ALEX BANKS released his critically acclaimed second album ‘Beneath The Surface’ on Max Cooper’s Mesh Label in 2019, and it perfectly showcased Alex ability to blend raw beats, and melodic emotion with genres like Techno, Electronica and Old Skool Rave. Following his debut album on Modeselektor’s Monkeytown Records, ‘Beneath The Surface’ harnessed elements of live performance, at times free-flowing and unpredictable, seamlessly fused with forward-thinking technical production.
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‘Beneath The Surface’ has now been remixed and split into 2 x E.P.’s due out in the first half of 2020.
E.P. 1 includes mixes by Ital Tek / Thomas Ragsdale / Thomas Gandey/ Jinjé & L.U.
E.P. includes mixes by Max Cooper, Robot Koch, Nicolas Bougaïeff, Ryan Davis, Thomas Ragsdale
Grab your copy HERE.
REMIXERS:
Max Cooper
Few have been so successful in interrogating and furthering the intersection between electronic music, visual art, technology and science in the past decade as Max Cooper. Working with close collaborators and large- scale institutions like the Barbican, Zaha Hadid Architects and Dolby Atmos, Cooper has developed a mixed- media approach to creation. Whether a walk-through light installations, groundbreaking use of 4D sound, or club-ready techno releases, Cooper’s output is a classic case of electronic exploration that makes use of available technology while referencing that which came before it, and does so in a human way.
What now drives the Belfast-born artist as he set out on a fresh cycle for his fourth studio album Yearning for the Infinite was to create a lasting human impression through technology and machinery. The project, which encompasses film and web media as well as Cooper’s typically lush and emotive style, arose through an invitation from the Barbican, asking Cooper to respond to their annual theme of “Life Rewired.” On the resultant LP Yearning for the Infinite, he continues to till the fertile land of “big chord progressions and micro- glitch detailing” that captivated listeners across previous albums Human, Emergence and One Hundred Billion Sparks. He then brings this to life via “really impactful storytelling through the medium of abstract visuals and audio,” as in the lineage of Cooper’s key influences Philip Glass and Chris Cunningham.
Synthesising his interests and presenting it in an accessible way that defies conventional format, Cooper explores concepts of emergence, identity and infinity to create an immersion of sound, vision and concept that can totally remove you from your normal experience of reality and put you somewhere new. At the core, Max Cooper’s mission as a musician, a DJ and an interdisciplinary artist is all about provoking a greater understanding. This is pushed to new depths on Yearning for the Infinite.
Robot Koch
Robot Koch is an award winning producer/composer from Berlin, living in Los Angeles. His unique sound of organic electronic music has been called “Wonderful and Strange – pop music from the future” (by John Peel of the BBC already in 2003), continuing to resonate with a growing audience worldwide.
Koch has released several albums and EPs on Labels such as Monkeytown, Bpitch Control, Project Mooncircle and toured internationally, playing shows and major festivals all over the world.
Koch works as a producer and composer for both indie and major artists worldwide, gaining gold and platinum records for his productions.
He won the German Music Composers Award 2014 in the category “best composer electronic music”.
His music has been used on numerous TV Shows and Films, including NBC’s “The Blacklist”, ABC “how to get away with murder”, ABC “the Catch”, MTV “Teen Wolf” and the trailer for the blockbuster “San Andreas”
Nicolas Bougaïeff
The disarming simplicity of Bougaïeff’s musical style belies the use of unconventional structures. Rooted in 90s rave, 20th century classical, and electroacoustic musics, Bougaïeff’s productions meet the self- imposed challenge of harnessing avant-garde techniques at the service of dancefloor mayhem. It’s been a long winding path that led Bougaïeff to embrace a personal sound, but patience and perseverance have paid off. In the past few years his sound has crystallised; an amalgamation of brutal distortion, playful melodies and textures suggesting off-kilter fantasy.
His Cognitive Resonance 12″, a prime example of this new sound, marked the 2017 relaunch of legendary British label NovaMute and was followed by widely praised debut album Principles of Newspeak on his own label Editions Denkfabrik. His second album Les Sauvageries in 2018, a sonic embodiment of confrontational hedonism, combines modernist cello improvisations with industrial techno and was performed live at Berlin’s infamous KitKatClub. A busy touring schedule blossomed, taking Bougaïeff to Berghain, Fabric, and cities across the world between Los Angeles and Jerusalem. Recent projects include a live audio-visual show in collaboration with video artist Itaru Yasuda and music for Obectra 2018 and 2019 fashion shows
Bougaïeff grew up in small-town Quebec. His first releases date back to 1997 via early netlabels and he played his first live show at a rave in 1999 using tower desktop PCs. After flirting with a career as a pilot, impossible to pursue due to colour blindness, Bougaïeff worked on an oil rig to pay for music studies in Montreal. He completed a composition degree at the Montreal Music Conservatory, quit his job doing music for video games and in 2008, armed with a few dozen demo tracks, moved to Berlin.
The move to Berlin was pivotal for his development, opening his eyes to a cultural world which encouraged new reflections upon his own artistry. Diving into the city’s nightlife led him to reflect upon the deep architecture of the music he was making. Before long, Bougaïeff completed a PhD on minimal techno at the University of Huddersfield, designed the controllers for Richie Hawtin’s Plastikman Live tour, and co-founded Liine, the company behind the landmark music app Lemur used by astronaut Alexander Gerst on the International Space Station in a live jam with Kraftwerk.
An experimentalist in the truest sense of the word, Bougaïeff follows an empirical approach to discover what works. His insatiable musical curiosity led him to produce in countless styles and attracted the attention of a wide swath of industry players. Bougaïeff’s wildly eclectic discography includes numerous experimental and electroacoustic works, a bombastic trance EP on Armin Van Buuren’s Armada label, melodic techno on Traum Schallplatten in collaboration with Max Cooper, the Dust EP on Cooper’s own label Mesh, minimal releases on Trapez that borrow techniques from Reich and Schoenberg, deep house on Maceo Plex’s Ellum, as well as a series of new wave and house excursions with synth-pop project Private Agenda on Tusk Wax and International Feel. Bougaïeff’s music is played by the likes of Adam Beyer, Arnaud Rebotini, Barnt, Blush Response, Boris, Camea, Chris Liebing, Claude Von Stroke, Daniel Miller, Dominik Eulberg, Jamaica Suk (Pornceptual), Laurent Garnier, Lucy, Maceo Plex, Marcel Fengler, Marcel Dettmann, Mary Anne Hobbs (BBC Radio 6), Max Cooper, Michail Stangl (Boiler Room), Nicole Moudaber, Noah Pred, Noir, Norman Nodge, Regis, Sasha to name but a few.
Nicolas Bougaïeff is not only paying homage to the past, he’s spearheading the techno avant-garde.
Ryan Davis
Since 2006 you can follow Ryan Davis´s traces on almost every important melodic electronic music label worldwide such as Erased Tapes, Anjunadeep, Watergate, Traumschallplatten, Bedrock, Last Night on Earth or Klangwelt Records. Touring the planet constantly inspires Ryan´s musical aesthetics whose quality brought him an international fan base and a reputation that is nothing short of remarkable.
Over the years he collected notable attention by a variety of artists out of every electronic music genre such as Aphex Twin, Olafur Arnalds, Stephan Bodzin, Apparat, Max Cooper, Sasha, Vessels, Boys Noise or even Depeche Mode including his music on their ‘Sound of the Universe’ tour. As well he is playing all around the globe being invited to iconic venues like Bilbaos Guggenheim Museum or Berlin´s legendary Funkhaus.
Nowadays Ryan represents a fundamental name in the modern melodic techno culture, in which compositional qualities are a must. His remixes for masterminds like Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm, collaborations with Robot Koch or Alex Banks and recent placements in ABC´s ‘How to get away with Murder’ or the Hugo Boss 2019 Fashion Week underline his work and musical mindset to celebrate & spread the compositional techno which leads the way to establish a world on its own besides pure dj-functionality.
Thomas Ragsdale
Yorkshire based composer Thomas Ragsdale melds cinematic electronica with immersive soundscapes and blissful techno workouts.
Spending his formative years composing a varied catalogue of music for TV, film and advertising companies, his gradual shift into the world of performing music is one that’s quickly won acclaim from the likes of Resident Advisor and FACT. His music has been featured with great effect in two groundbreaking BBC documentaries by Adam Curtis including the acclaimed ‘HyperNormalisation’, where his track ‘Warning Mass’ was featured extensively alongside the likes of Brian Eno, Burial and Aphex Twin. His music has also found its way onto commercials by BMW, Prada and Twitter. Thomas is part of Domino Publishing’s exclusive and prestigious composer roster alongside Jon Hopkins, Siouxsie and the Banshees’ Steve Severin and Beta Band’s Steve Mason.