Q+A: Beastie Respond Announces New EP on RDG’s Circle Vision

Copenhagen-based artist Tobias Pedersen (a.k.a. Beastie Respond) is next up on Ruben Dag Nielsen’s (a.k.a. RDG) Circle Vision imprint.

Beastie Respond released his debut album Fictitious Nostalgia back in 2013, and has been on a bit of a hiatus since. His next release will be via Circle Vision, a label that has so far mainly put out music by RDG himself, as well as the likes of K Man, Piezo and Clearlight. The forthcoming EP, Back to the Future, features vocals by Alia Fresco on the title track, as well as a remix by Silkie.

Back to the Future will hit stores on June 6. Check out a Beastie Respond mix below that he put together alongside the EP.

We caught up with Pedersen and label head RDG ahead of the release.

How did the link between Circle Vision and Beastie Respond happen?
Beastie Respond: RDG and I have been close friends for quite a while, and I have previously released a few tracks on his other label, Surfase Records. So with a slight chance of sounding very cliché, I’d say that it was a natural progression to move on to Circle Vision. I’ve learned down the line that I prefer to work with people that I know and feel comfortable with, so for me it’s great to be on board the Circle Vision spacecraft. We have a somewhat similar taste in music, and there is a consistency in our approach to music that makes Circle Vision and Beastie Respond an excellent match (or maybe it’s a match between me and RDG, I’m not sure).

RDG: As Beastie Respond says, we have been close friends for quite a while and we have been working together on several projects; music, parties and drinking (yes, this is a project). We are likeminded in so many ways, and although we produce very different music, we still like the same stuff. I have been a huge fan of his track “Wait For Me” (also with Alia Fresco) for years, and when he sent “Back to the Future,” I had on repeat for months. We decided to release it on Circle Vision, which I am very pleased about. We share music and ideas all the time, and he released music on my other label, Surfase, so it was destiny to have him on my second label as well.

Can you tell us about the Copenhagen scene and your ties to it?
Beastie Respond: Let me start by saying that the Copenhagen scene is very diverse. I think there is a bit for everyone here at the moment – lots of techno in different variations, noise stuff that I don’t know so much about—the night life here is pretty great in general. I’ve been playing out a bit more over the last few months and experienced the crowds as being more receptive towards weird stuff than I remember from earlier on. Both RDG, myself and the young duo Code Walk are doing a footwork/slow-fast night in the meatpacking district called Lash Out, which have been surprisingly successful so far. Because of that, and because of the Circle Vision parties, I feel that my ties to the Copenhagen scene are getting tighter again after a couple of years of being kind of loose.

RDG: The Copenhagen scene is very small and diverse, which forces you out of your comfort zone, to new genres, parties and people. This city can house it all and people here are just really up for a good party! No matter the genre and venue, it’s fine as long as it’s well made, quality sound and artists. Therefore we started Lash Out with Code Walk at the Jolene venue, which people have been very supportive of. We’ve also got Lowpass TV (which Beastie Respond and I started back in 2012), a live streaming event for local artists and DJs. Then I’ve got my Circle Vision night, where I have been presenting sounds from all over Europe and will continue to do so. Next party is Beastie Respond’s pre-release party with Om Unit in May.

Tobias, it’s been three years since you put out your last release. Why the long wait, and what have you been up to in the meantime? Is the new EP the start of a new chapter?
Beastie Respond: Don’t rub it in like that! It’s been quite frustrating from time to time actually, I’ve been doing a lot of pondering of what to do with this Beastie Respond fella, but ended up deciding to stick with him. New tracks and songs has been scarce to be honest. I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out where to take my sound next, and there is about a million scrapped ideas that will never see the light of the day. So, I’ve been trying to develop my sound at the right pace for me. There is no point in stressing and putting out music that I’d get tired of too fast. You could say that it is a start of a new chapter.

Where does your obsession with ‘80s aesthetics come from? Is there a thematic link running through your debut album Fictitious Nostalgia, to your new EP Back to the Future?
Beastie Respond: I think what I create with the ‘80s references is a combination of melancholia and a strange sort of carefree lightness. It’s uplifting and heavy at the same time. On Fictitious Nostalgia it was a very deliberate decision to make it very ‘80s sounding. I know Back to the Future (both the song and the name) sounds very ‘80s, but personally I feel that this EP pulls my fictitious ‘80s nostalgia more into the present (or maybe into the future). As for the song “Back to the Future,” I think Alia Fresco really made sense of it. If you listen to the instrumental, you’ll hear that it’s very retrospective, but I think her songwriting and her ear for melodies made this song a modern piece of music.

Circle Vision’s output so far has primarily revolved around your own project, RDG, and certainly around dubstep. The new Beastie Respond 12″ involves neither and indeed strays quite far from dubstep. Does Back to the Future signal a change of direction? What does the near future hold for Circle Vision and for RDG?
RDG: That is true. To be honest, Circle Vision was never meant to be just a dubstep label, but rather my label as the sounds and vibes I like and represent. I have released tracks on Surfase in different tempos, by myself and other producers, and when I play out I tend to play stuff in 160-170BPM, as well as in 140BPM. So, it’s a natural progression for Circle Vision to release stuff in this area and to open up the label to another audience and artists. But saying that, Circle Vision will of course continue to release music in 140BPM and I’ve already got a couple of 12” releases lined up for this year with Causa, Taiko, Cessman, ROOT, Leon Switch and more! Also K Man and I will be touring North America this June to spread the Circle Vision sound and promote our ‘Lost On Earth’ project!

Ryan Elliott Mixes Fabric 88

Berghain and Panorama Bar resident Ryan Elliott has been handed control of the next Fabric mix CD, which will be released in June.

Ryan Elliott was raised just outside Detroit, but has been living in Berlin since 2009. Prior to that, he had first performed at London’s Fabric back in 2005. On his relationship with the club, he explains that it has “always been about getting lost and locked into one continuous groove. It’s never been about stand alone “songs.” That’s what I hope to achieve with this mix – a sum of parts that together create one whole feeling of rhythm.”

Elliott’s last official mix was his contribution to the Panorama Bar series in 2014. The forthcoming Fabric CD is made up of 24 tracks, and is described as a “groove-oriented mix.” Selections include material by the likes of Robert Hood, DVS1, Fiedel, and Wincent Kunth.

Fabric 88 is due out June 17, and can be pre-ordered at the club’s store.

Tracklisting:
01 King Cheetah “Water Maze” [Light Body Works]
02 Borrowed Identity “LFI” [Hardgroove]
03 Wincent Kunth “Unknown Deep” [Marcel Dettmann Records]
04 Black Boxx “Black Boxx EP2 (B1)” [Ferrispark]
05 DJ Skull “Revenge Of The Synth” [Chiwax]
06 Phil Moffa “Ignition” [The Corner]
07 Fiedel “Back Door (Tallmen 785 Remix)” [Fiedeltwo]
08 Lapien “Searching” [Mistress]
09 Kid Sublime “The Loop” [Dopeness Galore]
10 Tensal “Achievement 3” [Float]
11 Bas Mooy “Nearby Silent Horses” [Mord]
12 3KZ “Machine” [Fides]
13 The Persuader “Inre Stenen” [Templar]
14 Anna Caragnano & Donato Dozzy “Parola” [Spectrum Spools]
15 DVS1 “Tracking” [HUSH]
16 James Ruskin ‎”The Outsider” [Blueprint]
17 Robert Hood “Master Jack” [Dekmantel]
18 Mike Parker “Luminescent Black” [Inkblots]
19 Orion “Patos” [GKNSTR]
20 Steve O’Sullivan & Ben Sims present High-Life “Five Fingers In The West (UK Gold Remix)” [Mosaic]
21 Sub Space “Eleven + Twelve (Locked Grooves)” [Minimalizm]
22 Z.I.P.P.O “Shift” [LDNwht]
23 Jack Murphy “B1” [Reference]
24 Anne-James Chaton with Alva Noto & Andy Moor “Chapitre VIII: Nihon No Tabi” [Raster-Noton]

Watch Carl Craig’s Fresh Reinterpretation of his Modular Pursuits Album

Detroit icon and the mastermind behind the beloved imprint Planet E, Carl Craig is one of the most lionized and sought after techno producers in electronic music. Recently, Carl Craig performed a rare, live performance at ARTE Concert Festival in Paris, France, showcasing his experimental mindset and the baffling finesse he exercises in creating incomparable sonic landscapes.

The 72-minute performance is a reinterpretation of his live album Modular Pursuits, which he released under his No Boundaries moniker in 2010.

You can watch the full video by going to Arte.tv here.

Learn more about ARTE Concert Festival by going here.

Podcast 435: Valentin Stip

It’s been over two years since Valentin Stip released his Sigh LP on Nicolas Jaar’s Other People imprint. The eight-tracker, which followed on from two EPs on the New York-based label, reflected Stip’s more experimental side, providing a platform on which to combine his training in classical piano with a rapidly developing penchant and understanding for electronic production. Music from the Parisian-born artist has always been deep, intelligent and expressive—“It is my substitute for words,” he says—but Sigh distanced itself considerably from the dancefloor, capturing Stip’s personal melancholy due to circumstances at the time. “My sound was so particular in the first records that I put out—but that was reflective of a certain time in my life.”

Now based in Berlin, having moved from Montreal, Stip continues to produce—but absent of his full studio set up and anguish that fueled his earlier work, the scope of his sound has broadened considerably. Releases, though under an undisclosed number of aliases, remain frequent, but there is nothing yet personal enough to warrant association with his real name. If I have an idea or a track that I cannot fit into any of the pre-existing aliases then I will just make another one,” he says. Linked closely to this is his DJing. For long periods it was more common to see him booked for his innovative and widely-acclaimed live set—but things are different today. While his live performances are limited to just a few per year, his DJ sets are becoming increasingly frequent.

It becomes apparent from our conversations that Stip’s downtempo ambient productions are just one side of his artistic character. Given their emotional nature and his reluctance to associate publicly with releases under his other aliases, it’s natural that many people feel a deep connection to this small pool of works. DJing, he says, serves as a valuable vehicle through which he can reveal his wider musical knowledge, and a contribution to the XLR8R podcast series seemed like a fitting platform for all involved.

XLR8R Podcast 435 – Valentin Stip

RVNG Intl. Devises New Collaborative Series; Share Fiercely Colorful Music Video

Brooklyn-based experimental electronic music label RVNG Intl. has recently revealed a new series of collaborations spun from and centered around RVNG’s Lower East Side nest. With a rich history of supporting artists and creatives in NYC and beyond, RVNG Intl. and the store/creative space Commend in Lower Manhattan have titled this collaborative series Commend See. According to the press release, the series is “an endeavor that identifies artists working in different mediums, but existing in the same energy field of this diverse venue.”

Phoebe Guillemot’s (a.k.a RAMZi) new album, For Haku, is the first entry in the Commend See series and is released in conjunction with Strange Fires, an installation by Jessica Hans, an illustrator and ceramic artist who has created a fiercely colorful, disorienting, and kaleidoscopic music video for the album cut “OO”— which can be watched in the player above.

An artist edition of six unique LPs will be available at the opening, alongside a cassette edition of For Haku. Strange Fires opens at Commend on April 21 and is on view through May 12, 2016. Learn more by going here.”

Robin Ball “Fionn”

After a thirteen year hiatus, the dance music maverick Robin Ball is back with a re-launch of his time-honored imprint Groovepressure. Existing at the forefront of Chicago and Detroit styled tech house in the early 2000s, Ball plans to release new music, remixes, and re-masters of classic tracks that came out on his Groovepressure imprint. The label-head claims that “Groovepressure in 2016 is about keeping these influences fresh whilst looking towards the future.”

To help kick things off with this newly revived record label, Robin Ball has teamed up with the duo Stopouts for a new, radiant EP that features two new cuts and two re-mastered tracks from these seasoned artists. Ahead of this forthcoming release, Ball has offered up “Fionn” as todays XLR8R download. The track is properly described as a “aqueous and widescreen track with dubby chords, bubbling bass, and a serene sense of Motor City soul that makes you feel as well as dance.”

You can download “Fionn” below via WeTransfer.

Fionn

Donato Dozzy Announces New EP

Donato Dozzy has shared details of his next EP, which will drop on Spazio Disponibile next month.

Dozzy set up Spazio Disponibile alongside long-time collaborator (and the other half of Voices From The Lake) Neel back earlier this year, as an outlet for their own music, and other friends of the artists. The pair organise a party by the same name in Rome, and the label thus offers a platform for guests who record in their studio in the days leading up to the party. The next EP will come from Dozzy himself, and is made up of four rolling techno cuts.

Spazio Disponible 2 will hit stores on May 9, and can be pre-ordered here. Check out snippets below.

Petar Dundov Set to Release Album via Belgium’s Music Man Records

Croatian DJ-producer Petar Dundov is set to release a new album entitled At The Turn of Equilibrium on the Belgian music label Music Man Records.

The eight-tracker is Dundov’s fifth long-player and encompasses all of the inimitable production qualities of his previous albums, while exploring a broader set of moods and themes.

Dundov explains: “This time, in addition to using more sound textures, I introduced parts with classical instruments like piano and strings. As the album is about life and how it evolves, from purely a physical body to a thinking person, the songs are sequenced from faster, simple-rhythmic, cyclic, body moving tracks to slower, more complex layered, beatless mind tracks.”

Tracklisting:

01. Then Life (04.51)
02. The Lattice (10.18)
03. Before It All Ends (10.17)
04. Midnight Orchestra (09.09)
05. Mist (10.47)
06. New Hope (06.51)
07. Missing You (12.33)
08. Everlasting Love (12.07)

At The Turn of Equilibrium is available via Music Man Records on May 6, 2016.

New Vester Koza EP Forthcoming on Houndstooth

Almost a year after his last outing, London-based Vester Koza is set to make a welcome return with a new EP, entitled OTR.

Featuring four paranoid and atmospheric cuts, for the first time it finds him step away from his own Maslo label in favor of Houndstooth.

OTR is scheduled for May 27 release via Houndstooth.

Tracklisting:
A1 – OT_R~cord [4.10]
B1 – ROBOCow.exe
B2 – served_on_barm [4/3]
B3 – ZRTP [P-Bass_special]

Artwork made by Sarah Hammond.

A Sagittariun Elasticity

The music of Bristol’s A Sagittariun might evoke misty-eyed memories of the early ’90s UK dance scene, if you were there. And if you weren’t, then its relation to the era’s prime ambient and techno cuts, to monumental records by Aphex Twin, LFO or The Orb will make you wish you had been. But for all their rave era signifiers and sonic intertextuality, the way this mysterious artist’s tracks most relate to that epoch is in their non-conformity. A Sagittariun wishes to remain anonymous, wanting his tracks to speak for themselves. That’s a common thread in dance culture. But unlike the vast majority of his peers, this producer treats tempos playfully and genre borders with the disdain they deserve, including within his excellent releases counter-cultural messages and allusions to a rejection of the mainstream.

So it is with his new, second album Elasticity, the follow-up to 2013’s trippy Dream Ritual. That record arrived at a time when ambient was anathema and few thought that harking back to Warp’s Artificial Intelligence compilation series was a viable idea. But A Sagittariun’s music arrived unencumbered by association, advancing head-trip electronics, downtempo breakbeats and swirling atmospherics in a decidedly new skin. Like his earlier EPs, Born Under 22 Stars or Carina, Dream Ritual was a reminder of how extraordinary the early ’90s were for music, a time before dance music had been completely co-opted by the mainstream and turned into a megabucks international industry. A sense of innocence and hope pervaded Dream Ritual, and seemed to capture the zeitgeist—the desire by some to break away from the monotony of functional club fodder and strive towards something more fulfilling.

Since then things have changed. Newer records by Bicep or Answer Code Request, to name just two, relate to the musical freedom of this era, unafraid to break with the tyranny of 4/4. Elasticity arrives at a time when heads are far more receptive to broken beats and deeper realms of sound. Opening with the crisp breaks, sub acid tones and dubwise melodies of “Apokalypsis,” an air of Sheffield bleep drifts into earshot, the ghosts of Sweet Exorcist or early Nightmares on Wax invoked.

“Architect of Your Existence” is full of mystic atmosphere, but is also ripe with joyous, scything saw synths, an incantatory ambient house piece, crisp with crackling effects and distorted crunch. “Blim Burn” is a sinuous, twisting diversion into the clubbier flavour of A Sagittariun’s recent techno 12″s, breakbeat percussion and psychotropic synths key ingredients of his sound. “Chapter & Verse” is a technoid jungle piece, its polyrhythmic tricknology dipped in metallic effects, evoking an otherworldly rainforest at night. The sample from David Cronenberg’s creepy film “Videodrome” at the start further draws us in.

“Composition” is the album’s centerpiece, its gradual build and mournful, strange electro melody reminiscent of Autechre’s Incunabula, but invested with A Sagittariun’s now-distinctive sonic stamp. It’s a haunting work and difficult to dislodge. What’s most striking about the record is the producer’s singular sound. Though it’s easy to compare his music to the ambient and electronica progenitors, Elasticity is very much the product of now—from the depth of production to the modern palette deployed.

The closing series of Transmissions—with their cryptic and not-so-cryptic messages, sampled from counter-cultural figures, each to an ambient backdrop—is vital to understand where A Sagittariun is really at. Embracing ideas outside the norm, and inviting his listeners to do the same, marks him out as different. And when the music is as special, memorable, vital as this, hopefully it will have the desired effect.

Tracklisting:
01. Architect Of Your Existence
02. Blim Burn
03. Transmission From Jesse
04. Apokalypsis
05. Composition
06. Transmission From Terrence
07. The Naming Of The Names
08. Chapter & Verse
09. Slowdive
10. Telescopium
11. Transmission From Alan
12. Quickness
13. Resurrection Of A Memory
14. Transmission From Robert
15. Black Starliner
16. Transmission From Myrtle Avenue

Elastic Dreams will release Elasticity on April 23, 2016.

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