Etapp Kyle returns to Ostgut Ton with Nolove, a project encompassing a four-track EP, short film and forthcoming web exhibition focusing on Western Ukraine. Specifically, the music and artwork home in on the cities of Kamianets-Podilskyi and Chernivtsi in Bukovina, where Etapp Kyle grew up and developed his interest in electronic music. Although now part of Ukraine, Bukovina had previously been part of Moldova, the Habsburg Empire, the Russian Empire, Romania and the Soviet Union. Its turbulent history and position on the border of Romania and Moldova have resulted in an extremely varied tapestry of cultural influence, as featured in the video for title track “Nolove”. There, youth, fashion, music culture sit side-by-side next to religion, violence and war – and larger political struggles. The EP gives shape to the musical developments Etapp Kyle has made in both the studio and DJ booth since the release of 2017's Alpha, his latest 12" for Ostgut Ton. In contrast, Nolove's four tracks are minimalistic, detailed electronic ventures inspired by personal reflections on Chernivtsi and Ukrainian cultural identity. Forward-facing in rhythm and melody, the EP offers meticulously-produced leftfield dancefloor impressions of the region’s past, present and future.

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It goes without saying that space has always been central to Techno – both in terms of its cosmic and futuristic trajectory, as well as in the spatial dimensions of sonic elements. Etapp Kyle’s first full Ostgut Ton EP release sees the Ukrainian-born, Berlin- based Berghain resident emphasizing the connection between the two, while avoiding Techno’s overt intergalactic cliche´s. By partially linking to his Continuum EP (Unterton, 2016), the results are four tracks of pristine, sci-fi minimalism, propelled by Ambient synths and percussive explosions in distant skies – more utopian than dystopian.

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Mark is releasing a new EP called Integriert Euch Nicht. It features two tracks taken from his Berghain debut and a freshly-composed drum & bass missile. “Fucking Sick Of Myself Since Day One (Hot Desk Mix)” and “Hats Off To Herr. F” were first performed at Mark’s 2018 Berghain live set during Ostgut Ton Nacht. The former is a breakcore-adjacent call to arms for the self-loathing, the latter an antarctic shiver of predator- mode IDM-illektro. “Integriert Euch Nicht (Commercial Jump Up Mix)” features singing from Blackest Ever Black alum Silvia Kastel. Mark wrote the vocal parts with sine waves before Kastel recorded each tone individually, creating microtonal clusters in the vein of Luigi Nono. The sax-like sounds are Wilted Woman playing the aerophone, an electronic woodwind instrument. Otherwise, it's Mark's most deliberately straight ahead drum & bass track to date, trading the beat science of former releases for a stubbornly boneheaded approach in line with the title's message. Integriert Euch Nicht is something of a spiritual successor to last year’s tech/gentrification/real- estate-investment themed Integrier Dich Du Yuppie and a ruffer, more floor-focussed elaboration of the techniques tested on his unterton debut The Least Likely Event Will Occur In The Long Run. Under his Klon Dump alias, Mark has also previously released a psych-mnml double EP called Klon Dump Vs. The Open Air on A Colourful Storm and Two Rooms, a tape of sound art improv and knackered pop-strumentals on Bristol-based imprint NoCorner. When not playing solo, Mark also accompanies Blackest Ever Black’s Carla dal Forno on live electronics.

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On her Unterton debut, Their Specters, Borusiade offers four different takes on atmospheric, industrial electronics and chopped rhythms, composed around the themes of ecological and human self-destruction. 2018 has already been an active year for the Romanian-born, Berlin-based electronic musician, who released her debut LP A Body on Co´meme in March and has since toured her live set throughout Europe. Known for a hybrid sound between noisy electronics, techno, post-punk, and dark disco, she has also released EPs and 12“s on labels such as Minimal Wave sublabel Cititrax and Jennifer Cardini’s Correspondant. EP opener “Forewarned Is Forearmed” sets the tone as a massive drum march, stomping forward between rolling snares, clanging metal percussion and guttural drones, while evolution-themed ”Common Ancestor” is a tribal head-nodder, with booming sustained kicks offset by overdriven snare brushes and fluttering synths. New forms from a primordial sonic pool. On “Doublethink” wailing synths and stuttering rhythms vie for dominance in a storm of off-kilter techno, while the mammoth, slow melodic closer “Atlas” moves to the pace of waves crashing and hypnotic, detuned, interwoven melodies. Big sounds for the end of days.

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Unterton kicks off 2018 sideways with three tracks of high-octane electronics by Mark. 0-160 BPM in 15 minutes. Previous EPs for A Colourful Storm had a conceptual focus: the destructive effects of tech start-ups on Berlin’s cultural landscape. Sound-wise, they paired frenetic, experimental d‘n’b with musique concrète. On his Unterton debut, Mark continues further down a path of dark and psychedelic beat science. At times tranquil and hypnotic, other times charging forward between cracked whips and whiplash left-turns. “Comedy is the dog that walks out of the room when you call its name."

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After recent records by Kobosil, ? (Summe), Etapp Kyle and Nitam, Unterton continues its path of presenting young faces with a new EP by Somewhen. With his Null EP the Berlin-born and -grown producer expands his musical repertoire, connecting to the tonal range of his live and DJ sets in and out of Berghain. The four tracks on the Null EP all share a certain sabulosity: crackling, distorted and unpolished sounds are the EP’s ongoing motifs – sometimes in form of distinguishable effects for melodic or rhythmic elements, sometimes more subliminally arranged in the background. Yet, inbetween there’s much room for stylistic diversity. A1 opens with the Techno cut “Inward”. While the kick drum pounds throughout, the track’s multi-layered and detailed melodic and percussive elements add the real thrill with rich layers of bleeps and beeps, flicks and clicks. “Grit” on A2 resets the tempo and hints towards Industrial and EBM territory. While the title refers to the aforementioned textural distortions, the cut impresses through its use of hypnotically slow-picked bass guitar strings, shimmering synth melodies from far spaces and its ruptured rhythm progression. “Null Drift” on the flipside picks up the pace and kick again and keeps relentlessly going throughout its 6 minutes, adding swelling then decaying synth pads, while drones and acute percussion cater for relief. “Diskret” on B2 closes this EP with a targeted and straight rhythm, lashing claps, meandering melodies and protruding drum machine slaps that make the track a thrusting companion to the flipside’s “Grit”

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25 years old, born, raised and based in Berlin, but all at home in the club. Nitam’s debut Retold EP (U-TON 06) already set the tone in 2015, and here we are three catalogue numbers and 14 months later with his second 12" release on Unterton taking a similar line as his debut four-tracker did: new varied sonic themes with an overall fresh sound. Although still being young of age, Nitam outlines once again his interest in dance music from the late 80s and early 90s, presenting himself schooled by classic Detroit House as well as Chicago Acid House, but all without limiting himself to a restricted pallet of styles or catering towards musical expectations. A1 starts off gently with “Keen Insight” and its almost romantic, dreamy and hazy vibe – a mellow, melody-driven and emotional listening piece in the vein of Nitam’s initial track “Retold”. The following “Perception” on A2 is a more functional and club-enabled cut, taking shape with an Acid-informed bassline, moaning syth pads plus claps and percussion here and there. The flipside begins with “Influx” featuring a springy, muffled yet muscular kick alongside a rising synth line. What at first feels like a tool track soon evolves into a more complex song format once the sustained string and oscillating melody kick in. The EP is rounded off by the eponymous “Cancellate” and its almost Dubstep-like, placid rhythm progression and drive while being dominated by ceremonial synth pads and wraithlike keyboard speckles. U-TON 09 once again shows the versatility of Nitam as a producer, a talent that is also being reflected by his ever-increasing interest in DJing.

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With U-TON 07 we're introducing ? (pronounced: 'Summe'). This collective of Berlin- based musicians has been propagating in the city's subculture during the past two years. With this release ? are offering some hypertextural and -percussive music. "These tracks should be regarded as an invitation. We would like to approach change, the new and unknown with an open mind in order to challenge our perception of union and normality. We understand this music as a consolidation of communicative events which intends to interlink and encourage appreciation of complex differences through friction, interference and beat instead of renouncing them by establishing perfect harmony. Beyond what is currently conceivable, we focus on a joint musical and physical experience which also intends to make the impossible feasible.

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Entering the merry world of post-disco,proto-house,mirror ball fantasies,baby powder dreams+rays of sunshine.

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The first Unterton release features remixes by Efdemin and Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer.

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The first Unterton release features remixes by Efdemin and Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer.

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WAS - Word and Sound Medien GmbH
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