Love this. Think you dropped it in the HATE Podcast?

To speak to Luca Daniel Schwarz aka LDS about his music is to be enthusiastically guided into a complex world of his own creation: clean and powerful techno which pulses with life from the textured patterns and drum sequences that have fills and accents that would make anyone who's picked up a set of drumsticks envious.

Yet this ecosystem of noise is deceptive; Schwarz's process for making music is very different to how a live drummer would create the same subtlety of performance. Forever researching new technology, Luca got deeply interested in different programming languages, and created a series of probability based music tools for manoeuvring sounds and sequencing.

Manipulating those probabilities takes a skillful alchemy, needing understanding of both musical structure and how the tools he devised work. To return to the drummer analogy, if the drummer is focussed and intentional in the moment of playing, then the method used in LDS tracks is almost diametrically opposed, with all of the intention coming in the assembly of the instruments, potential paths, and gateways; once play is pressed the music flows, following all the rules that were set in advance, not unlike a domino run or Rube Goldberg machine.

And like a domino run, the results are fascinating and, ultimately, fun: staccato vocals pop in and out in 'zipp prompt'; laser-like synths pulse; background noises sweep across the aural plane of the dub techno of 'diff, blockmix' and 'pow' adding texture that brings vitality all-too-easily missed out when complex mathematical processes become entwined with music creation. The high sensitivity to texture and rhythmic detail in Stadion Progg is multiplied further on Jean Redondo's remix - whose track, Hypersonic, was the backbone of 2023's 'yet' compilation on Tresor.

The balance between technology and a sense of fun might also come from the maker; it's not easy to overstate Schwarz's passion for what is now his favourite way to make music, "it never gets boring. There's always a moment of anticipation to see what actually emerges." And the true "power of 2" comes into play when the resulting music can be fed back through the system again and again, potentiating the music in exponential ways.

BANDCAMP

PREMIERE: LDS - diff, block mix

At midnight, on March 13th 1991, a basement door opened at Leipziger Strasse 126, Berlin. Through this door, many passed, on their way to defining new terrains in electronic music. There they found a dance floor in the vaults of a closed-down department store, with a unique sound bound to dense fog, building night after night a history that was also a vision of the future. 

This history has seen in Jeff Mills’ first sets on three turntables, Underground Resistance's first live appearances in Europe, grandiose Tresor Park parties, to various chapters of the Loveparade with Sven Väth in the 90s and since then countless generation-spanning parties. These moments represent the highlights of infinite personal clubbing experiences. It is the manifestation of the Berlin spirit, emerging from its considerable strife. This history is not without its complications - from temporary closure by the authorities and several raids in the early years to closure and demolition of the old location in 2005. What followed was years of wandering in exile and, finally, resurrection in the new home in Kraftwerk Berlin.

These stories, conversations and shared experiences within our walls forge a resilience that drives towards a shared ideal, the Tresor sound: community, resistance, and the world to come. This was observed in the newly re-unified German youth, who danced and celebrated together from the club’s inception, and into the present day through ongoing community work in Detroit. 

Tresor Records was founded in the same year and began to serve as a platform for exporting the new sounds associated with Tresor all around the world. Emergent musicians from Michigan, such as Juan Atkins, Underground Resistance and Drexciya, were pivotal in shaping these early years. Their visits to Berlin would kick-start dialogue between the youth movement in Europe and these musicians. This story is one of friendship and community-building, inextricably linked with cities like Detroit, Birmingham or Edinburgh, where like-minded friends built something truly special, where revelatory rhythms soundtrack decaying industry in corrupted metropoles. 

Tresor Records has been the fertile soil for dozens upon dozens of creative minds, from the very luminaries of the scene who developed electronic music over the last three decades through to contemporary protagonists who are currently defining the sound of the future -  A more than 300 strong catalogue displays an unmistakable identity - the Tresor spirit.

To those that have danced before, and to those that will dance in the future: the light at the end of the long Tresor tunnel is a signal. A flicker amidst the fog. This is our future. This is our place.

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