FRAK was the first act out on the Kontra-Musik White Label series. Back in 2012 the EP Triffid Gossip marked the return of both the band FRAK and the label Borft. Now, 12 years later, FRAK returns to KMWL with the splendid and diverse Safari Modules EP. Machine produced by FRAK, hand stamped by Ulf-Ulf. More

Legendary Swedish outfit Frak for the 20th installment of Libertine Records Traditions series. Extraordinary, classy, and timeless music from recovered 80s tapes. From freaky Acid to New Wave, Electro and Industrial, high-quality standards for a future underground classic release! More

As we continue on our journey here at Futurepast, we are pleased to welcome a trio that, for many years, we felt shared our vision, Frak! From Sweden, Frak have been founding an original hardware-based sound since the 80's, first via their own label Borft before collaborating with other labels over three whole decades.

On their "Formless Obstruction" EP, Frak have provided a window into the sinister twists and turns of their work. On the A-side, you see creeping Detroit stylings of "Scientific Bella" set against "Wrong Owl" with it's EBM underpinnings and industrial inflections.

On the flip, "Concentrated Feed" bubbles next to the razor sharp "Capacity Faun", both are filled with characteristic machine quirks and experimentalism. More

Höga Nord rekords proudly presents Frak! Frak was formed in the southern coastal town of Karlskrona by Jan ”Zwarre” Svensson, Björn Isgren and Johan Sturesson in 1987. Zwarre is also founder of the legendary experimental electro label “Börft” which through the years has gained both national and international recognintion. From the beginning, Frak stood for an alternative to the hair metal hegemony of their hometown Karlskrona where they, in the early days got chased from venues by the locals. “The rednecks hated us” Isgren told Resident Advisor in an interview made some years ago. However, unlike Poison, Fraks sound is still appealing and “Ternary Fission EP”, as well as all their earlier releases has all the elements necessary for a sophisticated electronic act: dark and suggestive electro and techno! If you need musical compositions for the stranded atomic submarine U-137, test flights of the Swedish fighter jet JAS 39-Gripen, the Soviet space programme, the first manned mission to Mars or the transition to the bunker society, Frak is a strong and valid option! TRACK LISTING: A1. Corridor, A2. Stetoskop, B1. Micro Fisson, B2. Arcitect More

FRAK are back on track with this dreamy album with deep dark hypnotic slow rhythmic tracks. This is experimental analog and haunting dancemusic at slow BPMs which gives you a glimpse of swedish smalltown dystopia in all its glory. The A1 track might give the impression that this is a romantic record and the A side in general will make big city people feel the urge to move to small towns again, but on the B-side it just gets darker and weirder (the smalltown kinda reveals its ugly underbelly) and it all ends with a track that would make the taped nipples fake fetishists in techno city shiver. I could say you need a mask to play this out, but lets not take it that far. For old fans of FRAK this record both delivers (A-side) and challenges (B-side). Me, I want doubles. -Joakim Cosmo More

The heavy industrial crunch and rubbery synths of FRAK’s trademark sounds come to Hypercolour with the four track ‘Berga Magic’ EP. The Swedish techno trio have been active since the late 1980s, issuing cassette tapes (and later, vinyl) filled with blueprint techno and electronica on their own Börft Records label. Following in the footsteps of Severed Heads, D.A.F. and Devo, FRAK have truly embraced performance art and experimental minimalism over the years, never compromising, always innovating. The ‘Berga Magic’ EP comes brimming with raw analogue explorations and delightfully incongruous noise. More

Frak are Björn Isgren, Johan Sturesson and Jan Svensson, a trio of synthesizer lovers from Sweden. The band was formed when Svensson and Isgren’s older sisters were best friends and they introduced their little brothers to each other. Inspired by Severed Heads, DAF, Human League, Devo, Skinny Puppy, the boys began collecting analog equipment and started Studio Styrka. While the band were still in their early teens they released the first FRAK cassette album in 1987 on their own record label Börft. Almost 30 years later, FRAK continue to release their bizarre brand of Scandinavian techno with their debut release on Dark Entries. “Sudden Haircut” was recorded in 2015, a ten-minute brooding, heavy hitting acid attack full of 808 drum claps aimed at the dance floor. The three remaining songs come from a studio tape the band found in their archives named 'FRAK "After The Silence" 2001-2010' “Synthgök” and “Synthfrilla” were recorded in 2010 and originally released on the ‘Börft’ EP by Sex Tag Mania in 2012. Utilizing a 808, 303, 101 and MS-10, both are supreme cuts of electro leaning acid techno that perfectly fit the sweatiest moments of any club land experience. The deliciously rugged final track “First Glimt I Ögat” is a vintage unreleased Frak song from 2001 recorded one month before the track “Second Coming” (later released as B1 on ‘Börft’ EP). All songs have been mastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Designer Eloise Leigh has created a playful DIY jacket based on a mysterious black and white photo of the band in their classic tin foil masks. Each copy comes with a black and white postcard featuring a distorted back stage photo of FRAK in their teens. More

The Queen is dead! Long live the Queen! After nine releases on their KVK series of the Karlovak label, KVK1000 will be the tenth and final release on the KVK imprint (god save her soul). In it's place arises the new KRLVK series. While the concept series KVK exclusively featured releases from the label-lords themselves, the new KRLVK series will sport work from other artists with releases from Radio Slave, Ben Sims, and the Chicago house legend DJ Jes already lined up. First up on KRLVK is Ben Sims who delivers a burning EP of disco infused house and techno bombs. More

Following on from DJ Stingray's 2013 Weaponized EP (TSAR001), Swedish vererans Frak Step up for TSAR002, delivering a record of analogue black acid magic. More

By now, Frak needs no formal introduction. Let's just say they are the Swedish House Mafia for people who actually know what house music is. Lately, there has been somewhat of a surge in house and techno influenced by synth, ebm and obscure sub-genres that end with "-wave". So the timing couldn't be better for Frak to return to Kontra-Musik with this remarkable synth and acid flavoured release. This is of course a bit ironic as no-one could possibly care less about trends and hypes than Frak and Kontra-Musik. Time is an illusion. Our music, however, is not. But it may flabbergast you all the same. Machines drifting away is an intriguing piece of music; straightforward and multi-layered; futuristic and old school. The first half of the track molds itself around an ebm-like bassline which seems to be moving through a desolate landscape with hard hitting kicks, claps and drums marching on beside it, while the sky above is filled with the wails of brooding synt hs. The second part introduces a mean 303-bassline as the intensity of the journey heightens. To find a way home has a more elaborate rhythmical body, which only can be described as Frakish. The sound of an echoing metronome sets the tempo at the beginning, soon to be joined by heavy kicks and toms. Several analogue synths then joins in; bending, distorting and moving through the soundscape, almost battling for space. Everything is kept on the right path, though, thanks to an ingenious use of hi-hats - a trademark trick and treat from Frak. Everything is composed and recorded in legendary Studio Styrka, Karlskrona. More

This 12" contains some true oddities. Frak is not known for doing remixes but here is one of the few that exists. A nice acid remix of Dave ID - Soul reprise. Also they did a special track to finish off the 2013 tours and here's the splendid studio version of ... phase.


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In a time fixated with genres, Ved have kept defying definition for over a decade, their hypnotically repetitive music constantly crossing the borderlands of post?-punk, art rock, musique concrete and minimalism. So far, vocals have been sacrificed for the sampled voices of anyone from Uri Geller to Yngwie Malmsteen. However, on their fifth full-length album, If The Door Is Opened, It's Opened From The Outside, the group brings a new, literary dimension to their eclectic music by letting two of their four permanent members emerge as lyricists with wildly contrasting vocal styles - one confrontational, the other introspective - on ten songs all springing from collective improvisation. So, what are they singing about? Refrigerators, airports and excrements - or is it capitalism, transcendence and rebirth? More

The evolution of Andreas Tilliander's moniker TM404 has reached its third stage. The first TM404 album was a heavily self-restricted concept album, live recorded with classic Roland machines. The subsequent album had a more playful vibe, shaped by Tilliander's extensive live touring. This third TM404 album on Kontra-Musik simply tells the story of what he's been up to since. The third part of a musical diary, initiated in 2013. The TM404 venture might have started out as a dreamy acid dub project, more suited for the chill-out than the main floor. But by popular demand Tillander found himself touring big clubs around the globe and the TM404 sound adapted organically. As a result, the album features tracks like Vactro and Rymdeko: fast paced acidic techno tracks in the same vein as classic Plus 8 releases, but with more space echo. Much more. But never fear, fans of the classic warm and bubbling TM404 sound. You'll certainly get yours as well. A substantial portion of this album was recorded in a studio flat in Berlin as part of an artist residency. For obvious reasons, Tilliander could only bring a small portion of his studio gear to this German sanctuary. As a consequence, this album has a more stripped down vibe than its predecessors, which creates more space for Tilliander's glowing melodies. The last track on the album, a loving homage to Kontra-Musik's label boss, is a sublime example. And for the Instagram generation, here's the short version: The album is called Syra. That translates to Acid. You're welcome. More

Sebastian Mullaert has always been a seeker and an innovator, so naturally his long awaited debut solo album, "A Place Called o Inkonst" presents an unique artistic concept and a thoughtful exploration of the relationship between sound and space. For several weeks, Mullaert spent most of his time at Kontra-Musik's home base Inkonst, an old chocolate factory turned cultural hub in the busy urban area of Mollan, Malmo city. Working in solitude outside the venue's usual hours, he built his live rig in front of the PA, right in the middle of the dance floor. This figurative role reversal between a dancer and performer allowed him to fully immerse himself in a perspective as close as possible to that of the audience during the process of creation. Mullaert's recording studio lies deep within a beautiful forest in the south of Sweden, a setting which has increasingly made its mark on his music: lush, green and spacious. It's a lovely place that makes for equally lovely music, but contentment is art's worst enemy. The complete displacement during the recording process of this album has affected his music profoundly. Mullaert's usually wide horizon of green hills and tall beech wood is more condensed and focused here, taking the form of urban patterns of life. Shades of longing and melancholy run through the album and those hazy ambient parts are no longer modelled on morning mist, they are exuding from smoke machines. The album is an exploration of improvisation, an approach that has become far more than a method for Mullaert: For him this is a way of encountering the present. The tracks are expressions of chance; collisions and collaborations of sound waves caught in the moment by Mullaert, like snapshots of fleeting harmony. The thematics are always distinct but at the same time ever morphing, pulsating and breathing like living entities. As the music changes we accordingly change with it. New patterns of movement and thought emerge and we improvise to keep up. This is the concept of dancing in its purest form, but also of meditation. A place called o Inkonst is made for both. A place called o Inkonst is Sebastian Mullaert's hommage to improvisation - an approach that is central to his work as a musician, as well as his critically acclaimed Circle Of Live event series concept he launched last year. The here and now is always in a state of flux, so improvising is the only true way to experience the present.

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After releasing a brilliant and stomping three-tracker on Kontra-Musik White Label last year, ex-Durian Brother Harmonious Thelonious returns to the Kontra-Musik family with an absolute gem of a record. This is everything we want dance music to be: characterful, playful and impossibly funky. Harmonious Thelonious is a master of crafting organic sounding rhythms but arranging them in a manner that reminds one of a 1970's car factory. Primal pulses running through modern assembly lines, gears and pistons covered in green lianas. The result is a perfect symbiosis between living tissue and mechanical parts - dance music for primitive cyborgs. More

Andreas Tilliander released his first album as Mokira at the very turn of the Millennium on almighty Raster Noton. 11 years later, the latest Mokira album Time Axis Manipulation was issued on Ulf Erikssons Kontra-Musik and now it's time to pick up where we left off with 'Chill Out'. There's an air of happy retrospect and light solemnity surrounding the new album - enhanced by the fact that it marks Kontra-Musik's 50th release. With 'Chill Out', Mokira attempts to bring back the dreamlike state from those magical late nights of his youth spent in front of MTV's Chill Out Zone; to go back to his ambient roots using contemporary techniques and perspectives. The result? Well, imagine Lee Scratch Perry and KLF enjoying an episode of Stranger Things on a crappy vintage TV after being hard at work burying old tape recordings in Perry's tropical garden. Imagine them sitting together totally at peace in a big, cosy sofa while a heavy haze is building up in the room, pleasantly affecting the eerie images on the screen. We always knew Kontra-Musik's 50th release had to be something quite out of the ordinary. As expected, Mokira didn't disappoint us one bit. The vinyl LP is accompanied with a download code for a mixed version of the album, containing almost double the amount of tracks. The mixed version makes it easy for the Chill Out listener to just sit back and let go of reality for a while, just like Mokira did 25 years ago in front of his old TV.

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Following the warm reception of The Dance 2xLP Album + live CD recording last year, Kontra-Musik now presents The Dance remixes The Dance Remixed 2 features an ever-growing remix by Efdemin - peak hour material without being boorish, just the way Kontra-Musik likes it. Wa Wu We and Voices From the Lake follow up with two tropical jungle expeditions: Wa Wu We's version of "Fusion" is feverishly humid and hot while Voices From the Lake takes the nocturnal route; brooding darkness, heavy rain and strange creatures of the night squirming away from the flashlight. Finally, Northern Electronics' own Ulwhednar (Abdulla Rashim & Varg) takes the listener to completely different latitudes with a hyperborean remix filled with chilling harmonies and gangrene-inflicted beats. More

What would it feel like to have your naked body slowly submerged in a pool of steaming acid? One would expect unbearable pain, of course - beyond the limits of our imagination - but with his Acid Ambient Vol. 1 on Kontra-Musik, Daniel Araya proves us wrong. The EMS Studio Engineer and producer adjusts the intricate PH levels of this corrosive bubblebath with infinity skilled hands, making the experience thoroughly pleasurable - on the verge of erotic even. Your skin melts away with a sweet sensation of laxity and your muscles and tendons dissolve sensually slow. At the end, nothing will remain below the surface but the pleasure center of your now diffused brain, pulsating with unrestrained satisfaction. So come on in, the acid is fine. More

Sebastian Mullaert and Kontra-Musik have been involved in a love affair for quite some time - an affair that even resulted in an offspring called The Dance that came out on Kontra-Musik last year. Sebastian Mullaert is of course first of all known as half of Minilogue, a duo so influential in the hypnotic field of Techno that Korg recently named a synthesizer after them. Lately, Sebastian has focused on his solo path under the Wa Wu We moniker, releasing stripped back and personal music on his own Wa Wu We label, the cryptic S.E.L.F label and now on Kontra-Musik. On the title track Travellers, Sebastian Mullaert uses a straight up techno formula that may surprise listeners who haven't followed his move into Wa Wu We territory. You almost get the impression Sebastian buried a recording destined for a rigid techno label in a deep forest back in the 90's and has now decided to uncover it again, finding that the track has matured under the black soil. The sharp edges are now covered in smooth moss and the soundscape is immensely deep and moist. But it's still a vibrant and very much effective track. Above all, it has loads of free space to let the listeners make up their own journeys as travellers into the world of sound created by Mullaert. We float, on the flip side, is a beautiful and meditative ambient piece. It's also the fastest way for the urban dweller to find him or herself floating in a serene lake surrounded by strong, green trees instead of floating in a sea of stress and anxiety. A set of headphones and this new release from Kontra-Musik and you're there.

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Joey Anderson, Markus Suckut & Wa Wu We remixes! The Dance Remixed 1 features an amazing Joey Anderson track that sounds like Vangelis on a jackin' acid trip, as well as a sinister Markus Suckut remix that brings his own no-nonsense techno label SCKT to mind, but still manages to retain the entrancing qualities of the original track. You'll also find two exquisitely stripped back versions from Wa Wu We, focusing on the bare necessities without losing an inch of the musicality and magnetism of the original tracks. the remixes part 2 features Efdemin, Voices From the Lake, Ulwhednar & Wa Wu We. Tip!!

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To celebrate Kontra-Musik Records hitting the ten-year mark, founder and label owner Ulf Eriksson has put together a collection of some of our finest releases. More

As an encore to the mesmerizing CCC: BB: BBB: JJ release on Kontra-Musik, Tyler Friedman brings out his version of what he thinks "DJ techno tools" are. This is music for the dancefloor alright, but it's a dancefloor from a strange and slightly uncanny dream. Tyler explores the sonic field between the chillingly precise and the vivaciously warped - the disciplined and the untamed. He thrives in that space, creating an eerie microcosmos of evolving harmonies and rhythms that seem to have lives of their own - like music coming out from a haunted clockwork. A suiting apparatus for a label unconcerned with the conventions of time. More

Tyler Friedman returns to Kontra-Musik with a series of immersive wax maelstroms, adorned with the mind-melting artwork of Rafaela Drazic. Every track on CCC: BB: BBB: JJ is a controlled experiment in lysergic dance music; an examination of how far you can warp the constitutive elements of techno without loosing it's essential spine. The result is four evolutionary techno suites full of movement and life that make your brain move just as vigorously as your body. As the personal work of a composer creating soundtracks for artist projects - most notably as a long-term collaborator of The Otolith Group, the filmmaker collective spearheaded by pioneering Afrofuturist theorist Kodwo Eshun - CCC: BB: BBB: JJ sums up everything Kontra-Musik is about: dancefloor celebrations challenging the boundaries of expectation and genre. More

The Dance is the result of a long lasting musical love affair between Kontra-Musik's Ulf Eriksson and Sebastian Mullaert (aka Minilogue). As most love affairs, it started off as an exciting experiment: Ulf would play records and Sebastian would bring out his music gear and play a live set. As they were touring with this live concept, their sounds started to really integrate, and after one especially fine night at Trouw, Amsterdam, Ulf and Sebastian decided it was time to conceive The Dance. Once the decision was taken, everything else came naturally. The Dance was to be recorded live, in one take, at Kontra-Musik's home field Inkonst, Malmo, Sweden.

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With this release, Villa Abo (Frak) departs from the home planet of Borft to create Friendship Over Different Systems together with Kontra-Musik. Via twisted machine funk and a grand space opera of analogue synths, Villa Abo will Askew The Eternity. The steady pounding of drums and hearts through the Galaxy makes you want to keep your 1970:s X-wing ready for battle Between Doomsday And Now, but In The End we'll all dance together under a starry sky filled with debris from exploding Death Stars.

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After an acclaimed album on Soma and two releases on Echocord Colour, it's time for Italian producer and sound designer Roberto Clementi to join the Kontra-Musik family. With that kind of discography, you'd expect dub and lot's of it, but this in not your average dub techno record. With the use of tape and field recordings and an array of analogue machinery Roberto Clementi has created what we would like to call an "All nighter". The steady thumps and growling dubs of the title track Diodes is the perfect welcome to a dark and smoky dance floor, and the sweeping synths and life sustaining open hihat of the last track, Into, is the perfect goodbye. Between the open and the close you have have the analogue grit and amplitude of The Optimist for peak time purposes, as well as a refreshingly dizzy-making breath of fresh air from 15 years. Afterwards, as you stumble out in the bright morning light, your head will still be echoing with Roberto Clementi's exqu isite craftsmanship. From early to late, from late to early - Diodes is a round the clock musical treatment from Kontra-Musik.

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Limited edition 7-inch vinyl containing previously unreleased versions of the track Brevet Hem, taken from their new album - 2.

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TM404 aka Andreas Tilliander drops his first EP, after the celebrated debut album from earlier this year. TM404 is a project where Andreas Tilliander embarks on a conceptual journey through classic Roland machinery. In February we saw the light of his first album under the moniker and it is probably one of the best albums this year. Since then Andreas has toured the world with his huge bag of Roland gear, finally landing a gig at Richie Hawtins Enter club concept at Ibiza. This is no wonder. On the A-side of the Svans EP you can clearly hear the connection to Richie and his Plastikman project. The track 303/303/303/606/606 is heavy, slow grooving techno that brings the listener back to the dark emptiness of the Plastikman Consumed era. On the b-side the TM404 project is allowed elevated to new levels. With a Yamaha SY-1 and a Yamaha TG33 entering the machine park, TM404 for the first time, breaks his Roland oath and opens up the project to a future of new po ssibilit ies. During the development of the Svans EP this track actually went under the working title "the summer hit". Take a listen to the fine bassline, airy production and the Selected Ambient Works-inspired harmonies and sounds and you will know why. Welcome to over 12 minutes of pure old school bliss. To be played really loud on a very good soundsystem.

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