Berghain, Berlin’s most famous techno temple and house of the Panorama Bar, will open it’s gates on a friday night for the first time (usually it’s only Panorama Bar on fridays) to host probably the biggest Dubstep party on the European continent so far: Shackleton, Scuba, Appleblim, Skull disco, Mala, DJ Distance - find more about the artists, links and music at Grimetime.

Moreover, you have the chance to enjoy Berhain’s new sound system: Funktion One. Paulie at Dubstepforum says about it: “It’s got the best sound I’ve ever heard in a big club. Funktion 1 rigs all the way round… ”

There’s a great mix by Applebim in the series of Resident Advisor’s podcasts: “Housestep? Dubhouse? Whatever you want to call it, Appleblim’s got it on this edition of the RA podcast”

Videoakt
Videoakt is a video art festival hosted by the organization GlogauAIR, a non profit organization founded with the intention of creating a meeting point between different artistic disciplines, important is their Artist in Residence Programme, lots of international artists, e.g. from South America live and work there.

Me, Stylewalker, have the big honour to create a musical scape for the video art, together with Steve (remember the House party, almost three years ago?) and VJ Hitektrash from 11pm, at Glogauer 16.

Mediaspree

This is what it might look like along the river in Berlin, where you find now so many great places like Yaam, Bar 25 or Kiki Blofeld, if the plans of Mediaspree become reality:

Pretty boring, huh? Xbergers and Fhainers, go vote, to prevent this! I’ve written about Mediaspree versenken before, and you can read the whole text about what Berlin really needs, why it is unique and why we love living here so much at Sounds of Sirens: Auf zu neuen Ufern.

Produziert wurde dieses interaktive Musikvideo von der Webproduktionsschmiede Kubikfoto, die noch einige andere tolle Projekte im Netz haben, die sich mit klickbaren Foto- Videowelten beschäftigen - oft mit einem schön morbiden Touch.

KIZ - ein Haus in Neuruppin

The music is something in between the Raveonettes and Broadcast, a little noisy, a little trashy and a little longing with nice melodies hiding between the strange chords. Download their supersong “Lovelies”:
Download audio file (lovelies.mp3)

Direct Download

I don’t know which artists I am going to take care of this time, I’ll post it as soon as I know. But everything about the line up, maps, tickets, pics and videos you can find in the Melt! (blog me) SITE below. Repost it at your blog (just click “blog me”), Myspace or Facebook and take the chance to win tickets!

The Melt! (blog me) SITE is a product by PANORAMA3000 for Melt!

In the case of the following video, the message is: protest! The best moment is from minute 3:00 when a tiny fist becomes a very powerful and by being so tiny, even more impressive symbol. Unfortunately, the very insisting introduction speech by singer Harriet Ohlsson is missing in video when she talked about Burma. Especially in such a situation of absolute powerlessness towards injustice it is a good feeling to at least raise your fist together..

Hellsongs Hymns in the key of 666 cover

Hellsong’s music especially gets a life on its own when played live. As seen yesterday when the young folks from Gothenbourg did a showcase on Hoppetosse. With lot of love to detail, the Swedes interpret classic metal songs like “Symphony of destruction” or “We’re not gonna take it”. And for someone who was never too much into Metal (like me), they sound just like really good accoustic pop songs to sing a long with - which proves the fact again that a good song is a good song, no matter in what kind of style it’s played in. The whole boat actually sang along, animated by the very charming singer Harriet Olsson. It was like a midsummery music sessions with your big family. Who needs “We’re from Barcelona” when the whole audience becomes your band?

N.E.R.D. - Seeing sounds coverAnother album that comes out june 10th will be a sure killer in clubs, cafés and living rooms. N.E.R.D.’s “Seeing sounds” is so funky and poppy and new on the other hand that it sticks to your head immediately. Rock Songs, Club sounds, electric funk tunes and even a great beatleesk hymn that never seems to end and accelerates the tension until the very end. So you really feel the need to see them play live Note to Berliners and Munich people - soon you have the chance, very soon! But these shows are still a secret so, shh!..

More summer music i absolutely like:
Clueso - So sehr dabei.
Nneka - No Longer At Ease
and Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Picture from his Myspace

Here we have some nice neo-discoish remixes by this handsome scoundrel from Berlin. Together with Shir Khan and Supermarket they team up as Berlin Battery, play at parties and release remixes on the net. So, for frequent updates of his work, check Berlin Battery.

Sebastian Tellier - Kilometer (Jack Tennis Remix) on Zshare.
Neonman - Nightclubbing (Jack Tennis Remix)
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer (A Jack Tennis Edit)

Die Loops rumpeln und funken vor sich hin, Bläsersätze und Synthiesounds rauschen dazwischen, die großartigen Gäste wie Mos Def (toll: gleich auf mehreren Tracks) und Talib Kweli peitschen die Lyrics mit einer wütenden Vehemenz darüber, dass man in der Frühlingssonne aus dem Kopfnicken gar nicht mehr herauskommt. Tracks wie “I will not apologize”, “Singin Man” oder “Criminal” will man mitrappen und mitsingen und alles in allem kann man es nicht erwarten, diese Truppe mal wieder live zu sehen.

Denn darauf kommt es, um zu Questlove zurück zu kehren an: “Ich spiele jede Show so, als ob mein Leben dranhängt - und so ist es tatsächlich.” (Auszüge aus einem sehr schönen Interview mit Questlove bei Intro.de).
Videos sehen, in das Album reinhören und Hintergründe zur Produktion gibt es auf der E-Card zu “Rising Down”. (geschrieben fürs P3000-Blog)

Coke DJ Culture Berlin Engelbrot from Nachtagenten

So run to the record stores and get it while it’s hot! You can watch some pictures from the gig at Engelbrot in Berlin on Nachtagenten.

On Saturday January 19th, Innervisions celebrated their third birthday and at the same time their last party at Week-end. As a thank you, they gave away a free CD to all of the party guests - and it’s brilliant. Starts with very slow and dreamy funk tunes, moving into more minmal housy tunes, featuring I:Cube, Château Flight and Martin Buttrich. (The RA-forum knows where you might get a copy from the net), here is a snippet:
boomp3.com

Also very nice in a very similar area nowadays called ‘bit hop’ is my man Ben Mono, who just released a new mixtape: Ben Mono in L.A.
Download audio file (118%20-%20Ben%20Mono%20-%20NYE%20in%20L.A..mp3)

[via kspace and the new worck]

Tonight, Portishead will present “Third” in the famous Funkhaus Nalepastraße , the concert will be transmitted live later by radio station Konzert wird von Radio1. Fast fans have the chance to get tickets at Spreeblick (maybe for an hour or so).

First impressions and sounds are available here and here, here is the video to the strange and noisy single “Machine Gun“

Get it at Stylewalker’s drop.io!

Via Debug and Netzpolitik’s Twitter.

Check out my articles about multitouch displays and the Monome Midi Controller.

Download audio file (bohemiaz-clubderdichtentoten.mp3)

As André Michelle, one of the developers writes: “The underlying audio engine is based on dynamic digital signal processing to provide very complex audio compositing in Flash. The graphical user interface is based on an unlimited sized desktop to layout your choosen devices as you wish to operate.” And here is another post by Joa, one of the flash developers.
David (Echolot.tumblr) has some more insights about how the whole Hobnox thing is going to continue.

Register now on Hobnox to be part of the closed Beta (including audio tool, live streaming and community features), starting from 1st of march - after that date, betatesting will only be possible via invitations by registered users!

It’s fascinating, once I dive into this universe of shows I at least spend half an hour watching “11 Freunde magazine” or the very classy movie mag “Oh Gosh“. To kick off their efforts Hobnox organizes a contest called “Evolution” - until the end of January people can upload their creative projects in the categories music, film and street. So far, cool stuff has been uploaded but there’s still a lot to gain. After a voting a jury (e.g. with Moneybrother or Intro editor Linus Volkmann) will pick a winner in each category who will then get a package worth of 25000€ in project funding (like studio or postproduction costs etc.). Here is a recent video of some ionteresting projetcs so far, actually, I really like Pete Blume, kind of remind of Madsen a little..

And here is a video of a secret Jahcuzi concert at a Boombx event!

Enough talk, enjoy Patrick’s “Grser”, finally, he is back on the scene with a new masterpiece.
Download audio file (patrick_graeser_grser_mix_10_07.mp3)

Download Patrick Gräsers “Grser” mix.

While the song is really poppy and charming, the video sports an old idea (filming persons who hang upside down and then turn the image again) but still brings out funny results.
Eight legs have had considerable success in Japan, produced one very ska-ish song with Brian O´Shaughnessy (Primal Scream) and are all together a very funky, danceable group and certainly fun to watch live, too.

Schrödingers Cat, installation by Reinhard Wanner

With system theory it happened to me in a similar way. The first time I heard about the idea of seeing society as a communicative system that consists of communication and nothing else I was fascinated yet unable to grasp only ten percent of what it really means as a consequence. Now, I even read books understanding that their authors criticize system theory without having understood them.

As for quantum theory I am still struggling - what about these strange states and probabilities little quantums are in? Being waves and particles at the same time? And what about Schrödinger’s cat who is dead AND alive at the same time? I know there is something big waiting for me, I just need to be patient to understand.

In the meantime I listen to Stars new album “In Our Bedroom After The War” (order on itunes) because it’s really great and look forward to Chikinki’s new album “Brace Brace” which will be out on Weekender records in November. Singer Rupert’S voice still sounds pretty whiny but very charismatic and the whole Chikinki-experience has become much bigger and broader. Check out “Oh my God” from the new album:
Download audio file (chikinki-oh_my_god.mp3)

Before you can go to Week-end to attend a lecture held by Sonar Kollektiv and Red Bull Music Academy about the last ten years in music business. Starts at 20pm and features Jürgen von Knoblauch, Claas Brieler, Stefan Leisering, Axel Reinemer (all Jazzanova), Steffen “Dixon” Berkhahn (Innervisions), Dirk Rumpff (Red Bull Music Academy) and Jan Joswig (De:Bug).

So it’s all about concerts and which band is able to really give the people a good time and makes them tell their friends and come back the next time. Music is a service, more than ever.

A band who is able to rock it every time are Mike Skinner aka the Streets and his musicians. Wednesday evening, a sponsored concert brought about 1500 people to an open air venue and after a little chilly start everybody got into a great mood and danced and hugged each other to get a little warmer. Thumbs up for Mike Skinner!

Yesterday, I missed Polarkreis18 AGAIN! Damn, but these boys play and play and actually here is a little concert (again, by Sli-Fi, these people have a LOT of stuff on the net..)

So what’s the program? Tonight: Trentemöller at Maria and Sonar Kollektiv, at Tape and saturday Pokerflat night at Watergate and Sunday, well, if the weather stays as great as it did these days, there will be some open air after hour like the Stadtfest or the Karneval for sure..

Nice footage, nice streaming and a nice player, I must say.

Here, via Roberdo I found an interesting introduction about Jazzmutants newest creation, the Dexxter. But with its ever growing bigger options, it’ll be even harder to make the best out of it. But I so much want to TOUCH one of these sexy things some day!

Check out the other articles about multi-touch interaction displays!

This is the first of a series of three films I shot this weekend while I had my aunt visiting. Nice mix of underground and overground culture.

Es folgt eine mittellange Einleitung und Auslassung zum Thema DRM und anschließend ein harter User-Test und Gedanken zum neuen Mp3-Shop Akuma.

DRM - vor kurzem wussten die wenigsten, was das bedeutet. Inzwischen hat man eine Ahnung, dass es etwas damit zu tun haben könnte, was man mit Musik oder Filmen, die man kauft, anstellen darf. Digital Rights Management, oder besser: Digital Restriction Management (DRM) trägt so bizarre Blüten wie die Unmöglichkeit, im iTunes-Shop gekaufte Titel auf dem Mp3-Handy hören zu können oder eine neue CD für den Mp3-Player zu rippen. Die Contentindustrie verzweifelt anhand der vielen Möglichkeiten, ihre kostbaren Inhalte einfach kopieren und weiter verteilen zu können - also versuchen sie alles Erdenkliche, um sie zu kontrollieren.

Dass das nicht gut gehen kann, war vielen schon lange klar und Steve Jobs nutzte vor kurzem dieses allgemeine Unbehagen, um eine weitbeachtete Polemik gegen DRM zu veröffentlichen und sich als Ritter der Musikfans zu positionieren. Wie altruistisch das gemeint war, lassen wir hier mal dahin gestellt. Das erste Majorlabel, das sich wagte, DRM-freie Titel zu verkaufen, war dann EMI. Für iTunes ein gefundenes Fressen, wurden doch gleich die Preise pro drm-freiem Musiktitel erhöht. Und nun will auch Amazon einen DRM-freien Downloadshop eröffnen.

Dabei gibt es längst hochwertige Angebote, die schon seit Jahren ohne DRM auskommen und damit hervorragend arbeiten und wirtschaften. Nur die üblichen Chart- und Majorkandidaten findet man dort nicht. Bleep, der Downloadshop des Elektronik-Avantgarde-Labels Warp gehörte zu den ersten beachteten Downloadshops für freie Mp3s in hoher Qualität. Finetunes machte sich einen Namen in der Indie-Szene und Beatport ist schließlich der unausweichliche Hafen für DJs, die digital, das heißt mit CDs oder mit Final Scratch und Konsorten auflegen wollen, aber auf hohe Qualität nicht verzichten können- hier lassen sich inzwischen sogar wav-Dateien laden. Alle wichtigen Elektroniklabels sind bei Beatport vertreten und viele verdienen mit dieser Vertriebsform mehr als mit dem klassischen Vinyl.

In Deutschland gibt es seit kurzem Akuma, ein Onlineshop für Musik, der ebenfalls drm-freie Musik anbietet und den ich mir etwas genauer angesehen habe. Erster Eindruck: Klasse, sieht schick aus. In einem schönen großen Videofenster begrüßen mich Chromeo- das funkt. Unten sehe ich, wer sich gerade einloggt. Die Community ist hier wichtig, erst recht, weil es sich zum größten Teil um unbekannte Musik handelt, die man vor allen Dingen über Empfehlungen anderer User kennen lernt, das erinnert mich ein bisschen an Amiestreet. Man kann Songs “ticken”, also per Klick öffentlich gut finden und gezielt Songs an andere User empfehlen.

Akuma ist jetzt seit ungefähr einem Jahr online, hat 10 000 registrierte Nutzer und im Mai waren es 500 000 Titel ab 89cent (die meisten hab ich bei 1,19€ gesehen) im Shop. Und die Auswahl gefällt: Nicht nur hab ich mich gefreut, alte Kracher von Snap! und 2 Unlimited wieder zu finden, auch viele Tracks von einem meiner Lieblings-Labels Ninja Tune sind dabei, auf der Startseite wird seit einer ganzen Weile Namosh gefeatured (die Alben auf der Startseite könnten sie aber auch mal wieder ändern..)

Doch, die Seite gefällt, man kann sehen, wer sich was gemerkt hat, von last.fm werden Tags und ähnliche Künstler gezogen, die das Entdecken von Musik weiter erleichtern, allerdings findet man da unter dem Tag Drum’n'Bass alles mögliche außer Drum’n'Bass. Und auch an anderer Stelle gibt es noch Verbesserungsbedarf: Von den meisten Songs lassen sich nur die ersten 30 bis 40 sekunden anhören, danach kommen aber meistens die Stellen, die interessant sind. Bei Finetunes läuft das besser. Auch der Musikserver (der den lustigen Namen “motoyoshi.akuma.de” trägt..) hat gerade etwas Probleme - hier kommt kein Sound an. Labels tauchen noch nicht in der Suche auf und ich kann auch noch nicht direkt nach Usern suchen. Eine Liste mit Usern, die ähnlichen Geschmack haben, basierend darauf, was auf ihrer Merk- und Kaufliste steht, wäre auch spitze. Dann noch Widgets für Blogs und Myspace mit den Lieblingstracks und das alles mit Streusel, bitte.

Nein, alles in allem überzeugt mich Akuma auf den zweiten Blick ganz besonders, die vielen Community-Funktionen machen es leicht, neue Musik zu finden und die technischen Finessen wie saubere Vorhör-Streams bekommen sie sicher auch noch hin. Auf dem deutschen Markt werden sie zu einer echten Konkurrenz zu Finetunes, denen sie genau die Community-Features voraus haben.

Update: Eine schöne Review gibt es auch bei Nicorola, inklusive Screenshots und Kaufprozess-Beschreibung.

Some examples are Timbaland - “Miscommunication” (The Bloody Beetroots Remix), a proper soulful Synthiebanger;
Armand Van Helden - “Touch Your Toes” (Audio Bullys Remix) - hypnotizing old school house cooler
Chordettes - “Mr. Sandman” (Squeak E. Clean and Desert Eagles Club Classic), a very funky interpretation

The festival goes on for a week and there are people who actually spend almost all their time there. But the festival wristbands reveal many festival visitors also in parks, museums or in Budapest’s hot springs. All Budapest seems to be Sziget festival during these days, providing an impressive backdrop of art-nouveau, socialist and post-socialist architecture.

There is a nice blog, updated daily by Zeit magazine (in German) about Sziget, which I recommend, so I won’t be writing much here (to sum it up: We had good weather and bad, healthy food and greasy, good music and not so good.. ), just provide you with a short movie I cut together and some foto impressions.

Rain couldn’t stop us

Neither these girls

Get clean in the bodywash

A little classier in the famous Gellert spa

Situated in a hotel

even classier: the old (hundreds of years) Turkish bath

You need like three Palinkas after this

Drum’n'Bass in the afternoon

These “funny hats” never get out of style on festivals..

Make yourself a home at Sziget..

The other is Sick Sinus playing at Mädcheninternat, a former Kindergarten right where Deep club used to be. Being around 20:00h at either place would be a good choice. Plus: you’ll get home at a civil time.

Picture by LotteLenya

It’s interesting: Two years ago, I was one of a few people who wrote about the Melt! festival and one a few people who posted their festival pictures on Flickr. YouTube didn’t exist back then. Last year, there were tons of pictures and videos. And this year, there are even many, many blog posts about this amazing festival on an extraordinary site, not to forget the Melt-forum which has an impressive way of self organization - one half of the people bitches about prices, the growing size, quality of the music and the other half defends their favorite festival with enthusiasm. So I watched many many videos on YouTube, scanned Flickr and the blogosphere just to get you the best and most relevant material on this year’s issue of one of the greatest festivals on the planet.

“…ein unerwarteter Schub von rechts und schon liege ich. Alle großen Momente meines Lebens (Fummeln bevor Anatomie in Bio drankam, der erste Jägermeister, Pilzragout auf’m Dorffest) ziehen nochmal vor meinem Auge entlang. Doch dann zieht mich die Hand, deren Anhängsel gerade für mein Fallen verantwortlich war, mit einem Lächeln wieder hoch. I can feel the community!”
Read the whole hilarious review at Wertaufholer [via Andreas]

So how was Melt X, the 10th issue of this tasty in-between indie and electronic music festival on a peninsula surrounded by gigantic machines? Overwhelming and amazing again I must say. I worked most of the time but it would be a lie to say that my job is not a great one. Taking care of the musicians as they come and wander around with their mouths open to see the venue and then get blown away by the audience. Few don’t get excited by that. Unfortunately Kelis was one of them. Let herself drive to the stage (20 meters..) and then sing like a man and move like a crash test dummy. Biggest disappointment.

And I felt a little bad for Snap! who had to play six o’clock in the morning after Deichkind had totally rocked out the energy of the crowd. So when “Rhythm is a dancer” set in, everybody just had to leave. Too bad, really. Opinions to Deichkind differ - some thought it was a little boring, the same show in the third year but thousands of enthusiastic people can’t lie and actually the band put more effort in the costumes and the show than ever. They always start many hours before stagetime and handicraft themselves into madness. I very much enjoyed the show this year again (which might also be connected to the many vodkas I had to drink in a very short time - boss’ order, what can you say).

Deichkind - Bon voyage:

“Melt Festival… OMG! What an amazing location for a rave/dance party, out in the middle of nowhere, amongst a heap of gigantic, massive, old, rusting, industrial, mining, digging, steal processing machines, all lit up with fantastic lighting, excellent sound and lighting everywhere, market stalls, diverse music line-up, lots of food and snacks, and cheap drinks.”
Read about a whole tour involving Melt, Tresor, Maria am Ufer, Berghain/Panorama Bar AND Knut in only three days at decoded_

Ok, but who was the best on the festival? Goose definitely rocked so unbelievably hard that I thought the roof was coming of. Such a perfect mix of rock and electro that blew everybody away. Best sound award goes to Trentemöller. He just put out a gigantic blanket of bass and melody over the crowd and everybody who expected club madness was surprised and delighted to be carried away by such a dubby experience. Polarkreis18 surely lived up to the expectations being one of the most interesting young German bands. I just hope they don’t get tired of all the playing and always delivering such an emotional performance.
Best entertainer: Dendemann. Even for those who don’t like Hiphop he did a good show with lots of head nodding and booty shaking.

Polarkreis18:

Goose - Ultimate Heavy Electro-Rock Alarm:

Trentemöller Dubby Drum club experience:

Two bands I did not see but listened to because I had to work, were Black Rebel Motorcycle Club who had a bright and fat sound but somewhat seemed to be a little fed up and overplayed. And then there were the Shout Out Louds who sounded like The Cure - great! Hot Chip surprised not only me but a lot of people. Disco-popping into the sunset. I personally very much liked Werle & Stankowski with their very unique mix of singer-songrwriter tunes, electro background and bluesy attitude. But there were so many great bands, impossible to mention them all. I subscribe to Tonspion’s view when they say:

“Wenn ihr wissen wollt wie der Jan Delay, der Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Shitdisco und Tocotronic waren, müsst ihr eure Freunde fragen. Sorry. Man kann nicht alles sehen, denn das Melt hat ein Luxusproblem: zuviel des Guten.”

But the unofficial, secret star of this festival certainly was Jake the Rapper. He played a live set and a DJ set one day later, he was always around, connecting and small talking and without him, I guess I had become target of a severe thunderstorm: Goldie in a bad mood.

The records and CDs of the charismatic entertainer, DJ, manager, writer and most of all godfather of Drum’n'Bass had been accidently transferred to London instead of Berlin (actually that happens quite often I must say). A DJ without music is a sad figure - what were we supposed to do? Thanks to Senuti and Jake’s Mac, Goldie could transfer many files from his iPod to Jake’s computer and burn seven cds. These he used for his three hour set and definitely made the people very, very happy. He was very happy himself, not to say enthusiastic: “You know when things go wrong like this and you have to improvise, that’s the best. Nothing new ever happens if you never have to improvise!” Said it, hugged me so hard I hardly could breathe and then ran off to meet Richie Hawtin (who he hadn’t met before). Climbed right on stage and hugged him as well. Very intense person, very charming and interesting. It was a pleasure to meet him, really.

Goldie and MC Lowqui begin:

and deliver:

Coming slowly to an end, I just want to pay credit to all the people who share their memory on the web, especially those who really made the effort to edit little movies about their Melt experience. There are many many interesting and cute documentaries out there.

While Justice/Simian Mobile Disco’s song “We are your friends” was the unofficial hit of the festival last year, this time it was Soulwax’s edit of the Klaxon’s song “Gravity’s rainbow“. I heard it over ten times in different locations, here, some people are dancing to it on the camping site:

Not everybody was so lucky:

“es kam was kommen mußte: Ich rutsche auf dem Arsch die Böschung hinunter bis ich im Schilf des Sees zum Stehen kam. Was für eine groteske Situation: 500 Meter hinter mir spielte gerade unüberhörbar Dizzie Rascal sein Set auf der Mainstage, während ich auf einmal in der Uferzone des Gremminer Sees eine Fangopackung genoß.” from Reality on the rocks

Here’s a short video about Red Bull’s music academy activities, very interesting and ambitious approach, still:

And I would like to finish the longest blog entry I have ever written with this video that shows Magda on the Big Wheel floor which was pure electro all the time. Out of the Minus crew, I like her best:

Here are some more links: Really good pictures have Tranzland and Sint@Flickr but you’ll find great pictures by other photographers all over. And here’s a list of not to be missed blog entries about Melt 07 aka Melt X.