https://soundcloud.com/freybenedikt
https://soundcloud.com/esp-institute
🛒 https://freybenedikt.bandcamp.com/album/fastlane
🔊 https://youtu.be/nVzU6dgMxek

Close your eyes and merge into Benedikt Frey’s 'Fastlane'. Imagine sitting in the driver’s seat of a an automobile, one with exceptional horsepower and torque, as you stare out the windshield at the red light, warping in fata-morgana a mile down the road. It’s a straight-away, a black top with two lanes, and against your better judgment you decide to floor the gas. No hesitation in your muscle, your ankle or the ball of your foot, which you now realize is some kind of universal pivot, the first point of contact fusing your body with the will of machine. In this moment you’re in awe that you, a human, an animal, grew from pond scum into something so advanced as to engineer this thing, a mechanical beast capable of overwhelming power and exhilaration. But you also feel a seductive dread, an outside force diverting you from caution toward a dangling carrot of curiosity, asking yourself, ‘How far can I take this thing?’ The dread, now a constant, is numbed, equalized by an adverse intoxicating gratification. You feel both sensations in real time, however, rather than take responsibility for yourself, friends, family and innocent bystanders, you cement your foot to the floor and lean your head back. Noise around you fades to mute. Smell the benzene-scented air, feel the wind on your face, the menacing vibration of the vessel you control beneath you and every grain of asphalt under its tires. This mile has now lasted an eternity and you’ve left your body for some objective view, as if watching climax of a film. Past the point of no return, you embrace abandon and lean into fate. The film becomes slow motion, a crawling pace so mesmerizing you convince yourself of an option to eject yourself from this madness, but as you finally let go of your last morsel of fear, you run the red light head-on into the nucleus of a fantastic glistening sculpture of torn metal, glass, oil, broken dreams and heartache. 'Fastlane' may be just drum machines and synthesizers if you’re timid, but listen harder and know the catastrophic reality of existence, a wreckage so gruesome we dare not rubberneck, but afterall it is our nature to stare.

PREMIERE: Benedikt Frey - Crank [ESP Institute]

synthpop / electro / minimal / coldwave / darkwave / industrial / post-punk / punk

+ @riolabel @initinit

Benedikt Frey is many. Or just one? He is a composer. An arranger. A DJ. A Liveact. A ghost producer. A fan. He also plays in bands like INIT, or Dolphins or KEYS +++ produced the last two albums for Chris Imler. Downbeat in experimental dub zones. The goat for Edits and remixes. When house was his nation, he used to listen to pen names like Suedmilch or Venedikt Reyf. He still likes the music formed under their umbrella, but today his tomorrow is not echoed in yesterday. His sound signature moved on. Into the open. He founded labels like R.i.O. or Serious Trouble. 

He lives in Berlin. Physically. In mind Benedikt Frey is at many places. Traveling far thru his home studio that is a flat a studio a flat an instrument a record collection a flat a studio. Everywhere gear, vinyl, tapes, instruments, rooms for spontaneous sonic notions, these moments, when a sudden strike of stimulation falls. He is inspired a lot. For music to dance. Music for films. Music for live shows. Music for dancing glows. Techno, house, downbeat, ambient, jungle, electronics outside the norms. Those transportive ones. Jamming with others. Jamming with his mind. In Berlin Wedding, North of the town, where the lights dimmed low, neighbors share the flow, and a small river runs slow.  As a DJ he plays here, there, everywhere. Big clubs, small shacks, festivals, gatherings. From fast to 90 BPM - as he feels. 

For himself. For the crowd. In the spur. He still remembers his club kid days. Going to dance with friends. Down there in Offenbach. Doing the Robert Johnson. Collective emotions for a better tomorrow. These he still seeks. In his music. His shows. His collaborations. You can book him for a party. For enlightenment. For ecstasy or introspective perspectives. Dancing slow, whilst pirouetting a high-pitched show. 

Since more than a decade. His own music is out there, too. Bringing his spirits in sound. On his own labels. On international imprints like ESP Institute, Hivern Discs, Craigie Knowes, or Emotional Response. Solo works. Driving ones. Slow drills. Teased during his DJ dates around the planet. 

The music plays day and night. Inspiration comes. From a simple kick drum. A movie sequence. A bird on the sill. A picture, totally still. Can’t kick that feeling when it hits. Benedikt Frey. In dreams. In streams. In music. Emotions. Situations. At night. In those flashy lights, when it bites.

24.5. b2b with NVST, Kauz Zürich
10.05. Säälchen, Berlin
26.04. Zentralwäscherei, Zürich
25.04. b2b Philipp Otterbach, Arkaoda, Berlin
04.04. Sameheads, Berlin
13.03. Säule, Berlin
22.02. Kegelbahn, Luzern
21.02. Fribourg, CH

---- BYE24

17.12. Kiosk Radio,  Bxl
15.12. Curly Teeth b2b w. NVST, Bxl
30.11. Panorama Bar, Berlin
16.11. La Culottee, Paris
19.10. LAF, Pforzhyme
05.10. Sameheads, Berlin
28.09. Buka, Milan
21.09. Chemiefabrik, Zürich
14.09. Ausland, Berlin
16.08. Salon Des Amateurs, Düsseldorf
21.07. Am Bach Festival, Lucerne
05.07. Kappa Futur Festival, Turin
14.06. Masters, Zagreb
18.05. Outracena, Lisbon
27.04. Arkaoda, Berlin
24.02. Macadam, Nantes
26.01. Sameheads, Berlin

WhyPeopleWar Fundraiser for Ukraine: https://whypeopledance.bandcamp.com/

The Why people dance question was asked for the first time in Lithuania back in 2013 but it gained a worldwide echo in its 8 years of existence. Run by @pauliuskamblevicius with the help of @experimentsserial and a network of collaborators, the online electronic music platform and label keeps its heart open for new friends and treasure finds but its filter tight and deep underground. Tune into WPD channels on Soundcloud, YouTube and Bandcamp.

Attendances was born in 1987 in Ancona, a small city on the east coast of Italy. He's an Italian dj and producer influenced by different types of music, mainly progressive, trance, new wave, electrobeat, EBM, industrial, leftfield, techno, indie-dance, dark disco and electronic music.

His interesting in DJing began almost as a game and he started playing and then working in different clubs and social centres such as Thermos and Kontatto (Ancona).

During university years he began studying different softwares for the creation of sounds, producing songs intended as a photograph of the soul within the passage of time.

After several years of working in sound creation, in 2014 he started his project called "Attendances", he then created his podcast series "Retrofuture" and started publishing some songs with different labels such as Play Pal, Maleante, Esthetique and Emerald & Doreen.

In 2018 he became a member of the Italian-Spanish crew "Carajillo electronique" In 2022 he became also a member of another crew "Circuits" playing in different clubs and festivals in Italy, Spain and France such as:

Bunker 83 Club - Urbino (IT) 2018
Torrione Club - Città di Castello (IT) 2018
25 April REDD BBQ - Ancona (IT)2018
Camping Electronique Festival - Caprese Michelangelo (IT)2018
Freedonia Club - Barcelona (ES) 2018
Sideral Club - Barcelona (ES) 2018
Slow Club - Barcelona (ES) 2018
Torrione Club - Città di Castello (IT) 2019
BE ONE’S club - Arezzo (IT) 2019
El Casal - Valencia (ES) 2019
Umami Club - Manresa (ES) 2019
25 April REDD BBQ - Ancona (IT) 2019
Camping Electronique Festival - Caprese Michelangelo (IT) 2019
ÖND 3rd Birthday at UBU in Rennes (FR) 2019
BE ONE’S club - Arezzo (IT) 2021
DONG (Circuit night) - Macerata (IT) 2022
HANGAR - Ancona (IT) 2022
ELECTRIC WAVES Pescara (IT) 2022
PITINO ELETTRICO (Circuit night) San Severino Marche (IT) 2022
DONG (Circuit night)  - Macerata (IT) 2022
MAGMA - Tolentino (IT) 2023
SISMA (Circuit night) - Macerata (IT) 2023
REDD BBQ - Ancona (IT) 2023
REDD BBQ - Bologna (IT) 2023
COPACABANA July - Porto Recanati (IT) 2023
ELECTRIC WAVE Silvi Marina (IT) 2023
COPACABANA August - Porto Recanati (IT) 2023
LIBECCIO 2.0 - Numana (IT) 2023
BORDERBASS Arcobaleno beach - Cingoli (IT) 2023
MAGMA (Circuit night) - Tolentino (IT) 2023
SPAZIOTEMPO Oct (Circuit night) - Recanati (IT) 2023
SPAZIOTEMPO Nov (Circuit night) A-TWEED - Recanati (IT) 2023
SPAZIOTEMPO DIC (LUST LAST LOST NIGHT ) - Recanati (IT) 2023
SPAZIOTEMPO GEN (Circuit night) NICK HANZO - Recanati (IT) 2024
SPAZIOTEMPO MAR (Circuit night) OLTREFUTURO - Recanati (IT) 2024
SPAZIOTEMPO APR (Circuit night) - Recanati (IT) 2024
SPAZIOTEMPO APR CLOSING PARTY WINTER SEASON - Recanati (IT) 2024
SPAZIOTEMPO AGO CIRCUIT SUMMER FEST - Porto Recanati (IT) 2024