Varius Artists - Delays aus der echokammer
It was 20 years ago, that I founded the recording studio echokammer in Obergiesing, Munich. This record exists to reminisce. On this occasion, I browsed through my archive searching for unreleased material. This sent me back to the endless nights spent at the Kistlerstrasse (15 years the home of echokammer). My small studio has experienced many a special moment with great musicians, DJs and producers, which I will approach on a chronological basis: First off, my friend Lorenz Angermann, who I founded numerous bands with from the 1970's onwards. We produced our last track in our musical activity in 1997, called "VIAN". We are both great Boris Vian fans and we did not just sample the master, but also, in my opinion, transport him from jazz into the techno age (when techno was still of any relevance). "Chicks on Speed", who recorded a single at echokammer around that time, wanted to use the track with additional vocals for their very first album, but then decided against it. The next track "DON'T TOUCH ME EVER AGAIN" I recorded in 1998, together with Frans Stummer. Like Lorenz Angermann, I have known Frans (a well-known comic drawer in his own right), since childhood days in the countryside (Mühldorf/Altötting/Burghausen). We used to meet regularly for an E (not ecstasy, but a pretzel with butter) and a coffee in the echokammer, to record music spontaneously. A Russ Meyer soundtrack must have fallen into our laps whilst recording this track, because the vocals consist solely of soft dialogs from his films. "GET UP AND BOOGIE WITH YOUR BROKEN HEART" is based on the cutting room floor scraps of remixes for "Amon Düül 2", which I produced around 1999, together with Hans Platzgumer (legendary musician and now successful author) and Gerhard Potuznik (Viennese musician and founder of the fabulous label "Angelika Köhlermann Records"). I remember the moment well, when the three of us sat in "Amon Düül 2's" studio and were presented with hours of material. Ultimately, we only used some of the vocals and did our own thing with it. In 1994, together with Noe Noack (Bayern 2/Zündfunk radio host, also from Altötting), I founded Bavaria's first soundsystem: "Lion's Den Dubshower". Together with Ralf Summer (also a Zündfunk radio host), we released two records in 2000 on our newly founded label echokammer. The project ended in 2005, but now at least the last track "ORIENT DUB" has made it on to vinyl. Shortly before Saam Schlamminger (Chronomad, German- Persian musician) became severely ill at the end of 2006, we produced the track "BESUZ" for a London label. It was not electronic enough for them and thus it disappeared in the depths of the echokammer archive. My friendship with Saam is a deep one and I am happy that we recorded the album "Entrance to the Exit" by "Blacken the Black", together with Annika Line Trost (Cobrakiller/Berlin). "Schorsch der Bär" entered the echokammer via Mathias Modica in 2008. He was a popular Munich-based DJ at that time and I was supposed to produce a track for his label Gomma Records. His naive, whilst simultaneously meticulous approach to music and his Bavarian ways, immediately captured me. We made the dancefloor- compatible track "AFROBOOGIE", pieced together from his record collection. Mathias, however, thought it too precarious to use the samples and so he never officially released it. A year later the real Schorsch committed suicide, sadly because of other reasons than the good old Udo Lindenberg would have liked. Apropos Hamburg: I know Knarf Rellöm back from when I was touring as a sound-technician for my favorite Munich band "Merricks" in 1995, and when he still went by the name of "Walding". In the years following our paths crossed often and we decided, on one of our urban midnight strolls, that we should work on something together at echokammer. In 2014 the time came and we proceeded to lock ourselves into the new echokammer at the Alpenstrasse in Obergiesing for two days, in order to produce the track "2DAYZ". The goal of this record was to form a coherent compilation, which consists of playful, yet never sloppy, snapshots from different eras, whose common denominator is the combination of electronic and digital production with analog dub-effects. My credo for this musical offering is: Play music don't work music! (Albert Pöschl)