To coincide with revered techno label Semantica’s 10 year anniversary, we asked label head Svreca for his top tracks from each year of the past decade. Spanning 2006-15, these are his picks – and the story behind them. Catch Svreca at Patterns of Perception 1 Year in About Blank this Sunday, May 21. 2006 Paul Bailey – Multiball From the 126a EP. “Still loving this awesome track from Paul ‘Damage’. This was featured in the first 12” on the label, a record in between techno and IDM with Kero and myself.” - 2007 Vladislav Delay ‎- Recovery IDea (Svreca Edit) From Recovery IDea (Part One). “This one is quite special: it’s my first remix ever and for Vladislav Delay. I remember having this test-pressing for more than a year waiting to enter production due to a lot problems with the distributor. It was finally out in 2008, but the 12” was finished early 2017.” - 2008 Arcanoid – Sad (Talking About) From Prologue. “This is an absolute masterpiece. Arcanoid is probably my favorite Spanish producer; an amazing talent and a true pioneer as a DJ playing a key role in the Spanish scene during the ‘90s. This track was the beginning for the SEMANTICA X, Y, Z 12”s.” - 2009 E.R.P. – Sensory Process From Evoked Potentials (Part One). “Gerard Hanson is a unique producer on many levels, and that’s why every release under his different monikers had that ‘cult’ imprint. So I put this unfinished Evoked Potentials series into my favorite Semantica releases. We definitively need more E.R.P. music.” - 2010 Svreca – Utero (Regis Remix) From Obscur. “This track marks to me an inflection point in my life. Everything started to change with this Obscur 12”; during making and after releasing it. Karl had always played a huge role as an influence to me. Regis, Downwards, BMB, O/V/R, Sandwell District, Jealous God and every alternative pseudonym. Legend.” - 2011 Mike Parker ‎- Thermo From Thermo. “Semantica moves totally to techno at this point. This track is an amazing take from Mike Parker who delivers an awesome 12” for the label.” - 2012 Surgeon – As You Breathe Here Now From Untitled. “One day I received an email from Anthony Child with this astonishing track. After several requests, Tony waited for the right moment to gave me the opportunity to release an original track from him. I built SEMANTICA 50 in a kind of improvisation to give sense to this orphan but key track. Every time I listen this track Labyrinth 2012 came to my mind; was a very special place to unveil this gem.” - 2013 Grischa Lichtenberger – Remel Plus (Svreca Edit) From the For Your Eyes Only Sampler 2. “I made this remix with the ‘For Your Eyes Only’ Mix in mind. A project in between a catalog showcase and the tribute to Konvent (Cal Rosal). Still one of my favorites on the label and a more personal vision of that techno moment.” - 2014 Acronym – Nifelheim From Yggdrasil. “This Acronym 12” is just flawless. No matter which track you pick from this ‘Yggdrasil’, it is Acronym at his best. Dan’s talent and vision is simply brilliant, and I’m sure he will only get better and better with the years.” - 2015 Varg – No Knowledge Of Sorrow Or Regret (Abdulla Rashim Remix) From Variations. “Jonas and Anthony’s contributions for Semantica are priceless. This one is just an example, because they don’t have limits or boundaries in this game.” Full Playlist:

Ida Matsdotter, aka Fjäder, is a Swedish DJ on the rise. Deeply influenced by the natural surroundings of her island base outside Stockholm, she considers her music more than just techno – it has a textured, organic quality that surpasses the purely technological. Ahead of her appearance at Patterns of Perception this Friday, September 22, we sat down to chat about her label Nordanvind, some upcoming releases and the influence of nature on her work. First of all, we’re super excited for your set at Patterns of Perception! How would you describe your sound to those who’ve never seen you play before? I play a lot with layers and filters. A guy once came up and said, ‘Thank you for showing me how to not mix techno’. He was in bliss mode. I kind of like to take it to the next level and play around and improvise a lot. Make art of it. I really like the kind of techno that is deeper and from there I can take it anywhere. Play from the heart is my kind of vibe. Take us right back to where it began. What drew you into the techno scene and how did you get started as a DJ and producer? I was a little girl growing up in a small village. I was not really in tune with anything except nature and music. So I went introvert and played a trance tune over and over. The track was Dance 2 Trance – Power Of American Natives. Later on I ended up at a real rave. I was the weird girl with no social skills standing by the speakers. I just love the monotone vibe in techno and trance. The deep kick and the feeling you get when you stand on a really good dancefloor. Like pure bliss and epicness. When I moved to Stockholm in 2010 I truly became a DJ thanks to my friends Martin and Andreas. Now it’s official. We were just mixing and trixin’ for years. Then I really started to long to make my own music and made some weird thing in Fruity Loops. Later on I met Fabian (Korridor). That was the next level of collaboration and exchange of knowledge. We entered the depths together. We just loved techno and from there it grew. Many hours of sitting alone in the dark and a lot of collaborations later here I am. It takes dedication to come to this point. I don’t consider my music just techno. It’s technological of course but my music comes in layers and grows out of the speakers instead of staying inside. I just do what I like. No compromise. And that is what comes out. At what point did you stop using your real name and start using the DJ moniker Fjäder (‘feather’)? What was the reason behind the change? I was a bit insecure years back. I guess I did not feel I had the support I needed or the confidence. I was back and forth with the names and then I just started to put things out on Fjäder and then it grew. And actually it fits me very well. But I consider myself Ida with the feather and not only Fjäder. I use it as a tool to purify and reflect both myself and the surroundings with frequencies. What’s your idea of the perfect club night? What are the key ingredients for you? Great sound system, awareness and kindness. I am really tired of hard attitudes. I just want to be able to be myself at a party. Just release without anybody disrespecting me or any other soul around. And the music is the most important of course. It creates the vibe. I really like it when people take it to the next level with art and deco too. You live on a smaller island outside Stockholm. Do you take inspiration from the natural environment that surrounds you? Naturally I do. I am a very sensitive person and I easily take in my environment wherever I am. I have noticed that if I go to a big club I start to produce ”big floor music” and if I sit at home in my country house, then the birds and the wind come into the music. But creatively I remain somewhere in twilight between the city and the nature. I love both. But to answer the question, I have wonderful nature and I love to walk barefoot in the forest and record all the creatures of the woods. The woodpecker is so techno and the blackbird is a master of frequencies. Especially in moonlight. Tell us a bit about your label Nordanvind – the artwork and release titles are very recognisable. What is the philosophy behind the label? Is anyone else involved in this project with you? I felt a bit different from the rest of the techno crowd at a point. I don’t blame them. I can be a bit introverted and hard to get at first. My idea of the scene was bit more poetic and esoteric. So I decided to start my own vibe. On many levels I feel it springs from a very sacred and pure source. Eternal. I also have the pleasure to add another of my skills. I am a poet and have been so for a very long time. Nordanvind is my fairy tale. On my label, I release the people that naturally are drawn into the label. Like destiny. I work with an amazing female artist name BIRDIE. She makes the artwork. She is truly amazing. She made the artwork spot on already from the beginning with the eyes. It’s a kind of awakening process for me and the people who want to tag along. Johanna Krikonnenko have also been a very great source on the design and inspiration part. I recently started to collaborate with Eyvind Blix, Hampus Bogren and Linn Elisabet to take my label into the next phase. This collaboration will include new releases starting with Eyvind Blix and then also label nights in Stockholm and hopefully worldwide. Finally I found my collective of people that I feel will last. Pure intentions. I consider us a collective of people working together to create the northern wind. It’s definitely a ice cold wind of awareness blowing over the lands here from north. A fairytale with darkness and light, sadness and delight. And I can’t wait to show you the new winds that are coming. Winter is coming. Do you have any upcoming releases planned that we should know about? My computer is kind of stuffed with my own unreleased stuff at this point. I am starting to go a bit crazy. But the next VA on Nordanvind should be delivered in the following weeks. Right on time for ice and snow. It is a collaboration with Karl Bult and a remix made by me, Korridor and Jana Sleep. Can’t wait. Your appearance at Patterns of Perception on September 22 will be your first in Berlin in awhile. Do you have plans for your set, or do you like to keep things open? I always have a grand masterplan hahahaha but… in the end I will improvise with my library of ”broken records” to break and shake up. Emotions to stir up and passion to burn. But I have a feeling it will be very sensual and deep. Lastly, which tracks have you had on heavy rotation lately and why? From Power of American Natives. Logic Records, 1993. This track made me become a DJ and I love the vibe and the message in it. - Eyvind Blix – Asika. Unreleased. Because this guy is simply brilliant - From The Brooklyn Sessions. Pinkman, 2017. Very sexy music. – Jana Sleep – Lost His Crown Virvelvind, 2017 Her soul saved me. – Fjäder – Purification Because I long for this to be released Fjäder Links: Soundcloud Facebook

Agonis has earned his growing cult status thanks to an increasingly impressive CV: resident at the club Elysia in Basel, co-founder of the amenthia recordings imprint with good friend Garçon, a debut performance at 2017’s edition of the revered Labyrinth festival and a trip to Taiwan for Organik festival slated for 2018. This Friday, Patterns of Perception hosts his first international live show, in which followers can expect to hear lots of unreleased music and new productions from the versatile Swiss DJ/producer. Ahead of his set, we sat down to chat about his influences, the diversity of the Swiss scene and his ghetto house loving doppelgänger. Tell us a bit about the Agonis sound. How would you describe your live set to someone who hasn’t seen you play before? I would describe the Agonis sound as subtle, trippy and atmospheric techno for the dancefloor. When playing live I try to present my productions in a different way and arrange some tracks on the fly. What or who has been your main musical influences as a producer? This is something that changes constantly, but when I started producing it was mainly house artists like Chez Damier, Argy or STL. That was almost ten years ago, so it is a bit hard to remember. Then I got into Detroit techno artists like Jeff Mills, Robert Hood or Joris Voorn (no, he’s not from Detroit, I know). My first release Panspermia, which I produced around that time, is actually a tribute to that sound. I also love dub techno, especially artists like Moritz von Oswald, Mark Ernestus, Levon Vincent and Prince Of Denmark. But in the end I find inspiration in all the music I like (there is so much good music out there) and even in my own productions. Because every track of mine is sort of like a snapshot of my timeline, it’s like looking back at old pictures of yourself and thinking stuff like “hmm, you looked fresh in 2012! Why don’t you grow your hair out again?” How have influences like Detroit techno and even house music defined your sound as a DJ, and what differentiates it from your live sets? It is very important for me to be a versatile DJ. It’s so boring to stick to one style and it will certainly not help anyone to become a good producer. Playing all these different styles – from deep house to jungle to disco to dubstep – shaped the way I play in general. My DJ sets should work in every situation, depending on the location, the time, the vibe, the headliner or the crowd, while my live set is something I cannot really adapt to special circumstances and where I have to decide in advance if it will work in the specific setting. Tell us a bit about the local scene in Basel: how would you describe the Swiss sound? Any standout acts, clubs or parties for you? Is there a strong appetite for deep techno locally? I don’t think there is a Swiss sound but it’s very interesting to see how different the scenes in the cities of Switzerland are, despite being so close to each other. There is not as much exchange as in other countries, but that’s probably because of the Swiss mentality. Here in Basel we are quite spoiled, because there are amazing venues, artists and promoters. Elysia is one of the coolest clubs I have ever been to (full disclosure: I am a resident and promoter there) and has gained a strong reputation among fantastic DJs. There are a lot of deep techno acts playing there and the music is often well-received among the guests, even if it can be considered niche music in our city. You played at OHM for the Wake Up x Amenthia party in early 2017, but your set at Patterns of Perception will be your first international live performance. What can we expect on February 9? I’ll be performing a lot of unreleased and new productions for the first time. I’m very excited and looking forward to playing at OHM for you guys, because the environment really suits my music! You played at the famed Labyrinth festival in Japan last year and now you’re on the bill for Organik in Taiwan this coming April. Have you enjoyed playing to crowds in Asia, and how much do you find the vibe differs in countries around the world? Performing in Asia is amazing and of course playing at Labyrinth is a once in a lifetime experience. I played in some Asian countries before and the scenes are always different. What I find remarkable in Japan for example is that the crowds are very aware of the music and there is not as much debauchery as in Europe. Being respectful and kind to each other is very central to Japanese culture and you can feel this on every dancefloor. You run Amenthia Recordings along with Garçon, with your latest EP Maschinenlogik released on the label in December. What’s coming up for the label this year? And what else does 2018 have in store for you? In spring we are going to release the next EP by Tafeit (1/3 of Varuna). A wonderful breakbeat release! Then we are planning to release a remix record with amazing artists on it, which will hopefully come out in summer/fall and we want to put out our first album on the label by the end of 2018! I will soon be part of an amazing new label from Asia and the first EP is a killer V.A. with awesome producers on it. In researching this interview we came across this Instagram account and just had to ask about the story here. Who is Trauminic? Haha, many people think it’s me but he just resembles me. I think he’s from L.A. but I’ve seen him performing a couple of times in Basel. He plays Ghetto House, House and Hip-Hop and like many people on Instagram he’s a social media addicted narcissistic dickhead. Looks like he totally lost track of what is really important in life. Have you heard the productions he has on Youtube? Haha, hilarious! Lastly, what’s the release you’re most looking forward to in 2018? Two good friends of mine released a human baby last week, that was really sweet! Catch Agonis on February 9, 2018 at Patterns of Perception feat. Agonis, Jacopo & Paula Koski Photo credits: Main image taken by Jimmy Hochstrasser. Labyrinth images by Kazuhiko Kimishita.

Paula Koski is a relative newcomer to techno, having started DJing just one year ago. In that short time, the Finnish talent has played underground gigs in Helsinki and Sweden, played an ambient set at Flow Festival, and started her own deep techno night at club Kaiku in Helsinki. Next Friday, February 9, Paula delivers her debut Berlin performance at Patterns of Perception. In the lead up to her ambient techno opening set, we asked her for five tracks that have inspired her sound. From Volumi Dinamici. Semantica, 2017. Claudio PRC is one of my biggest inspirations, and I have probably played his tracks on each of my gigs regardless if I’m opening or closing. This track is a collaboration with Blazej Malinowski, another extremely talented one-of-a-kind producer. Check out his Dark Awakenings album, released with Claudio’s and Ness’ TGP label. – From Shades of Light. Shaded Explorations, 2016. This track by Fjäder, aka Ida Matsdotter, defines my taste in ambient techno pretty well. It’s dark and ominous but at the same time it a maintains fresh and modern sound. There is a bunch of great music coming from Sweden where I currently live. – From Deep Blue. Hypnus, 2014. If I remember right, this is THE track that started my interest on deep techno, and it was played at Deep Space Helsinki radio show (another great source of new releases) in 2014. Luigi has such a unique and hypnotising soundscape, and his tracks always inspire and impress me. – From C H O N. Eklero, 2016. I just recently came across Retina.it (better late than never), and immediately fell in love with their experimental and contemporary touch on ambient techno. I really like the bleeping, a bit distorted sound in this track. Italians make amazing techno. – From Eco.  Hypnus, 2014. After discovering Luigi’s sounds, I started following Hypnus Records, one of my favourite labels, and found Jana Sleep. Beautiful, atmospheric sounds throughout the album. Hot tip: This release is available as a “name your price” download on Bandcamp. Full Playlist: Catch Paula on February 9, 2018 at Patterns of Perception feat. Agonis, Jacopo & Paula Koski

Influenced by the soundtrack of mid-nineties video games like Wipeout 2097 and Ridge Racer, Italian-born Jacopo looks beyond the horizon of emerging trends, using personal anecdotes to inform his musical direction as both DJ and label manager. Jacopo founded Midgar in 2014 in the pursuit of innovation in the realm of modern techno. From humble beginnings and with the help of his brother, Midgar now boasts 18 releases and an impressive roll call of artists like Wata Igarashi, Von Grall and Ruhig, to name a few. Helping to usher in our first party of 2018, Jacopo shared 10 tracks which highlight special moments in the timeline of his label’s history. Catch him this Friday for his debut Patterns of Perception performance alongside Agonis and Paula Koski. Wata Igarashi – Valve From the Mariana Wax 000 EP, 2013. Please grant me an extra title to introduce the list, which is actually one of the reasons why Midgar exists. The story has already been told, but I want to remind people about how I discovered Wata: it was thanks to this cut, released on Dave Twomey’s Mariana Wax first and only release before he passed away. Anthony Linell (Abdulla Rashim) was supposed to be on that record, a VA with tracks from Mike Parker and Dave himself. Anthony was busy or without new material at that moment, so he suggested this track by Igarashi instead. Big Thanks to Dave and Anthony! – Ruhig – Lost in the Instability From the Lost in the Instability EP, 2014. The first track made by Luigi “Gigi” Cicchella under his new alias Ruhig. After abandoning his old -Audiolouis- project, Gigi sent me some fresh music, techno with a very interesting IDM influence. Gigi’s Lost in The Instability EP is 002 on Midgar, but the track itself was ready much before Igarashi´s 001. It in fact helped a lot to show Wata that track and to convince him to release on Midgar! I just remember how much he liked it and told me straight away “if this is what you want to do on Midgar, then I‘m in.” – Wata Igarashi – The Summon From the Junctions EP, 2014. I consider the whole Junctions EP still very good, but The Summon remains my favourite cut. Here‘s why: I remember handing a few copies of the vinyl to my friend Luz, on her way to Freerotation 2014 and asked her to give one to Joey Anderson on my behalf. Some time later, I was listening to random mixes on SoundCloud while working, and this track started playing in my headphones. My initial thought was that the player got back on my label page, but it was actually running as the first track on a Joey Anderson set recorded at Dekmantel UFO Tent.. I was freaking out! – Cloned – Sapphire 1990 From the Sapphire 1990 EP, 2015. The Sapphire 1990 EP by Cloned from Malta landed in the early stages of the label. The “Midgar sound” was not defined yet and I wanted to extend the range to Acid. We received some negative critiques about it, saying that compared to the modern approach of the first two releases, this one represented a sort of regression. It’s probably also because of the claps, as usually there are no claps on Midgar. I still find this track one of the most emotional and timeless of the whole catalogue, and that acid line keeps bringing to my mind nostalgic memories from a rave. I released it thinking it would make a good closing track for a packed dancefloor. – Ruhig – Eddying From the Particles EP, 2016. Eddying was the first “hit” on Midgar. Out on the well-received MDG005.1, this track, despite not being my fav of the release (which is indeed Particles), was the driving force that brought some much-needed attention to the label. It was an unexpected surprise for me to sell out the record in such a short time (like 2 months) and to even plan a repress! - Ruhig – Pulse Width (Wata Igarashi Remix) From the Lost in the Instability Remixes EP, 2015. It has a stressful – and for some people, unpleasantly oppressive vibe, however, it is in my view Wata`s deepest cut, where sound signature is very strong and therefore challenging to the audience. This record got played by Nuel at Labyrinth 2015 and skipped several times, according to Wata‘s interview for Resident Advisor Breaking Through. - Ruff Cherry – Endless World (Future Mix) From the Ritual EP, 2015. Irish producer Ruff Cherry is the oldest artist from my roster, and the one with the biggest archive of music productions. I spent more than one year going through his folders to put together the Ritual EP. This track was actually a fresh one! James did this Future Mix after I asked to re-use and focus on one specific element from its original IDM version, still available in free download via XLR8R you can hear the sample at 2.11min. - Von Grall – A Secant Line From the A Secant Line EP, 2016. Brice surprised me with this one. Exactly the kind of deep and hypnotic music I wanted to release on Midgar. I remember listening to its mastering, completely stoned during my first experience at ADE in Amsterdam. It felt like entering some virtual reality just by closing my eyes and sinking into it. Definitely my favourite cut from Von Grall. - Shaded Explorer – Emerald Weapon From the Emerald Weapon EP, 2016. Among ten other tracks Emanuele proposed me, this one in particular convinced me to work with him on the release. At around 3.30min, it reminded me somehow of the atmospheres in Final Fantasy VII, the video game which entirely inspired the imagery of the label. - Wata Igarashi – Lucifero (Orphx Remix) From the Ciphers Remixes EP, 2017. I’ve suggested titles for the tracks few times, trying to visualise and describe them (only if the artist agreed with it, of course). The original from Wata sounded to me veeery bright, like a colourful psychedelic trip, and Lucifero in this case was intended as ‘the morning star’ or the ‘the light bringer’ from ancient Pythagorian astronomy (referred to planet Venus) and not as the alternative name used for Satan. Orphx picked it, with no surprise, for the remix. When the record was finally out, I had the pleasure to have some chats with Rich Oddie (½ Orphx) about the illustrated cover and its parallelism between their remix, infused with references to Gnosticism (the speech in the track comes from The Process Church, a 60’s Cult started in the UK) and my artwork. This conversation gave me chills, also because none of us knew about the other’s inspiration but things matched perfectly. Please see the first comment under the clip on YouTube. - r²π ‎– The Labyrinth From the Library of Babel EP, 2017. Extrapolating tracks from Ruhig, Retina.it and PRG/M’s first combined live set, gave birth to the Library Of Babel EP. The concept of the release and its titles are inspired by the works of Argentinian writer Luis Borges. Borges got worldwide recognition for his novels about parallel realities, magic numbers, esotericism and the infinite repetitions of events through time. The record was first out at Hard Wax, with no plans whatsoever to have it out on a precise day (as you might know, it is very hard to know when a record will be out for real in the stores), but we soon realised it was on the anniversary of his passing. For the occasion I designed the record sleeve as a re-edition of the original book cover from The Library Of Babel. I strongly recommend you give it a read! Full Playlist:

Berlin music lovers might recognise Laura BCR from Bass Cadet Records, a vinyl outlet and clothing shop on Neukölln’s Weserstrasse which she ran with friends until late 2016. The shop’s closure sparked a relocation for the now Barcelona-based DJ, though she still retains a close connection – musically and personally – with her former home base. As she prepares for another move, this time back to her native France after the coming summer, we caught up with Laura about her many creative projects, from running the booking agency and record label On Board Music to organising club nights at venues around Europe. Your DJ sets are versatile and vinyl-only, spanning techno, house and electro. What can we expect from your upcoming set for the Patterns of Perception Two Years party? I’m trying to build something different every time. It takes me lot of time to prepare a DJ set. It’s important for me to create a story. That’s also what I’m trying to do with the records on the label because playing records to play records doesn’t really interest me. I love assembling things. And of course that really depends on how my mood will be. So it might be something really trippy. It would be cool to get a smoke machine though! Take us back a little bit – how did you first discover electronic music and get into DJing yourself? I discovered electronic music super young. My sister, who is 12 years older than me, has always been into music. She travelled a lot and would bring some treasures from abroad. Also, I starting going very young to free parties in the south of France and I bought my first turntables super young too, though I was not really mixing, just collecting. It took me a while to really start. Then I met my best friend Etienne and we started to organise parties and playing. I would say it’s only five years I’m really mixing more often. It was difficult for me to step up and start to play in front of people. I’ve always been surrounded by really good DJs so it’s not always easy to say, ‘okay I can do it, this is not such a big deal, just do your thing and play what you like, everything is gonna be fine’. You’re playing at parties around Europe, organising your own club nights, and running the booking agency On Board and associated label On Board Music. Do you consider yourself a DJ, label boss or producer above all else? How do the different aspects of your career complement each other? Yeah this is a lot! I’ve always worked in music. First as a production manager then store co-owner then booking agent. DJing is a passion. Same as (collecting) records. Managing all this together and playing I would say is an accident motivated by passion. I’ve always been hyperactive since I was really young. For your label On Board Music, you’ve said that you’re not interested in releasing club music. What releases would you most recommend for a lazy Sunday spent at home? I listen to a lot of different stuff, from jazz to ambient, also rock to folk. My boyfriend is from Argentina so we also used to listen to a lot of folk music from South America. Violeta Parra is a must, in terms of ambient all classics from Warp, Autechre, Alva Noto, Susumo Yokota. I heard Acid Mt Fuji would be re-edited soon thanks to Midgar – that’s great news. Of course Aphex when I need to be mellow, Paolo Conte, Lucio Battisti. Everything from Tom Waits and Dr John, I’m a super big fan since always. Lots of Miles Davis. Mixed stuff coming from Honest Jons and Macadam Mambo like the latest Abschaum LP too. Jan Jelinek. I also love some records from Music From Memory, especially Gaussian Curve. Also the series from Anthony Child recording in the jungle and obviously the beautiful K or The Loud Silence from Donato Dozzy and his work with Cio d’Or. My favourite mix so far is the Phunkast with Donato Dozzy and Nuel. I listen to it at least once a month. All the mixes from my talented friend F-On, probably one the best guys out there. You have a long history with Berlin, having been part of the team running the now-closed Bass Cadet Records store in Neukölln. Was it a difficult decision to leave the city for Barcelona? First of all, I stayed three months in Lisbon, which didn’t really work out, then we tried Barcelona. It was difficult to leave my friends, the Vietnamese food (for those who know) and also Berlin’s vibes. I was kind of stuck in my head when the store stopped. I needed to go forward. The last moments were super difficult. We lost so much but well, it was also a great experience and we only think about the positive we got out of it. In the meantime, we were happy to open a new page and face some new adventures. My best friend Etienne is now a father and is travelling. Same for me: I lived in several countries, discovered new horizons and met cool peeps. I met a lot of people in Berlin and to me this is unforgettable. I’m so happy every time I’m coming back. This city will always be my second home. We’d love to hear more about the scene in Barcelona. How do you find the city compares to Berlin in terms of the type of music you hear played out or the general attitude people have towards partying? Which parties or clubs are really on your radar at the moment? This is completely different. I’ve had some cool and bad experiences here. I saw Arpanet in front of 20 people and half of them didn’t give a shit about what he was doing. This experience hurt me; you would say it happens but honestly I was shocked. But well, I really enjoyed to play at Moog which is for me the best club here. I’ve met a lot of cool and really passionate people: Bruce Lee, owner of Rhythm Control; David and Ruben from Lostracks; or Gerard from Discos Paradiso. There are good record stores in town, too. People are also making good stuff over here and they are super edgy. To be honest, I didn’t really go out anymore, mostly at Moog to see people I know playing. And of course at Paral-lel Festival where everyone should at least go once. Best experience ever. I’m leaving Barcelona after the summer to go back to France. I choose to go back to my roots in a smaller city, Nantes, and I’m super happy about the move. I’m getting old and I need peace. You’re running regular parties at Razzmatazz in Barcelona, plus some parties in Berlin and Paris. What do you look for in your lineups? Do you approach the lineups differently depending on the city? It’s definitely influenced by the city, and also the budget and the crowd. In Berlin, as a promoter, you have the freedom to book edgy music and smaller, talented artists. You always have to find a good balance between headliners and artists who are a bit less known. It’s cool when people can discover a new DJ. We are now starting to do a couple of nights with ://about blank – I’m super happy about that. Our next one will be in July and that’s a collaboration with Paral-lel Festival. In Paris, I enjoy doing stuff at La Rotonde, even if that’s not a proper club I would say but it’s cosy and always full. It’s not a techno club but you can play what you want honestly. For the next one, we are inviting Luz from Room 4 Resistance and Portuguese talent Caroline Lethô. Will be a good one. Lastly, which records have you had on constant rotation lately and why? The latest news, I’ve really enjoyed these last weeks: Jacopo does an incredible work with Midgar – the 2 Eps with Wata Igarashi are pure gold. Also I just heard the new Tikita from Neel & natural/electronic.system – I’m going to play each track for sure. And of course, everything from Alexis Perälä – can’t get enough of this guy. The latest Spazio Disponibile with Crossing Avenue and Acronym on Semantica. VC-118A on Frustrated Funk is really cool, too. I also really loved Answer Code Request’s latest LP, it’s really strong and emotional. And Kilchhofer’s LP The Book Room for some tribal beats – really cool. All photos taken by Irwin Barbé.

In the late 1990s, John Osborn moved to Berlin in search of creative freedom and to escape London’s daily grind. The veteran DJ and producer arrived in the aftermath of the fall of the wall, when the city was heaving with electronic music and full of empty spaces in which creativity could thrive. From his first gig at WMF, on the bill alongside Dixon and Mitja Prinz, to his residency at Panorama Bar for Scuba’s famed SUB:STANCE parties, he quickly became a regular fixture in the local electronic music scene – and has remained there since. Here, John tells us about his journey to Berlin, the evolution of his sound, and his current take on the clubbing ecosystem. In addition to the text interview, you can watch a video version below, produced by the talented Elsa Löwdin. How did you first discover electronic music? Where did it all begin for you? I suffered massive hay fever as a kid so I got very used to never going out during summer and spending all my time indoors. Obviously, when you spend a lot of time indoors you try and find things to do. As I was getting older and older, my interest in music grew and grew. What were the first electronic albums that caught your attention? It was a combination of two albums – Primal Scream’s Screamadelica, produced by Andrew Weatherall, and the first ever Underworld album, Dubnobasswithmyheadman – which basically ripped open my skull and said, ‘hi, this is electronic music’. Then around about that time some friends were going out in London. I think it was the end of summer so I could venture out again. I started going to a lot of Andrew Weatherall parties, pretty much became a massive fanboy of everything that he was doing. There was this big cyberpunk techno scene in the ‘90s and it was this feeling as though there was a revolution, a cultural change going on. I felt part of that and it was the first time in my life that I ever felt part of something. I started buying vinyl at the age of 16 and I knew that I wanted to go to college to get a student loan so I could buy my turnables. And that’s exactly what happened. In fact, I still owe the student loans company for those turntables. When did you start to get more serious about music? As soon as I got my turntables things got a whole lot more serious. I pretty much didn’t leave my apartment, my bedroom, in those three years while studying. I would spend all of my money and all of my time in record shops. I used those three years to learn that trade probably more than what I did to study art. I’m grateful because it’s given me something to fall back on and it takes the pressure off of music. I don’t want to be in a position where I have to rely on every single gig that comes my way to pay my rent. I’ve come close to that situation and it sucks. What was the reason for your move to Berlin? Did you know what to expect? The reason for the move to Berlin was a constant sense of dissatisfaction that things have got to be better than this in London. I knew nothing about Berlin. Absolutely nothing. I was a totally ignorant London boy. Then I had an opportunity to move to a flat in Prenzlauer Berg. This flat would probably cost €2500 now but I was paying maybe €200 then. To live all I had to do was give out Haribo gummy bears every morning at traffic lights with a Berliner Morgenpost newspaper. I had enough money to pay my rent, buy a few tunes and buy some weed. And that was it. It was the first time in my life that I was able to just sit down and breathe and think. What music were you playing around this time? I was playing in lots of weird, arty underground spots. There was this one bar, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist anymore, called NBI, Neue Berliner Institut. Then I was DJing with vinyl and guitar effects pedals and minidisc players. Minidiscs, when they first came out, were totally insane for me. I was getting loads of stuff from the British Library, VHS films, and because it was all really old stuff it had some really cool sound bites. I found a collection of German adverts from the early ‘70s on VHS. The more weird stuff I could find on there the better and I just started recording the sounds off of it. Africola adverts and Mars adverts and stuff like that, all in German. So then I was playing sets which were all very dubby, downbeat, very trippy, certainly very ‘90s influenced. I was playing that with these weird advert samples over the top. It was electronic, definitely electronic, but not dance music in any way. What was it that you liked about experimenting with the music in this way? It was me combining my enjoyment for the music that I was playing and all of these weird sounds that I was hearing on the television, and how I could combine them using these pieces of technology that I could get my hands on. Working out how I could put this all together in some way that’s interesting, purely for the shits and giggles of it. That actually started to develop and probably got me to where I am today. I actually made a tape then, I gave out cassette tapes. There was a place in Berlin where you could take your one recording and they would make how many copies you wanted of that tape. So I saved up and got 100 of them. Giving out those tapes without any names meant I got chatting to people who were working at the old club of WMF. I think the first gig I ever had was at WMF with Mitja Prinz and Dixon, it was a Jazzanova night. So things kind of took off for you from there? Actually I took a break from electronic music for a while. I got really bored of what was going on within techno and ironically I see parallels with what’s happening in today’s scene. Around about 1999 through to 2002, something like that, techno just got faster and faster, and harder and harder. I was never interested in that; I was always more interested in music having some kind of soul and melody and emotion to it. So I got very disenchanted with it all. I was talking about this boredom with my friend Bastian and we formed a band. We started doing this sort of electronic-based punk music. And little did we know that this was also what a lot of people were feeling at the same time. There was Fischerspooner, Peaches, Gonzalez, Chicks on Speed – all of that was also happening in Berlin and we ended up being thrown in this pot. So I got lost into that whole world and I ended up being the lead singer of a band for awhile. What was the name of the band? Haha. Google it, I’m not telling you. I’m not hiding from it but I’m not making it easy (laughs). But you made your way back to electronic music eventually? Yeah I got lost into the whole band thing of being a frontman, and then I decided to quit about a week after we released our second album. Coincidentally, I went back to London and went out to a party and literally overnight rediscovered my love for house and techno music. The internet had also improved by then. Soundcloud existed. I recorded a mix and then I put the mix up somewhere and I think I linked to the mix on my RA profile. I then went out with (my wife) Jana, I think we went to Berghain, came home and I would always be scrolling on this blog called mnml ssgs and they would do this thing called Set Up! where they would collect sets from the past week or two weeks that they found online. I’m scrolling through this list of Marcel Fengler, Marcel Dettmann, Ben Klock and then suddenly it said ‘John Osborn’. I was like, ‘hang on a minute, this is a bit weird’. That was basically the beginning of it all. It’s funny how different things must have been then – these days there’s so much content out there that a good mix like that can easily just slip by unnoticed. Absolutely yeah. God knows whether that mix would do anything today. But my relationship was cemented then with Chris Hobson from mnml ssgs, that then grew. I then played my first gig at the SUB:STANCE party (at Panorama Bar) and I recorded that set and gave it to Chris. That particular mix is the one that has really swung things (for me). It was a SUB:STANCE party so I was allowed a little bit more scope in the sense that Panorama Bar is traditionally a house room. But you know, I was playing Skudge upstairs in Panorama Bar, but I was playing it slowed down and in a really dub-house style. You mentioned earlier that you see some parallels between the early 2000s when you left techno to start the band, and what’s happening in the scene now. How so? I see the similarities in the sense that people are starting to get harder and faster again. It’s becoming really obsessed about industrial, banging sounds. The thing that’s slightly different from before is that there’s a resurgence of EDM thrown into it. But the problem is that it becomes a thing, it becomes a fashion label. Therefore a lot of the music that’s getting produced sounds dishonest. There’s no honesty involved in it and that for me always smells really bad. I think the question is: what is going to come out and replace this? That will disappear, and what honest music will float to the surface again? What is it like for you to be an artist outside of that particular sound? I sort of feel like a person looking into a fishpond. I would probably say it’s nice to be out of it rather than inside it. Actually I’ve changed the way I consume music drastically. When I was initiating myself into music and learning my trade, I would read and consume everything about music. Now I make the point of doing the exact opposite. I do not read anything. I’ve removed myself entirely. I still get new music but I let music discover me more. How do you see the Berlin club scene these days? What’s the current state of things? Berlin is always going to be a special place because of the freedom it allows. But that freedom is slowly getting encroached upon. In 2000 or 2001, it was a wildly, wildly different place. And I use the word ‘wild’ with a reason – it was batshit crazy. People go to Berghain now and think ‘wow what an insanely different place, what you can do in there’. That’s conservative today. 2018 Berghain compared to some of the clubs in 2002 is fucking conservative. The essence of that Berlin spirit is always still there. But it’s definitely still watered down from what it used to be. In what other ways have you seen Berlin change? When I first got here, I was exotic for an English person. There were not many other English-speaking people here in fact. The clubs were 80% full of German people and only German people. Now that’s totally changed. Two of the biggest gay parties in Berlin are run by Italians, for example. That changes things because they have different attitudes and they bring with them different vibes and different feelings. But it’s still based on this original foundation of this weird Berlin freedom. How does this compare to somewhere like London, which is also a melting pot of different cultures? Yes of course, we have many different cultures there, but in terms of club land it’s a really conservative place. In clubland, when you are restricted so much, where you come from is almost irrelevant because you can do only do the same as what the next person can do. Whereas in Berlin you have such a large amount of freedom that you can really express yourself and therefore your culture and where you come from. That can’t be done in London. On the other hand, being restricted forces people to come up with very creative methods. Restriction is the mother of creativity. In terms of music that’s being made in London, that’s where the creative expression is being seen. When you think of things like dubstep for example, which was the fusion of dub reggae production techniques and drum and bass with some speed garage and garage influences behind it. They are, without a doubt, one-to-one representations of the cultural melting pot of London. What impact do you think moving to Berlin and living here has had on your own music and the type of music you seek out? Oh, massive. I still have my UK roots, my love of bass and my constant desire to always be a little bit weird, which I think is very inherently British. That British eccentricity. But then I’ve certainly taken on board the very cliche but very true German approach to creating techno and creating house music in a more rigid, formulaic way. That can also be positive as well because it allows you to understand the structure of house music. Then I can use my English weirdness and throw in some twists and turns. After TANSTAAFL, the label you ran with October, came to an end, you’ve now launched your own DRED Records. What are you working on for the label at the moment? I’m ploughing hard into the remixes for the label. It’s doing really well and I’m really enjoying it because I have complete control over it. I have a focus for each release, which is putting my own remix, my own musical touch into each package. I really enjoy the remix format because I am a DJ and the remix is essentially what I do with two turntables but I’m doing it with just parts of a track rather than two separate tracks themselves. I aim to have 10 releases out this year. At the end of this year, I hope not only to have put out 10 records, but to have also had 10 remixes from myself. So my output has more than exponentially grown. At Patterns of Perception you’ll be playing in the lobby, which will showcase the housier side of techno. What can we expect from your set? I will gauge that probably closer to the event itself. But I imagine it’s going to be a very chunky, very robust house set. Similar to my productions, with a lot of dreaminess but with a load of welly in there. As much as I love playing techno, it’s not my main comfortable area. My main comfortable area is essentially house music. So it would be house that leans into the techno world, but not fully. My latest top 10 chart might be something to go by. You can catch John Osborn at Patterns of Perception Two Years on May 6. Video interviewed filmed and produced by Elsa Löwdin. Text interview by Zilka Grogan, Patterns of Perception.

Following the duo’s contribution to the Patterns of Perception mix series last year, Alex Albrecht brings the pair’s sound to Berlin for a solo live set at our June 29 party. Here, Alex fills us in about their work as a duo, the direction of their label Analogue Attic Recordings, and producing music that’s rooted in a specific time and place. How would you describe the concept behind Albrecht La’Brooy? The concept is, at least with a live show, that we wanted to create something improvised and on the fly. Something that is a snapshot in time and won’t be heard again. We really like this idea because we have taken that influence from jazz and that follows through into the music we make together. On top of that, I guess there’s a lot of things like field recordings that we feel feed into that sense of place that’s rooted in a moment in time. Our live stuff is very similar but for our releases we will add an extra layer of richness to it after the recording session. A lot of the time we just go off however we feel. At the end of the day, we’re often just communicating when we play, and saying ‘oh do you want to do a nice pad here or do you want to put in a little melody line’. That’s the way we operate. What are your backgrounds as musicians? How did you two start collaborating? Sean studied jazz at Monash University so he has his bachelor of music. Myself, I’ve just been producing music since I was very young and also DJing. I have been playing mostly piano my whole life, it was only five or six years ago now that I wanted to have some more formal jazz training and met up with Sean to do that. I called the Monash jazz school and asked if I could get teaching from the head of jazz. He ended up recommending Sean. Much of your influence comes from nature with field recordings and conceptual inspiration drawn from a particular place. Is this a natural byproduct of being from a country like Australia? Or does it come from somewhere else? I’m not sure actually. We really like exploring more natural places and taking field recordings in them. The idea of the field recordings was a result of trying to forge a sound that is not rooted in other cultures or countries. As much as we love all these other genres and things like that, we also really love and respect what they’re trying to do. For example, you might listen to a Moodymann record and think ‘I might never have been to Detroit itself but I feel like that’s the encapsulation of what it would be like to be there’. We wanted to do the same for Australian sounds. Are there other artists in the local electronic music scene who are also trying to forge this specifically Australian sound? I think that inadvertently a lot of artists in Australia are doing that. We always come back to people like Sleep D (Corey and Maryos) who are very good friends of ours and we’ve played with them a lot. They definitely have ‘a sound’ that is recognisable as soon as you put on one of their tracks. For that reason, they’re definitely forging their own path in Australian music. I’ve heard your label Analogue Attic described as ‘championing the gentler side of electronic music in Australia’. Is that how you see yourselves? Yeah I think so. It’s definitely part of the label ethos and definitely something we want to champion. There are a few pillars that the label is built on. One is that it’s all Australian artists and all Australian music. Another is that it follows a narrative and we want to release even EPs as something that you listen to from start to finish, something that can be enjoyed both in the home and also potentially in a club or another environment. We wanted to fit somewhere in that realm, just because those are the kinds of records we listen to ourselves. We really love putting a record on and seeing how someone has come up with the entire story or concept behind it. Are there artists you can name as having inspired you in this same way, in terms of developing a narrative structure over the course of an album? Some records that we often go back to are things like Pat Metheny’s As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. Also something like The Future Sounds of London and Biosphere. That was one of the biggest inspirations for my music as well because it features so heavily on the field recordings. It builds and changes throughout this structure. We also really like the idea of having tracks that morph into one another, like records that The KLF put out. Or Moodymann again with albums like Black Mahogany. You feel like you’re listening to one piece of music, rather than individual tracks. We really connect with that idea. Apart from field recordings, how do you make sure the actual music reflects the place or the feeling you get from a place? Do you have an example of how you do this? I think that’s just more about the feeling and inspiration, and the improvisational aspect comes into it too. I actually remember the first record we ever did which was Good Morning Passengers, the record based on the train journey from Richmond Station to the Dandenong Ranges. We knocked out the last three tracks extremely easily and we managed to nail the feeling of those places. But when we got to Richmond Station, which was more urbanised, we took so many takes to try and figure out a sound that represents what that is and how musically we could articulate that. Maybe that’s also a testament to how we find working with remote or rural areas easier than working with more urban ones. The hustle and bustle of Richmond station and the trains and people working everywhere were hard to capture without being too blatant with industrial sound or syncopation or that sort of thing. We didn’t want to be obvious with what we were doing. We wanted to complement the sounds in the same way. What would say is the ideal setting to listen to your music? Just in the outdoors, I think. Wherever it is. Some of the best gigs we have played have been in picturesque outdoor environments. Probably one of the first shows we played outdoors was the Fairfield Amphitheatre, which is really beautiful. We played with Sleep D and then we made the record Live at the Fairfield Amphitheatre, which was recorded there. Since then we’ve been able to do some really amazing shows. One was at the Mornington Peninsula at this old abandoned fort that we were able to play inside of and look out on the ocean. Those are the shows that we like the most, where we can respond to the environment that we’re in without having to play our own field recordings. We’ll just use the ones that are around us. So you take inspiration from the natural environment that you’re in at the time while you’re improvising? How do you train yourselves to do that? It’s actually easier than a lot of the pre-recorded stuff that we have tried in the past. Sometimes we feel that we should go down the pre-recorded route to make it less risky but those are the ones that we’ve probably found more stressful and more difficult. We’ve had a few shows that we used to play extremely regularly, as well as playing in the studio, but there were a few bars we used to play at every week or every second week for a long time, like three hour sets. It was nice to have that environment for rehearsal that was a little bit more higher stakes than just being in a studio. I think that did a lot for our craft. How open do you find the Melbourne scene to your sound? Very open. I think that we’re extremely lucky to have one of the most inclusive and tight knit music scenes, especially within our own little electronic music world. Most people within our little world know each other and very much respect each other, probably because there is so much talent. Pretty much every gig that you go to you will be seeing friends doing something really amazing and playing really good music. It sounds like there’s a lot of great stuff coming out of Australia at the moment, but maybe we just don’t hear about it enough over here in Europe. Yeah, there’s some really good stuff but I think you might not hear about it due to the touring aspect. That’s a really big issue. It’s hard for people to really recognise artists purely from releases that may go unnoticed. It is so far to get over here and hard to organise tours. You need to have people who have enough faith in your DJing or live availability to want to bring you out, and then you need to do enough shows to make it worthwhile. So it can be difficult to get a lot of our music over here but there are amazing artists over here now – people like Lewis Day, Mic Newman and Andy Hart. It’s really inspiring to see that happen and want to do it yourself. What’s coming up next for Analogue Attic? We have a couple of releases on the horizon. One of them is a debut record from Adam McCoy or Citizen Maze, which I’m really excited about. That’s probably going to be out mid-August. Following that, we are working towards doing a record with Thomas Gray and Liam Ebbs who are from Sydney, they release on a label called Black Wattle. Then we want to do a record ourselves on Analogue Attic, it feels like it’s been ages the two of us. So it would be really nice to sit down and potentially do an album. How does your solo work compare to the Albrecht La’Brooy sound? It’s quite similar but this particular project I’ve been working on (Melquiades) is probably more geared towards club shows. Sean and I often feel most comfortable playing in those outdoor, ambient or relaxed settings. For me personally, coming from a DJ background, I probably feel also comfortable in a club environment and I guess the sound reflects that. Albrecht La’Brooy has also been strictly Australian and is a response to an Australian environment. For mine, I have been taking field recordings from around the world. For example, my latest release on Scissor & Thread was based on a trip to Greece. You will hear a lot of sounds from Greece and the music is based around that, rather than an Australian environment, which is a nice change. I’ve been talking to Francis Harris for a while and had sent him those tracks, so when he said he was going to put it out, it was really amazing. I’m now working towards releasing an album for them and will be touring the States in August. Lastly, what can we expect from your set at Patterns of Perception? I have been working quite a bit on the sounds that I want to incorporate. The really fun thing about the Patterns of Perception mix that we did was that we had this idea of Berlin and techno and those deep sounds in mind when we were making it. That was a really good inspiration and I want to explore that in the live set now and bring those sounds into it. Catch Alex Albrecht at Patterns of Perception at OHM Berlin on Friday, June 29

“Techno music has a long history which began earlier than 1990, but this year is important for me because that’s when I heard Energy Flash by Joey Beltram for the first time. This is the record that made me discover techno music and encouraged me to start DJing in February 1993. “Obviously the music that inspired me during this time is much more than 10 tracks and there are too many artists to be mentioned. This list is just a selection of 10 essential tracks for my DJ activity. “The tracklist is in order of time, from 1990 to 1997. Enjoy :)” – Claudio Fabrianesi From Energy Flash. Transmat, 1990 - From Elimination / Gamma Ray. Underground Resistance, 1991. - From Surfing on Sine Waves. Warp, 1992. - From Sound on Sound. Planet E, 1993 - From Unbalanced Frequency. Djax Up Beats, 1992. - From Krakpot. Plus 8 Records, 1993. - From the Reservation EP. Cheap Records, 1994. - From The Increased Difficulty of Concentration. Sm:)e Communications, 1994. - From Our Man From Havana. Purpose Maker, 1997. - From Moveable Parts Chapter 2. M-Plant, 1997. Full Playlist: Catch Claudio Fabrianesi at Patterns of Perception this Friday, June 29, 2018 at OHM Berlin.

Amsterdam-based Wanderwelle’s unique brand of invigorating, meditative deep electronica has quickly spread internationally. Their creative output is intricate and well-considered, with each release featuring field recordings and deep-lying concepts which draw inspiration from folklore and natural environments. Following on from their recent mix for Patterns of Perception, the duo agreed to share some insights into their musical partnership. Below, they explain how they seek inspiration in the mixing of reality and fantasy, and why the most beautiful sounds are the ones that come straight from nature. At what point did you guys start making music together? How did you discover your creative connection? We grew up in the same coastal town, went to the same high school and had a lot of mutual friends, but we didn’t have that much contact. That changed when we visited Kenya for a school project. There we discovered that we had the same weird interests, like mysterious phenomena, ancient cultures, films by Von Trier, Lynch, Van Warmerdam, Cronenberg. That sort of stuff. Your latest album for Silent Season, Gathering of the Ancient Spirits, was inspired by the post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, who spent his last years on the islands of French Polynesia searching for land untouched by modern life. What drew you to Gauguin’s story? First of all, the extraordinary beauty of the paintings, but also the way he searched for a connection with nature and how he let that inspire him. Besides that, he managed to express the ancient cultures in his own way, by mixing his own fantasy with reality. For example, the natives of French Polynesia have an amazing collection of tales and legends. One of these stories describes the tupapau, a malevolent spirit, which plays a subtle and ominous role in some of Gauguin’s work. There isn’t any depiction of these beings in the islanders’ culture, but Gauguin included these spectres in his paintings after he envisioned them himself. In a way, that’s the same as we do. We envisioned an alternative world where Gauguin searched for the remnants of a forgotten people, whilst encountering beings that are not of this world. So, it is the combination between his beautiful art, his life, and the way we could adapt them into a story of our own, mixing reality with fantasy: the best of both worlds. The album is described as “an ode to one of the greatest artists that ever lived”. Looking back on the release, do you feel you’ve done Gauguin justice? We’ve tried to approach this album the same way Gauguin approached his art. It’s very interesting that Gauguin expressed his view on music in combination with art. For instance, he described his paintings as calculated; he made arrangements of lines and colours on the pretext of some subjects he borrowed from life and nature. Gauguin stated that works of art are like polyphony, a symphony. He associated the musical quality of painting with the mysterious, evocative poetry of nature and art. In a way, we tried to incorporate his vision into our work. We used field recordings that emit the same mysterious atmospheres, which one can experience in Gauguin’s work. In addition, we tried to fit these with the right melodies and sounds to create an organic track that resembles the character of his work. It’s a very personal album, much more than our first album. Time will learn if we’ll stay pleased with this tribute. We’re not entirely sure if this chapter stays closed. But for now, it will. Meanwhile, your first album, Lost in a Sea of Trees, took the rich Slavic folklore and the ancient pagan tribes that once roamed Europe as its main source of inspiration. How does having a strong concept for your albums fuel your creative process? We couldn’t make anything without a concept to be honest. It makes finding sounds far more interesting, as sounds have to fit together both sonically and thematically. Also, it’s fun to dive into themes and subjects and do some research. Small details in our tracks are often inspired by interesting findings in stories or anecdotes. Using a concept can elevate the music to storytelling instead of providing a collection of cool tracks. Albums are a perfect way to tell high-concept stories. An hour of music provides us with the big canvas we need. For projects such as the Gauguin album, we like it much more than making an EP. For this album, you collected field recordings in forests in Russia, Czech Republic and your native the Netherlands. What role do field recordings have in your work? Field recordings are a great way to set moods and themes instantly. The most beautiful sounds come straight from nature. There isn’t a synth or program that can beat the sounds of thunder, crunching snow or the howling of the wind. Starting a jam with field recordings instead of a synth or a drum machine works best for us when we want to work on tracks with shared themes. For our recent albums, we keep adding layers and layers of synths and percussion, but the sound of nature is still recognisable at any moment. Lots of people have lost their connection with nature and folklore. It’s quite sad that, instead, we’re causing destruction on a biblical scale as a species, while we’re more interested in which extensions Kylie or Kendall are wearing. But, of course, there’s more than just nature. At the moment, we’re working on some projects where we’ve abandoned almost every natural sound and use more ambiguous field recordings to set the tone and mood. Being based in Amsterdam, do you find there is a strong appetite for ambient and more experimental techno in the local scene? Are there other cities in Europe that are particularly receptive to your sound? There’s a lot of the regular techno, which is quite boring. You know, the same black and white portraits of serious looking guys whilst wearing the same boring black shirts. These genres should be in a constant state of experimentation instead of making the same sounds as someone else that could be best described as functional. But luckily, there’re a lot of very interesting festivals and clubs as well in Amsterdam. De School, Strange Sounds From Beyond, the Redlight Radio gang, Dekmantel to name a few. It’s a great city and we feel blessed to live here. Is there an environment or situation that you consider ideal for listening to your music? When Lost in Sea of Trees was released, we saw a lot of pictures on Twitter of people who placed the vinyl against a tree or in some other place in the woods. That was really amazing and indeed it’s the most ideal place to listen to it; in the environment where the album story is situated. Unfortunately, we have to wait a little longer to visit French Polynesia for some rain forest and beach listening sessions. As the albums are meant to tell one coherent story, we think the best experience for a first listening session is to listen to it as a whole and to let yourself disappear into the tale. Are there any ambient artists that you can highlight as having a strong impact on you both individually and as a duo? We really adore the work of Ryuichi Sakamoto. Not only his electronic stuff. He’s a brilliant composer of classical music and was a pioneer for pop, techno and house. So yeah, he is and will be one of our all time favourites. A few years ago, we discovered the work of Isorinne when he released a melancholic gem on Field Records. He incorporated field recordings, ambient and piano in a way we had never heard before and we were blown away. We started an online conservation and became friends after a while. Michel visited our studio in Amsterdam and we decided to make some tracks together with Martin (Hypnobirds). Michel and Martin together are known as Bandhagens Musikförening and have released some astonishing music on Northern Electronics. We visited them in Stockholm for a few days and recorded enough material for a Bandhagens Musikförening & Wanderwelle album, which we’re working on as well at the moment. You’ve recently contributed a track to the first release on One Instrument, a new label from Grand River where artists produce tracks using a single instrument of their choice. Can you tell us a little about your track, made on the Roland Juno-106? What does this instrument mean to you? The experiment was a great way to pay tribute to one of our favourite synths. It’s simple and intuitive and it never disappoints us. Many tracks of Lost in a Sea of Trees feature the Juno in some way or another. Most people know the Juno for its magnificent pads and strings, but the thin, more subtle sounds are equally interesting. For this track we wanted to see if the Juno could reproduce field recordings and percussion in some way or another, instead of just making an ambient track drowned in reverb. We actually made two tracks with the Juno, the second one can be heard on the One Instrument Soundcloud. It combines a quite simple, lush arpeggio with pulsating, wave-like pads and is quite different in comparison to the track on the vinyl compilation. Tell us about your recent mix for Patterns of Perception. What was it like recording it? Is there a concept or particular inspiration behind it? This mix started off as an ambient mix but later on, we decided to reduce this to an ambient introduction that finishes with a beautiful track from Kareem Lofty released on one of our favorite compilations Mono No Aware. After that, more pulsating techno sounds come in for a significant change from the peaceful ambient tracks. Further on, a breakbeat section, featuring tracks from Rune Bagge and Skee Mask is probably the most dynamic part and provides a nice contrast to the more subdued tracks. The mix spirals down to a melancholic electro piece by DJ Richard. The track shifts between a melancholic synth and an almost ironic arpeggio while a firm electro beat accompanies it all the way through. After this heaviness, a beautiful track from our friend Michel lets the listener calm down for a little moment and finishes off our mix. We think the overall melancholic mood gives the mix coherence and justifies the swift changing of genres in just over one hour; we hope the listeners enjoy the mix as much as we do. Making a mix likes this that does not have to fit a club environment or restrict us to using only ambient tracks gives us the best opportunity to select really interesting combinations of tracks. Lastly, we’d love to hear what you’ve been listening to lately. Which ambient and experimental tracks do you have on high rotation? async by Ryuichi Sakamoto is spinning 24/7. At the moment we’re in love with Dies Iræ Xerox by DJ Richard, it features dark, melancholic ambient music, alternated by electro tracks. As a whole, it’s probably even more impressive than his previous LPs. Empire by Markus Guentner, released on the magnificent A Strangely Isolated Place, is an immersive journey and we recommend it to everyone who is not just enjoying ambient but great music. The new LP by Abul Mogard, Above All Dreams features long, cinematic ambient tracks that immerse us in a world where time seems to stand still: highly recommended. We also want to mention the amazing soundtrack by Colin Stetson to the recent film Hereditary. A truly brilliant film that tells a dark story that will haunt us for quite some time. The movie ends with the amazing piece “Reborn” that features unexpected, uplifting sounds, which fit the bleak story very well. On our first viewing, we didn’t even notice the track that much, because we were in awe, as we watched the haunting images on the screen. When listening to the soundtrack at home, we were both really impressed that such a distinctive track accompanied the movie so well and that it didn’t take all the attention for itself. All photos by Wanderwelle.

This weekend sees a thousand festival-goers assemble in the mountains outside of Barcelona for Paral·lel, an annual gathering for like-minded electronic music followers. Now in its third iteration, the event is focused on delivering an intimate musical experience immersed in nature, earning it a dedicated following of repeat visitors and comparisons with festival fixtures like the Labyrinth in Japan. Ahead of the 2018 edition, we spoke to organiser and co-founder Felix Beltran about how Paral·lel has developed into the community-minded gathering it is today. Congrats on making it to year three of Paral·lel! How are things coming along this year? Thank you. Everything is going pretty much smoothly. Even though we have been really busy over the last weeks as you can imagine, it is a fact we have gained quite a lot of experience year after year. We could say things become easier somehow when you know the outcomes from previous editions. Take us back to how the festival came about. How did it all start? My colleague Jordi came to me with the idea of organising a small festival in the Catalan mountains back in 2013. We used to talk about this from time to time back then. In 2014 I went with some friends from Berlin to Artmospheric, which is quite a similar gathering to Paral·lel that used to be held in the Bulgarian mountains. Alex (Refracted) had been visiting the festival the year before and he was playing at the festival the year after. Artmospheric was without a doubt a big inspiration for us. Same as Labyrinth Festival, even though we’ve never been there yet. After the festival in Bulgaria I spent some weeks in Spain. I then met Jordi and he was totally determined to make Paral·lel a reality. There was nothing similar in Spain and we felt there was a gap to be filled. We wanted to create the festival we had always wanted to go to. After having been in many festivals and parties we just thought it was the right moment to do something special in our country. Our very close friends Alex (Refracted) and Will (Guillam) had always influenced us based on their music taste, so we knew from the very beginning we were going to have the best curators we could have for our dream festival. Who makes up the team behind Parallel? Had you worked together before? Right after these conversations with Jordi I just mentioned, our friend Patri joined us, so we basically became the three Paral·lel founders. Esther and Amat, who started helping us some months before the first edition took place, are now officially part of the Paral·lel crew. Esther for example just wrote us an email in the very beginning and she has proved to be one of the biggest assets we could have for production. We are always keen on opening the doors to people who can share their knowledge and expertise with us. And finally we also have Jacopo as a designer. Even though he is freelancing for us, he gave us this fresh and original image we needed after the first year to carry on growing. We are also grateful to have one of the greatest designers within the scene worldwide. To sum up, we are basically a bunch of five friends and passionate people for what we do. It’s easy to make a comparison between Paral·lel and events like Labyrinth in Japan. What do you guys, as organisers, think sets you apart? For us, it was quite impressive that many people started comparing the two festivals right after our first edition. Enrique (Svreca) came to play at Paral·lel in 2016 and he was then also playing at Labyrinth some weeks after. I still remember having a conversation with him after he was back from Japan saying that many people had asked him about Paral·lel. We were about to book our flight tickets to Japan some years ago with Jordi, Alex and Will but in the end it did not work out, so I guess we have always kind of idealised Labyrinth in our minds. This year I will finally be able to make it with Alex and some other friends. I am very much looking forward to it. Labyrinth has always been a reference for us, no doubt about it, but apart from us going to the mountains to celebrate a gathering and curating a similar artistic line-up, the differences are quite big I reckon. A festival in Japan, Portugal or France can’t be the same even though many similarities may arise. Every festival is different at its core and we chose to do Paral·lel. Having said this, I find quite interesting that some Japanese people come to Paral·lel every year, and this actually proves why we have been referred to as the European Labyrinth. You often describe the festival as a ‘gathering’ for your community with limited capacity of 1000 people. How important is the spirit of community for an event like Parallel? When we talk about Paral·lel we normally associate it with three words: nature, music and intimacy. Intimacy in the sense of offering a distinctive experience focused on the festival-goer. Paral·lel is unique because of the people that come to Paral·lel. We have always stood up for the motto ‘less is more’. And yes there may be the chance we get bigger in the next years but we will always keep this small format so that the vibe stays as it is now. It is amazing to see so many people from all over the world coming back one year to another, and this is why we talk about the Paral·lel family and the importance of the community feeling. In the end it is like if you were going camping with your best friends to listen to the music you love for a whole weekend. For me it sounds like the perfect plan. We’d love to know a bit more about the programming. What’s your starting point when building the line up? How do you decide which artists to book each year? Our curators in charge at Paral·lel are two close friends of the organisation crew: Alex and Will. We have been friends for many years so there is very good communication between us. They normally work with quite a close list of artists (even though not small at all) that differ from one year to another. However, there have been artists in that list that are still in there since the very first moment. I reckon it is only a matter of time that these artists will be playing at Paral·lel sooner or later. On the other hand, we have a well-balanced programming between day and night hours, so we always try to reflect that in the artists we bring to Paral·lel. The decision is mostly done by the sound we want to fit in the different slots: music that fits outdoors and represents the kind of sound we consider appealing and interesting. Then we also have a good balance between more well-known and not so well-known names. I would say many people coming to Paral·lel are happy to discover new sounds and new artists on top. The line up is divided into prologue, story and epilogue, with each performance occurring on one stage and designed to link one into the other. How do you ensure that there is an overarching narrative across the three days? This is part of the line-up curation process indeed and it connects to the previous idea. Different artist profiles are being considered in order to bench all these three blocks. Everything is studied in detail to see this narrative developing organically all through the weekend and not to miss any of the performances, thus the idea of ‘one stage, one story’. I love for example when some of the artists get interested to know who is playing right before or after them. I think we have managed to transmit the whole concept not just to the audience but to the artists themselves. Anything you would particularly like to highlight from this year’s line up? I personally like the fact we have managed to book one more female artist this year. We just had Cio D’Or in 2016, Yuka and Jana Sleep in 2017, and Dasha Rush, Grand River and Izabel this year. I think there is still a long way to go on the scene in this regard but I am particularly happy about this happening at Paral·lel. I always say I enjoy listening to every single artist coming to Paral·lel. And it is true, believe me. Apart from that, I would just say I am very much looking forward to Sunday with three live sets. I reckon it can be quite special. When was a closing set not special at Paral·lel? What do you hope your audience takes away from three days at Parallel? A unique experience. I would love everyone to leave Paral·lel with a similar feeling I get every year but it is hard to explain in words. I think everyone coming to the mountains takes away his or her own personal emotions and moments. You will have to experience it by yourselves. Paral·lel Festival begins Friday, August 31. For tickets and more info, visit www.parallelfestival.com

When Patterns of Perception was invited to play a special showcase in Prague in late 2018, photographer and friend Christoph Abatzis came along to capture the trip. This time the scene was Ankali, the renowned Prague club where local DJs Alfred Czital and Yan host their party series Yuggadus. In this second installment in our photo series, Christoph takes us through a club night from beginning to end, documenting scenes from the pre-party, the backstage and behind the booth.