Stoicism is one of the most influential philosophical schools in western civilization. In fact, the name traces back to a portico on the Agora, the town square of Athen: it is here that Zeno of Citium founded the dotrine in the early 3rd century BC. An essential property of stoic philosophy is the cosmological perspective on a holistic experience of the world, resulting in a universal principle that prevails in all natural phenomena and correlations. The stoic individual is mostly concerned with recognizing and occupying his place in this order - he does so by embracing his fate through the stoic practice of emotional self-restraint, striving for wisdom by means of serenity and tranquility. More

In the beginning God created the bass drum. He made it beat 8,601 days. Then he left it away. God said: Death is the greatest work of art. And it's expensive. Finally infinite. That's politics and science and art. The art of omission. The art of refusal. Death is absolute. The bass drum is absolute. Do you want the absolute bass drum? If you manage to convince him, God will be happy to lend you his axe, because what happens is what he wants. Just like the people. They want it to happen, too. The most expensive work of art in the world is a skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds. More

"Apodiktische Gewissheit" ("apodeictic certainty") is the title of an audio-visual cooperative project from Berlin-based artist Gerhard Mantz and Wolfgang Voigt. The project is premised on a digital video piece from Gerhard Mantz. Steadily flowing geometric forms and themes move evenly around a fixed center towards the viewer. A hypnotic undertow-like effect of seductive beauty emerges - impossible to elude, whether you want to or not. Wolfgang Voigt seizes on the digital aesthetic and the mechanical flow of the images, giving them a musical equivalent. The result is a successful amalgamation of imagery and music that generates maximum intensity with minimum motion. An Impression of concurrency between loop-ish continuity and a constant forward thrust, always the same and always different, beginninglessness and endlessness is created. The vinyl release at hand is a part of the audio-visual art installation "Apodiktische Gewissheit", developed in cooperation with Cologne-based gallery Hammelehle and Ahrens at Cologne's Gertrudenkirche and starting on Friday, November 4th 2016. More

Stoicism is one of the most influential philosophical schools in western civilization. In fact, the name traces back to a portico on the Agora, the town square of Athen: it is here that Zeno of Citium founded the dotrine in the early 3rd century BC. An essential property of stoic philosophy is the cosmological perspective on a holistic experience of the world, resulting in a universal principle that prevails in all natural phenomena and correlations. The stoic individual is mostly concerned with recognizing and occupying his place in this order - he does so by embracing his fate through the stoic practice of emotional self-restraint, striving for wisdom by means of serenity and tranquility. More

Assumedly most of us are familiar with FREILAND from younger Profan releases, namely Klaviermusik (Piano Music) and Geduld (Patience). In fact, however, FREILAND (Open Land), primarily was the successor project of the legendary Studio 1 series that started in 1998 and was limited to 6 maxis. No hi-hats, no snares, no samples. Less is more. With its consistent concept of a single synthetic sound, evolving in a stoic-minimal rhythm around one bass drum only, FREILAND, alongside Sog (Undertow), is and was Wolfgang Voigt's most important project of this kind. The piece, FREILAND - ROT 2 (Open Land – Red 2), to some degree is an epitome of the concept of "the art of omission". Accordingly, "ROT 2" is the first part of the remix series "FREILAND - FREIE SICHT" (Open Land – Clear View). Like a rusty steel sculpture à la Richard Serra, the original is set on an open field, defying wind and storm to this very day. For his Z.O.M. mix, Wolfgang Voigt brought the sculpture indoors and enveloped it in an almost club-like, warm groove coat. Neatly wrapped up, it's put through the silver glittering tinsel machine rain and out through the arpeggiator, offering a small taste of the album to be released in September, "Zukunft Ohne Menschen" (Future without people). "ROT 3" (Red 3), the mother of all shaffel bombs, dressed in gaffel mix. Meaning: gabber meets schaffel (shuffle). Greetings from Kompakt Extra / Speicher, home of glam hog-rock. The musical alter ego of painter Albert Oehlen, virtually guest of honour, reverences Wendy Gondeln. His work on the original and so far unpublished version of "ROT 4" is in line with the expressive, radical nature of his paintings. Using aggressive, abstract violin sounds in real time, he pushes the stable statics of the beat to its limits. A short but intensive intermezzo and an unusual approach to techno. The final shine is added by Michael Mayer's smart and confident dancefloor-style, in the best kompakt'esque sense, by condensing the ingredients of the subtle grooving schaffel track "GELB 3" (Yellow 3) to a hissing filigree of blurred drum sounds. Musical own-blood therapy with short and thrifty sombre house-like chords. More

In the beginning God created the bass drum. He made it beat 8,601 days. Then he left it away. God said: Death is the greatest work of art. And it's expensive. Finally infinite. That's politics and science and art. The art of omission. The art of refusal. Death is absolute. The bass drum is absolute. Do you want the absolute bass drum? If you manage to convince him, God will be happy to lend you his axe, because what happens is what he wants. Just like the people. They want it to happen, too. The most expensive work of art in the world is a skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds. More

Du musst nichts sagen" ("You don't have to say anything") was a puristic sound study with lots of bassdrum and a hint of flourish, which threw a tight girdle over Wolfgang Voigt's sonic cosmos. Originally the b-side to "Rückverzauberung 2", a much more freeform exploit, "Du musst nichts..." marched towards a dark fortress, following a point-blank trail and inspired by the mute grit of the many. But the original's rigor is neither unknown to this oeuvre, nor would the artist not have other strategies in mind to reach his designated goal. The remixes at hand present three distinct alternatives, starting with the Fanfaren Mix that cranks up the amount of fanfare – hence its name –, but also explicitly carves out the underlying 4/4 rhythm. By contrast, the Informel Mix dabs on his percussion in a more intuitive way: created as the soundtrack for an experimental video, this version doesn't so much buy into the source's drama, but focuses on what was heard between the notes in the first place. The flipside is an old acquaintance too: the Doppelvoigt Mix was showcased in a video of the same name, which took an interview given by Wolfgang Voigt and translated it into some sort of documentary Techno both abstract and humoristic. In the end, all three versions share one classic Voigt verdict: Techno is essentially Ambient... only without the Ambient part More

Creates a claustrophobic, nightmarish atmosphere that can definitely be described as "Kafkaesque". More