Release date 20.04.2009

www.bpitchcontrol.de

Moderat are Modeselektor and Apparat.
Moderat’s formation began back in 2002 when Sascha Ring (aka Apparat) and
Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary (aka Modeselektor) recorded an EP for the
record label BPitch Control. The making of this release was incredibly exhausting for
the three of them, and at the last minute they renamed the EP “Auf Kosten der
Gesundheit” (which translates to “At The Cost Of Health”). When it came time to begin
working on an album, Moderat suddenly broke up.
A short time later both Modeselektor and Apparat simultaneously worked on their own
full-length albums — Modeselektor’s debut, Hello Mom!, and Apparat’s collaboration
with Ellen Allien, Orchestra of Bubbles. Each went on to become successful releases
and were followed by two career-defining albums for the individual acts. Additionally,
since their debut releases, both acts have performed over 1,000 shows at nearly every
point of the globe.
Modeselektor’s sophomore album in 2007, Happy Birthday!, set a milestone in
German music history including musicians such as Puppetmastaz, Maximo Park and
Thom Yorke. Amongst a slew of remixes for the likes of Thom Yorke and Björk,
Modeslektor also went on to tour with Radiohead across Japan in 2008.
Apparat, on the other hand, moved forward with his album Walls in 2007, taking a
musical path that was more band-oriented and kept him on tour for several years
running.
It was a twist of fate that brought about Modeselektor and Apparat’s reunion in the
spring of 2008. Szary and Bronsert, both proud fathers, were on their way to the
“Stadtbad Mitte” (Berlin-Mitte City Pool) with their children for their regular Monday
swimming lessons when they ran into Ring, a devout bachelor who happened to be
accompanied by several dubious females. After a battering of verbal abuse, the three
gentlemen quickly made peace and decided to get back to work on their collaborative
album post haste. Thus, Moderat was reformed.
In recording Moderat’s self-titled album, the three men began by renting studio space
at the legendary Berlin Hansa Studios (where Bowie recorded Heroes) in order to
record the album in analog with the help of the studio’s vintage tube technology and
an old EMI console from 1972, restored especially for Moderat. American software
designer, Joshua Kit Clayton, was hired to program a superb reverb algorithm specifically
for the recording process of this album. This exquisite sound design is one of the
reasons why the promotional copies can be listened to only in mono. Finished copies
will, of course, be in full stereo.
Additionally, during the first phases of recording the Moderat album, Szary and Bronsert
bought an EMT Model 140 Plate Reverb on an Internet auction and had to travel to
Los Angeles to pick it up. While there, they met the Californian rapper Busdriver and
the groundwork for “BeatsWaySick” was laid. Moderat continued to work on this with
Busdriver from their respective continents. Unfortunately due to legal issues at the
time of manufacturing, this track will be released as an exclusive download in the
near future.

Back in the studio, the Berlin vocalist Dellé (aka Eased) from leading German act
Seeed found himself in Moderat’s studio room while on a quest to find a bottle opener.
There on the spot, the three gents of Moderat finally waved good-bye to the concept
of a mere instrumental album and said hello to vocal recordings and the song “Sick
With It”. Coincidentally, they found older vocal recordings of Paul St. Hilaire that
had been recorded by Szary and Bronsert way back on low-noise 1/4″ analog tape.
Those recordings are what led to “Slow Match”. All this encouraged Szary and Bronsert
to convince Ring it was time for him to contribute vocals, which can be heard on
“Rusty Nails” and “Out Of Sight”.
The self-titled album Moderat will also be available as a Deluxe Version, including a
DVD produced by the Berlin based artist collective Pfadfinderei. The DVD will feature
music videos and more exclusive content. Pfadfinderei will also contribute visuals to
all Moderat live shows.

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Release date 04.05.2009

Luke Slater
Luke Slater Myspace

The next OstGut Ton is coming from Luke Slater. The Brit released his first record exactly 20 years ago and has been working as an ambitious artist under numerous pseudonyms producing a broad range of electronic music ever since. Be it tough detroit techno, obscure electronica, ambient, or conceptual electro – Slater has definitely left his stamp on the last two decades as a DJ and a producer.

After contributing a gorgeous ambient piece as The 7th Plain to our Ballet cd „Shut Up And Dance! Updated“, Luke now is returning to OstGut Ton under his legendary techno pseudonym as Planetary Assault Systems. The „Temporary Suspension“ EP is a taster for his forthcoming, eponymously titled album on OstGut Ton. “Planetary has always been about going forward, music and mind states working together, pushing movements and alpha waves on the dancefloor“ says Slater.

With this two-tracker he shows how Techno with a healthy dose of toughness should be done in 2009. Both „Temporary Suspension“ and „Mark Me“ are uncompromising DJ tools for the peaktime transporting the PAS spirit into the present.

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Release date 18 May 09

Konrad Black Myspace

Situated by the river Spree, known for it’s first-rate lineups of international talent and of course it’s famous wall to wall LED dance floor installation, the Watergate Club in Berlin has quickly become one of the world’s leading dance music clubs. Only 5 years after it’s official opening the club now goes a step further and releases a characteristic Mix CD series delivering only the finest DJ Mixes by some of club’s most exiting residents and guests. With the focus being put not only on the music but also on the packaging and design, this series will quickly become a truly sought-after collectors item and will surely stand out in flood of mediocre music and mixes that often dilute the market

The Watergate Mix series goes into the next round. Konrad Black is a founding member of the Wagon Repair Label and part of the Richie Hawtins M_nus family. For Watergate he delivers a mix containing influential classic material as well as new unreleased productions by himself with collaborators such as Martin Buttrich. His signature sound, a dark vision of techno shines throughout the entire project and reflects his self-perception as a DJ. Over the last years his sound has found a home in Berlin’s Watergate Club where you can catch him play on a regular basis…

Time has accelerated ten-fold for Konrad over the last three years in particular, since the dark, shadowy tones of Draconia and Medusa Smile enveloped dancefloors around the globe, not only christening his influencial Wagon Repair label in style but also establishing him as a highly innovative producer and much sought after remixer. His relocation to Berlin has also given him the opportunity to express himself more regularly as a DJ, resulting in a fast expanding reputation for sending crowds into a frenzy wherever the call of duty takes him. Konrad knows it’s about living and breathing the music, it’s not just a question of turning up, spinning a few tunes and then disappearing back into the night, it’s about getting to know the people, understanding what makes the club tick and always delivering a night of memorable tracks and seamless transgressions. There’s a Byronesque quality to Black, a perpetual struggle between external light and inner darkness that unearths moments of beauty in the darkest corners of our collective consciousness. But fortune seems to favour the brave and it’s with this firmly in mind that he leads the crowd through the night towards another Berlin sunrise.

- – - – TRACKLISTING – - – -

01 – Alex Cortex – Nachttarif – Source Records
02 – D. Diggler – Silicone – raum…musik
03 – Raudive – Cone (Edit) – Macro Recordings
04 – Loco Dice – Breakfast At Nina’s (Onur Özer Mix) – Desolat
05 – Konrad Black & Martin Buttrich – Siamese Connection
06 – Matthew Dear & Seth Troxler – Hurt – Ghostly International
07 – Stephan G – Shass – Svek
08 – Queen Atom – Enemy Of Time (Cesare vs. Disorder On Time Edit) – Dumb-Unit
09 – Louderbach – Shine (Thrill Cosby’s Broken Door Mix Vox. Dilo) – M_nus
10 – Ben Klock – Sub Zero – Ostgut Ton
11 – Discogs – Real Love EQ (Italy Version) – Wagon Repair
12 – Paul Ritch – Evil Laff (Konrad Black Remix) – Wagon Repair
13 – Mathew Jonson – Walking On The Hands That Follow Me – Wagon Repair

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Release date ; 16.03.2009

Check it here

Mark Broom Myspace
www.markbroom.co.uk

It has been three years since techno doyen Mark Broom released the synth drenched
techno-firework “Twenty Nine”, which transformed every club’s peak time into a
roller coaster of euphoria. A lot has happened since then. So much that Mark Broom
decided to do an update of his above-mentioned original classic for BPitch’s sub label
Memo along with another remixer, Mihalis Safras.
A:Twenty Nine (Brooms 09 Mix)
Broom’s own “09 Mix” disposes of all of the ’stomping’ qualities of the original,
embedding it instead with a longing synthline and new vocals on a finely-linked twisted
tom-groove. “Say you want me, Say you need me! Say you love me!” it instructs in
a fragile voice filled with expectation, while the synths move into another lament.
Eyes shut, then comes the bass drum…all good!
B: Twenty Nine (Mihalis Safras Remix)
On the flip side it is a bit more straight-forward but just as dark. Mihalis Safras
allows the bassline to properly simmer, from which the vocals are the only scraps
remaining in a swirling sea of white noise. And then, once again, comes the return
of the synthline that makes your neck hair stand on end. A minimal techno trip of the
highest class.

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Check it here

This lovely masterpiece called “Zombielicious”.

Dj Quotes:
Isi (Digitalism):”Das Album ist der Hammer”
Boys Noize: “I like it very much”
Adam Freeland: “Your album is a masterpiece man. I love it.”
David (Soulwax): “The album is killer!”
Tiga:”2009 is Zombie year”
A-Trak:”I’ve been listening to your album and it’s so good!!! ”
Mehdi: “Supercake 53, Mystery Meat Affair and Filter Jerks are my faves”
Joakim:”sounds great, a lot of songs to play out in the clubs!”
Erol Alkan:”The reaction to Mas De Todo has been amazing”

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Release date: 25 May 09

www.exerciseone.de
www.myspace.com/exerciseone1

Exercise One: DJs know them as crafters of cracking tracks on wax. Clubbers around the world know them as a live act that hurtles like a runaway train. Now, prepare to meet another side of the Berlin-based duo. In Cars We Rust is their debut album, and it presents the most complete picture of Exercise One’s world to date. The dancefloor stormers are still there, and the record’s flow is guided by the same spirit of improvisation that drives their live sets. But the clubbier material is rounded out by sounds we’ve never heard from Exercise One before: gorgeous, enveloping ambient tracks; soundtrack-ready synthesizer ballads; even a kind of retro-futurist electro-pop. Best of all, it all hangs together with ease.

Marco Freivogel and Ingo Gansera are the mad mechanics (albeit with a sensitive side) behind the humming, pulsing Exercise One machine, and In Cars We Rust is a testament to the distance they’ve traveled since the two began making music together five years ago. During that time they’ve released singles for Mobilee, Num, Exone and Exercise One’s own Lan Muzic imprint, but more importantly they’ve spent the time perfecting their technique. Whether performing onstage or practicing and recording, music-making is a fundamentally live endeavor for Exercise One. It happens in real time, the fortuitous result of painstaking preparation, communication and the willingness to go where the music leads them. Produced and finessed over many months, In Cars We Rust is the studio product of their hands-on approach, as passages of spontaneous creation are edited, collaged and remixed into a strikingly varied, startlingly cohesive whole.

“Circeo” comes on like dawn in August, with a rustle of percussion and muted horns giving way to slowly unfurling chords and gentle electro-acoustic chatter—featuring Seth Josel on guitar, it’s a four-plus minute ambient palate-cleanser to prep you for the deep-listening experience to follow. The beats begin on “1994,” which eases out of the intro with shimmering keys and a shimmying beat, nearly dissolving into bubbly echoes of Steve Reich before cruising to a close with a dry, purposeful pulse. “It Is Happening Again” turns things up a notch with home-hewn breaks and a monter bass line courtesy Lan Muzic’s Jacopo Carreras. Throbbing and acidic, it’s the perfect snapshot of Exercise One as their needles veer into the red. They cool off with “Trapdoor”: another live favorite, this taut, undulating spiral of metallic percussion and greased oscillators rides the line between cool-down and come-up—a reminder that the best minimal techno is a question of control.

Low-slung funk is the order of the day on “The Drunken Tinman,” skipping dry drum machines across a sludge-pool of charred, muddied bass; the dubby chords and queasy leads above are nothing short of narcotic. After that, “Good Kid” sounds like waking up from a fever dream, cinematic strings streaking light across the soundfield as a drunken piano line goes stumbling across the keys; after two nearly beatless minutes, the drums arrive to escort the song to its closing glory. Slow and beautiful, it’s a mixtape no-brainer. They stay with the melancholic vibe with “No News Today”; featuring Argenis Brito’s distinctive vocals, the song is the perfect fusion of electronic production and a classic pop sensibility. “Sleeper” returns to the land of smoke and strobes; lush chords flutter at the edges of a tunnel carved by diamond-tipped drums and spiraling oscillators. It’s a preparation for the full-bore onslaught of “What You Say,” a lean and mean percussive groover that won’t take “no” for an answer.

Every party has to end eventually; fortunately, Exercise One know how to let us down gently. “Don’t Slip” glides into a slinkier groove, slowing the tempo and losing itself in a field of freaky bleeps—another palate cleanser, this time to set up the breathtaking finale, “Just Not!” That cryptic title doesn’t begin to suggest just how flat-out gorgeous the song is. Again featuring Argenis Brito and Jacopo Carreras, the song feels like an amalgam of all of Exercise One’s deepest tendencies, as ropy bass lines, dissipating chords and intricate rhythms spin together into a hypnotic, pulsing whole.

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