Mule Musiq‘s Endless Flight label will release Sascha Funke’s Lotos Land LP—the Berlin-based DJ-producer’s first solo album since 2008.

The album takes its title and artwork from Alfred Tennyson’s 1833 poem, ‘The Lotos-Eaters,” a work that has taken on a particular relevance and fascination for Funke in light of the turbulent world events of 2016. The artwork, by Mule Musiq/Endless Flight and Smallville’s regular illustrator Stefan Marx, is itself an interpretation of a 1901 Lotos-Eaters-inspired illustration by British painter William Edward Frank Britten.

Despite spending significant moments of his early career in Cologne, Sascha Funke is resolutely a product of the city of his birth, Berlin. It is with one of the city’s most famous techno labels, Ellen Allien’s BPitch Control, that Funke released his previous two solo LPs, with the last Mango arriving nine years ago. Since then, Funke has been largely focused on the Saschienne project alongside Julienne Dessagne, which issued its debut LP Unknown through Kompakt in 2012 and has been a regularly touring live act in the years since. The past year has, however, seen a renewed focus on Funke’s solo productions, with two new EPs for Canadian imprints Multi Culti and Tiga’s Turbo Recordings.

Funke credits his work with Dessagne as a key influence on the sound of his new record, which finds him “moving into vibrantly diverse sounds more commonly associated with Endless Flight, Optimo Music, and Kompakt’s Hippie Dance imprint,” says the label. The latter pair have both released EPs from Dessagne’s Fantastic Twins solo project. Having previously worked almost exclusively with samples and at a computer, these new associations led to a renewed focus on live and analog instrumentation, utilizing different synths that “allowed Funke to engage more emotionally with the music he created.”

Tracklisting

01 Pogo Logo
02 Comala ft. David Junto Club & Emily Evans
03 Purple Hill
04 Lotos Land
05 Twirl
06 Saint Seven
07 Amber Light
08 Im Feiern Und Feuer ft. Autarkic
09 Shepherd’s Crook
10 O, Rest Ye, We Will Not Wander More

Lotos Land is scheduled for June 9 release, with clips streamable below.