Friday, November 13, 2009

Dopplereffekt +

I've been planning to write something about the Dopplereffekt interview in the October 2009 issue of The Wire so here it is in a kind of interactive version. It is a great interview which covers a lot of ground, the most obvious repercussion of it for me was that there was a pronounced spike of at least an additional 50 hits a day on DRL that remained constant for that month. If this is an indication as to how many new people heard about them or were made more curious then I guess the piece certainly achieved something positive. In case you missed it someone scanned it, link below. I of course would never reprint copyrighted material here, unless it's unavailable elsewhere. You can still buy it from The Wire shop as well.
http://www.thewire.co.uk/shop/items/478/
-
The physicist Richard Feynman was mentioned to which Donald said that he was known for playing the bongos and was a genius. I subsequently found a very good documentary, 'The Last Journey of a Genius' (1988), on GoogleVideo about him which uses almost exactly this information in its opening description of him. You can watch it at the following link as I’m sure Donald already has.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=richard+feynman&emb=0&aq=o#
-
I think it was significant that they were willing to be photographed unmasked and even happy to confirm they were based in Germany, although this was a common enough assumption till now. I'm not sure if this was already known from another interview but we also learned that To Nhan Le Thi first name is Michaela. That was where the personal information stopped and really they know as well as we do that it doesn't matter anyway. I would say that the masks will reappear for the live shows for the sake of the theatrical aspect of it but it was nice this time to see their faces. The pictures from the session by Dominik Gigler can be viewed again at his website and the venue for them was Munich's Deutsches Museum, worth a visit, links below.
http://www.dominikgigler.de/
http://www.deutsches-museum.de/
-
The most important piece of new information regarding their future was that they implied on no less than three occasions that they were currently figuring out their next approach. Already, outside of remixes, there hasn't been any new material since 2007, the last Der Zyklus 12" did come out in 2008 I know but dates from the year before so as I speculated previously they are taking a break from releases until the muse strikes anew. They are promising, "a concept that is interesting, practical and holistic." This wasn't discussed in the interview but even Donald's involvement with the MySpace projects seems to have come to an end, while Black Replica may well return one day his name is no longer listed as a member; Zwischenwelt, while they will still probably release an album of their work together at some stage, it doesn't look like he has had much to do with them for about two years; similarly with Zerkalo, his work with this project has been released and that last batch of uploads, good as they were, didn't sound to me like he had any direct involvement with making them but am open to correction on this; Daughter Produkt as you know only managed a single track and he is no longer listed as a member. So it appears that since some point in late 2007 he has been taking a break from releasing any new material. I know that they are only talking about Dopplereffekt regarding this new approach but last time the other main side projects, Arpanet and Der Zyklus, were influenced by it so this time might be the same. I guess he views his remixes like live shows and continues with them as requested. The only exception and possible pointer to the future was 'Drone FX' (2009) which was a new piece, under the name Heinrich Mueller, for the 'Drexciyan Connection' split 12" with DJ Stingray 313. Or does he view this as another one off, like a glorified remix, or perhaps a sign of things to come? It's certainly a new template for him but time will tell. I'm not convinced but take a listen. Heinrich Mueller - 'Drone FX'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIQ6jjmiYHc
-
If anyone was at or has any pictures of Dopplereffekt's installation at 'Off-Center' in Leipzig let me know. I contacted the gallery myself but got no reply.
Just in:Dopplereffekt to play Berlin on 28th November.
-
Three short but always intriguing video's from Black Replica's 26th May 2007 show at the Zenderruisch festival in Dordrecht, Holland, have just emerged from the darkest places of the internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4iKesg0yqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UQfbVOSXrQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFe8ZUycH8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loYv-Eq28J0
-
I have created what will hopefully be a helpful list for people new to collecting Drexciyan and Gerald Donald projects over at Amazon, was surprised that no-one else had done it. Although I know I shouldn't be helping out a corporation like this I can almost guarantee someone will eventually discover great albums by Elecktroids or Japanese Telecom because of it and that makes it all worthwhile. Great to see most of this stuff still available as well, although I see Drexciya's 'The Quest' will currently set you back £80 while Arpanet's 'Quantum Transposition' is currently the cheapest item at just under £5. Only the Der Zyklus and Abstract Thought CDs are currently not available. You could probably get much of this stuff cheaper from other sources as well so just use it as a guide. You can also peruse my Wishlist while your there, my birthday is soon!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R1TBBVHGH81V9H/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb=
-
Lastly a bit of fun: I was dropping cheesy vinyl recently at a friends when I heard what sounded a lot like the bassline from the Heinrich Mueller remix of Le Car on Madonna's 'Dress You Up'(1985). Listen and compare for yourself, first 8 seconds works best, anyone for a mash up?
Madonna - 'Dress You Up'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eK74avTqL4
Heinrich Mueller's Le Car remix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QMMlQ9m2Tc