At first I would like to thank Rayna for approaching me and giving me the opportunity to let my music speak. And certainly in this case I said 'yes' straight away, although it took me a while to complete it. I recorded this piece of music in my room on Veddel Island here in Hamburg during the last couple of weeks. It is basically what I would play in a club these days. I used a TR-626, TR-707 and my Nord Modular. I love these gray machines and I think they fit nicely next to my red Keyboard. Apart from the rough keys I played with my fingers, I spiced the music up with a couple of other meaningful recordings of others speaking. Without explaining too much, because everybody should draw their own conclusions, to me these bits are about the fundamental components 'yes' and 'no' in life. 0 and 1 in the digital world are what 'yes' and 'no' are in the real world out there and in all we do. Life is like an unlimited sequence of 'yes' and 'no' and its consequences. Every single 'yes' and 'no' can be positive or negative, cause joy or pain and may be senseless, only the combination over time makes sense and life is all about the right sequence of answers and decisions. Everyone is responsible for their own set of 'yes' and 'no'. Some are brought to us and we have to cope with it, in most cases we have to control. At first sight, 'yes' seems to be the better answer, however, sometimes 'yes' means 'no' on the other end causing unhappiness. One thing is for sure, time keeps going and we have to fill it with 'yes' and 'no'. However, in whatever we do, Steve Jobs said we should "stay hungry, stay foolish", and I think he is right.
01. Playing With Life (formerly known as 'Developers Live') 02. Acidic Sun 03. Ear Against The Wall 04. No Word Can Tell 05. My Piano Says 'Maybe' 06. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish 07. No 08. Larry Heard's 'Can You Feel It' (Modyfier version)
People have a tendency to look at me with a peculiar expression when I say this, but I absolutely do not have the soul of an artist. First, I don't have the talent that it takes. Further, does the act of compiling the masterpieces of other people constitute an art in itself? I don't think so.
Above all, I love music and, of course, playing it. Music is for me the art form which elicits the most emotion from people. This emotion is strong and deep but also tends to be communicative, even contagious, so to speak. How exciting to see people smile, laugh, dance, hug and kiss...inspired by the music that is played to them. It brings about an extraordinary sensation.
For this mix, I have assembled pieces that I love deeply, and that I also love to play. Together, they bring forth beautiful emotions (different - that is also the pleasure of not sticking to a particular style). I hope you like it.
01. Shonky - Time Zero - Freak n'Chic 02. Simon Flower - The Whisper Had It (Redshape's Disco Dub) - Poker Flat 03. Let's Go Outside - I'll Lick Your Spine - Soma Records 04. Pele - Childhood's End (Kollektive Trumstrasse) - Connaisseur 05. Symphony Of Love - Quantum Leap - Yeti Records 06. Booka Shade - Darko - Get Physical 07. H.O.S.H. - White Elephant - Kindisch 08. Gabe feat. Adam K - The Mask (D-Nox & Beckers rmx) - Sprout 09. Marc Romboy vs Stephan Bodzin - Mab - Herzblut Recordings 10. Dubfire, Huntemann - Dios (Original Mix) - Ideal Audio 11. Peter Kruder - Shine - Gigolo Records 12. Public Energy - Three O'Three - Probe
Rayna asked why, not how I make things. Right now, I try not to take care of where things are going. I try to make only tracks that come from deep inside without thinking about, "will it sell?" or "does it work in the club?" It’s actually pretty hard not to think about these things when you´re making music for a living. But four weeks ago, my life came to a point when I felt "radical" enough to do exactly that. After breaking off a relationship and having a pretty successful 2009 (as an artist) I felt it was time to get away from that 7min tech house club tune. So I made a series of tracks that don't fit in a drawer. The only rule I had was to be fast - the making process shouldn’t be longer then 8hours. In general, I like to do things fast, but I can’t always predict how long things last. For Funkworm I needed 1.5 days but for a new remix for Robert Babicz, I needed about 3 weeks.
However, as it is very important for me to put personal emotion into tracks, and as this emotion changes from day to day (of course), I wanted to be fast this time, to keep this project like a documentary.
So, the track you will hear is called Jansec2010. Imagine me sitting in the studio, still having a massive hangover from NYE…still being intoxicated and also frightened about something I did on the first day of 2010. I can't tell you what it was, but it went over a limit for me (no worries, no one was hurt physically). So, on the second day of 2010, I was still shocked and angry and I knew when I put that feeling into music, which is mainly energy for me, I would be able to get over it. And this is what happened. I often do music in a way of giving therapy to myself, which helps me a lot not to forget the middle of myself. I’d already made eight other track like this, or at least in a way that is different from the productions I've done before. Maybe I’ll make a short album out of it or maybe I won't…? I still want to work that way for another couple of weeks and when I feel I´m finished, I’ll start to think about what I want to do with it.
So, enjoy this track and I recommend to put your subwoofer on or at least listen with good headphones...those little notebook speakers kill music! :)
We were very pleased to hear from our dear friend, Tom Bonaty (Prologue), that we have the honor to publish a new mix on Modyfier. We loved the idea as it was an excuse for us, Gianluca and Dino, to work together again. We wanted to start immediately. The only problem was that we live in two cities, 1500 km away from each other (Gianluca in Rome, Dino in Berlin). So, we thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to meet in the studio and work together, share our minds and understanding of outstanding techno music. We began by exchanging ideas on what tracks to choose and about the atmosphere and movement we wanted to give this mix. The first day we met in the studio in Rome, we turned on our machines and laptops and started our sustainable trip straightaway. With the lights low, away went our thoughts…just the two of us and what has bound us for 12 years: music.
The mix starts with a low beat atmosphere and noise and transitions into uncompromising straight beats. We enter the study after one hour of hallucinated traffic, and pass through an ambient garden to find the proper finish. The atmosphere was too good to stop. We will continue to pursue sounds that portray urban visions but that are at the same time also very spacious.
With this mix, I wanted to express the style of music that characterizes what I love to both listen to and play. Above all, it represents the feelings and emotions that define my past year. I recorded this set at home in the evening with the intimacy of only myself and the environment of a beautiful Sardinian winter around me. Well, also with my own collection of black beauty: vinyl.
The mix is an up and down of vibes, some deeper and some harder, that create a pleasant flow, full of sounds and sensations that lead me to imagine different lands, real and unreal. The set represents the concept of the music I like: not too fast, deep but at same time so hard, where I can feel that it comes straight from the core!
Nearly one year ago we started with our first EP on Prologue and it was really aN unbelievable year for us. We were announced as Label of the Month on Resident Advisor, we got one "Release of the Month" on Germany's biggest electronic music mag "Raveline", we were in a list of Phillip Sherburne's important releases in 2009 with one EP and we will have our first bigger Label Night in Berghain Berlin in January 2010. What time could be better than now to do a Prologue Label Showcase for Modyfier?
I tried to use as many Prologue releases, Prologue artist tracks and friends as possible in our showcase mix. You will hear nearly all of the Prologue artists like Cio D´Or, Giorgio Gigli, Samuli Kemppi, Juho Kahilainen and Claudio PRC. Claudio's track in this mix is as-of-yet unreleased and will be unleashed in early 2010.
We hope 2010 will be a succesfull year for Techno music and Prologue again. At least our list of our upcoming releases looks promising. We would like to say thank you to all of you for your support and we hope you will enjoy our label podcast and music. Peace.
Spontaneous, as are all my favorite mixes, I had to arrive at the the point of forgetting that I had to make a mix for this site, in order to have a satisfying free-jam, which resulted in the mix below.
I went through many different ideas and mixes over the last eight months (!) before realizing that this was the one I would submit. I found myself tending toward conceptual ideas, and had many a listening session. Originally, I intended to send in those sessions as well, in order to show the actual process behind a rather obsessive-compulsive mind.
In the end, however, I just put on a record that I wanted to listen to, without a plan of making a mix at all. I realized how much I love that first record. I stopped it, set the needle back to the beginning, pressed record and listened to it almost all the way through while finding the next one. And so it went. No organization, plan or style, no pressure...just a bit of fun and some records that I like.
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