Hit the gas and tear up the roads in this legendary action-driving game. Take your ride through wide city streets, push it sideways down narrow mountain roads and hit the limiter as you put the pedal to the metal on the freeway. With plenty to see, Ventura Bay is the perfect place for you to show off your skills and get the recognition and respect you deserve. How will they remember you? In Need for Speed that all depends on how you drive...

Gone Gold is the second album from Herrmann Kristoffersen, aka Daniel Herrmann (Flug 8) and Kristina Kristoffersen. Mastered by Jörn Elling Wuttke (The Primitive Painter) it is inspired by the world of gaming and the idea of composing an imaginary soundtrack for the classic racing video game Need for Speed, but in their unique style - kosmische techno, ambient soundscapes and gauzy electronica.

Creating an imaginary soundtrack for a game and working apart due to Covid-imposed travel restrictions, it was logical that the couple would use the shortcuts from the gamers’ world to communicate with each other. Every title on the album represents an aspect of that, providing an insight into how to interpret the song, creating your own online gaming world while listening. First up is the album’s opening track - the early-Autechre/AI machine-funk stylings of 1LC (One Life Clear: playing through a video game from start to finish without ever losing a life).

PREMIERE: Herrmann Kristoffersen - 1LC [Bytes]

experimentation&musicalresearch
Contact : leobiagini7@gmail.com

Closely trailing last year’s Space Techno EP, and his recent outing as Herrmman/Kristoffersen, Daniel Herrmann’s new album; Electric Field sees the return of Ransom Note’s favourite aviation enthusiast, Flug 8. If the upbeat, driving Space Techno acted as the lift-off, Electric Field sees Daniel remove his hand from the throttle, pull the shuttle into low earth orbit, sound tracking the cosmos as he watches from his porthole. 

We know there’s no sound in space, but if there was, we think it’d sound something like this.

Setting the tone for what’s to come, the album kicks off with Night Effect. Grainy drones and swirling soundscapes lay the basis for the track. Hard-panned, delayed melodies and restless low frequency percussion ricochet off of each other as they slowly intertwine and settle, making peace with their newfound trajectory. Next up is Arc to Time where morphing, guitar-like plucks cascade around the listener’s perspective, jostling for the limelight like some sort of intergalactic wind-chime, while lush pads and chords evolve to fill the background from the outside in.

The epic Continuous Wave sounds like it was composed for the big screen. The meandering lead wouldn’t sound out of place on Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar soundtrack, all the while whirring leads sound like Herrmann might have actually sampled them from an astronaut’s respiratory system. Bubble Cell, characterised by generous servings of analog tape hiss, fizzes over the top of slow churning synth swells, placing you at the forefront of an otherworldly environment. Inhabiting some distant molten planet, he somehow finds tranquillity within the chaos.

On the flip, Herrmanns’s Effective height pokes its head into unknown territories, as a ceaseless lead transmits repeatedly searching for a reply, only to be consumed by the vastness of space, becoming lost beneath sombre drones. Pulsing synth percussion lays a foundation for Polarizing as warped, hardly distinguishable vocodered vocals give way to overdriven, plucked synths sustained by lush, never- ending reverbs.

Driven by a jittering lead and soaring synth plucks, Side Band is the only track to feature anything remotely close to a conventional breakdown - as the track explodes into a crescendo, we hear distant, saturated, guitar-like licks far off. Closing out the project is Cosmic Noise, which as its name suggests is unsurprisingly the most experimental track on the album. Surges of noise and distortion serve up a stark reminder of our place in the universe as it chews you up and spits you out

Sitting on the floor of his living room with a complete arsenal of vintage analog synths, Daniel builds each layer of his unique soundscapes, one continuous take at a time. With Alter Ego’s Jörn Elling Wuttke lending a helping hand on mixing duties, Electric Field might just be Flug 8’s most accomplished work yet.

🙏 🌏 Music From Planet Earth 🙏 🌏

If you'd like to send us demos, please email us at records@theransomnote.co.uk with a link to a private Soundcloud playlist.

Synchronize heartbeats that create tracks

Ransom Note is an online music, arts and culture magazine. We provide a home for readers and writers with boundless enthusiasm, esoteric knowledge, fierce opinions and impeccable taste.

With our core team immersed in all aspects of dance music, we publish news, articles, and interviews covering the greatest in innovative, underground culture from across the globe. We offer regular, exclusive music and mixtapes from our favourite artists, and publish features shining a light on everything from the freshest new artists to the untold tales from rave history.

Alongside this we offer musings on film, books, life, and art, generating some context and controversy as an antidote to the reheated PR that clogs up the internet. Our office is fuelled by Tunnock’s Bars, cat memes, hangovers and a ridiculous, never ending love for our culture.

We're always interested in getting new writers on board – feel free to get in touch if you’ve got a story to tell.

With love until the grave.

Tasty electronic music. Est. 2019. Big up @the-ransom-note! Likeminded artists please send demos to bytesbytes1@gmail.com

We're a platform and DJ collective which aims to promote underground dance music.

Herrmann Kristoffersen is German musician Daniel "Flug 8" Herrmann and the Danish singer-songwriter and producer Kristina Kristoffersen. We create meditative ambience and celestial techno. Our debut album is out Feb 28'th on Bytes/UK