The Red Bull Music Academy is a world-travelling series of music workshops and festivals: a platform for those who make a difference in today's musical landscape. Here, you'll find exclusive downloads and streams from Academy participants, family, and friends.

The rare feeling of a immediate mutual connection that bonds two people stronger than many years of friendship can.

Worldwide Bookings: cris.hearn@teamwass.com
N & S America Bookings: celinaaoun@teteatetela.com

Promo: fidelesmusic@gmail.com

As a producer, DJ & label owner Cosmin Nicolae’s dedication to developing a rich and wholly personal artistic landscape provides the driving force behind one of dance music’s most unique & industrious individuals.

Opening the door on Hessle Audio over a decade ago - an outlet that has gone on to become a defining voice within electronic music in the 21st Century, Nicolae’s list of affiliations reads like a who’s who of top tier contemporary dance music record labels. Appearances on Amsterdam’s Rush Hour and Gerd Janson’s Running Back, as well as a brace of singles alongside LP’s Gordian and Simulat on the now defunct 50 Weapons - not to mention work for Semantica and Bleep, have cemented Cosmin TRG deep in the psyche of the ever shifting amoeba that is the dance music zeitgeist.

In many ways, what lies at the heart of Nicolae’s work - beyond the extraordinary pairing of high end sound design and club functionality, is an innate ability to bind his discography - to create a streamlined sonic vision without compromise, one that moves with purpose and vigour outwards to explore in depth structures that exist on the very periphery of House & Techno, Ambient & experimental electronics - but maintain a unique and recognisable finish. Few artists could boast a discography that marries 2016’s ubiquitous In Your Body, an anthemic spoken- word-meets-Tool-Techno leviathan released via Nicolae’s own club-focused Sportiv outlet, with Semnal - a gloriously executed LP of shifting, otherworldly Experimental music delivered under the artist’s given name via the Opal Tapes label.

Cult concept missive Hope This Finds You Well, Nicolae’s 2019 reflection on corporate culture furthers this same dichotomy - a stunning wide-angle Ambient LP on Fizic - the label operated by the artist as a home to more conceptual iterations, that followed hot on the footsteps of a remix for Bpitch founder Ellen Alien & the fourth instalment on Sportiv - both offerings heady club constructions in their own right.

On the road, both DJ sets and live performances mirror this healthy sentiment - with Nicolae as comfortable on main stages showcasing his take on hyper-modern propulsive Techno, as he is presenting the low slung avant-garde preoccupations of his more leftfield alias’. There’s the constant feeling that both these practices feed back into one another, and that from each respective vantage point, Cosmin TRG is able to make the kind of dynamic & intuitive artistic decisions that few can - keeping his work fresh & current without concession - ceding to his own desire to further his vision as a creator of sonic abstraction without losing sight of the dance floor.

!K7 Records
                                Berlin

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.

Second State is the platform Pan-Pot calls home, acting as a label through which they can release tracks, host events, showcase fashion and present visual ideas to Techno lovers and dance-floor soldiers  from all over the world.

i am not checking the PN here on SC, please contact me via email or other socials , thank you. 

Robert Babicz has been redefining the boundaries of electronic music since the early 1990s. His unique artistry encompasses sound, vision, emotion and spirituality. From releasing and performing acid techno as Rob Acid, to his role as a highly-sought after producer and studio wizard infusing technical perfection with deep emotion, to his striking photos, everything Robert does expresses his desire to celebrate beauty and humanity, and to live each moment with utmost consciousness. Robert's art and philosophy are so distinctive there's a word for it: Babiczstyle. 

Photo by Andre M. Hunseler | thinkingpixels.com

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