Monday March 7th - Decibel and Chop Suey proudly present:
KOMPAKT RECORDS CO-OWNER AND RECORDING ARTIST:
MICHAEL MAYER (Kompakt, Fabric - Germany)
With very special guests:
Jake Fairley (Kompakt, Sender, Dumb Unit - Toronto)
Bruno Pronsato (Orac - Seattle)
DJ Veins (Data Breaker - Seattle)
Show begins @ 8pm
21+
$10
Chop Suey
1325 E. Madison
quoted 3 lines Data Breaker article by Dave Segal. If you?re unfamiliar with Mayer you
>>>Data Breaker article by Dave Segal. If you?re unfamiliar with Mayer you
>>>should really check this out (great overview of his world renowned
>>>talents as a producer, DJ and label owner).
Michael Mayer sits at the epicenter of techno power and coolness. He bears
the strain with dignity--even thrives at the white-hot core of Kompakt
Records' empire in Cologne, Germany. A world-renowned DJ, talented producer
and remixer, and A&R man for arguably the world's most important
electronic-music company, Mayer has vast influence over the dissemination
and creation of techno and its myriad mutant subgenres. "We're always
looking for the personality behind music," Mayer says of Kompakt's ethos.
"We need to feel somebody behind the machines."
Besides distributing nearly 60 labels worldwide, Kompakt itself is a
prolific, hydra-headed source of music, spinning off series like a popular
TV sitcom: Pop Ambient (blissful beatlessness), Schaffelfieber (shuffle
techno), Total (label overviews), and Speicher (hard, peak-time techno).
With co-owners (and esteemed producers themselves) Wolfgang Voigt and J?rgen
Paape, Mayer has elevated Kompakt to the most visible underground-electronic
label ever.
All of which means squat when he gets behind the decks or the mixing board.
Mayer's debut as a producer, Touch, abounds with elegant, epic techno
anthems that seem suspended between the dance floor and the headphoned mind.
Mayer's goal with Touch was to "keep it as personal as I could. During the
production period, I was listening to all kinds of favorite records from my
childhood, teens until today. I tried to distill some kind of fragrance that
attracts me in an almost sexual way. I wanted to transform this into
contemporary club music [that] seeks its goal also beyond the dance floor.
The outcome is a collection of electronic poems or short stories."
Touch's merits aside, Mayer's DJing prowess is undeniable. People rightly
speak in hushed tones about his dubby, minimal-techno mix discs Immer and
Fabric 13. Is there room in Mayer's sets for whimsy, unpredictability, and
perversity?
"Watch out! It can happen anytime," Mayer says. "I clearly favor diversity,
but within certain parameters. There still has to be a kind of red line
throughout my sets. But I would always mix the old and the new, the populist
with the understatement, the happy and the sad. There are too many exciting
micro-genres these days to play with a purist attitude."
An 18-year DJ vet, Mayer waxes hopeful about today's dance-music scene.
"[D]ance music has never been as fascinating and diverse as today," Mayer
opines. "Okay, there's no new big thing right now, but it fascinates me how
everybody is trying his best to contribute something original to the
history. We're not living in times of big gestures; now it's all about
subtle variations and improvement. It's more like watching ants building a
new castle. At the first glimpse it looks like a big black unit but if you
put some effort to talk to every single ant in person you'll be surprised
about the rich variety." DAVE SEGAL
Also:
Check out this feature interview with Mayer in this weeks Seattle Weekly:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0509/050302_music_jukebox.php
quoted 1 line DECIBEL SHOWS COMING UP THIS SPRING:
>>>DECIBEL SHOWS COMING UP THIS SPRING:
May 18th @ Neumo's
Autechre
Snd
Russell Haswell
April @ Neumo's (date tba)
The Album Leaf
Aspects of Physics
www.dbfestival.com
[ DECIBEL LOVES YOU ]
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