replacing of memories.”

Ultimately, ‘Scanning Backwards’ surveys not only the manipulative properties of electronic music (mantras, loops, subliminal messages) but also how rhythm facilitates both moving and thinking in synchrony; a pulse of coordinated sound- and brainwaves.

Artwork: northor | Layout: Yusuf Etiman

Estrange

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