YOU GOT TO GET IN TO GET OUT. Podcast radio

Between now and January 2022, the different elements that materialise and make this research work possible will gradually appear, including an exhibition that will open at La Casa Encendida in autumn 2021. Monthly radio podcasts will track the progress of this project open to the public.

These posts are like a living organism that will gradually grow and transform over the coming months. The series incorporates two fundamental aspects at the heart of the general project: a situated, hyperlinking listening experience capable of contaminating every sphere of life, beyond the club or the ambiguous temporality of nightlife and its presumptions; and the gestural dimension of techno dance, thanks to the iterative loan of constantly changing, expanding movements among the numerous anonymous bodies on the dance floor.

Both situations produce forms of (re)cognition and trigger relational and emotional possibilities that transcend language, as well as an individual and collective somatic experience that summons the sensuality of a sound continuum with a history: a genealogy riddled with conflicts, absences and appropriations that starts in Detroit and continues in Berlin but also constitutes a global phenomenon in the present.

Over the course of each month, the guest artists in this series will be invited to choose something from the previous session and include it in the next. This exercise facilitates a deliberate dissociation from the logocentric demand and drive that has marked the history of Western music and the predominance of melody, as well as the history of art.

It is here that we find a vindication of suspended rhythm and repetition as elements of resistance which join the political dimension of pleasure, listening and community understood as a collective practice in constant progress and motion.

Curators: Sonia Fernández Pan and Carolina Jiménez.

YOU GOT TO GET IN TO GET OUT: El continuo sonoro que nunca se acaba

#1

Get in. Get in early or too late. These are the first hours of techno. But they could be the last. Low bpm. But enough to start from the bottom. Advance without moving. Arrive little by little. Stay. A warm-up lasting over 6 hours. A session consisting entirely of vinyl records that bring the European clubs of the 1990s into the present, the first clubs F-on began to frequent in Madrid. Despite the difference in intensity between the beginning and the end, this session is posited as a loop of several hours. It starts and ends the same way. Get in early or too late. Get in the middle. Get in to stay.

F-on (Alfonso Pomeda)

His profound, progressive sessions with long mixes span a range of styles, from experimental and ambient music to the most atmospheric horizontal techno. They are stories that pay special attention to sonic materiality. His productions are slow tempo 4x4 experiments with field recordings and marked spaces, where he explores cinematographic structures, timbres and textures. A resident at the Alpenglühen and Prima Materia sessions in Madrid, he co-owns the Antimatter label with Bule. He also directs the eponymous Alpenglühen label, specialised in a deep atmospheric techno sound that explores the thin line between light and darkness. Since late 2019, he has worked with Josephine, Diskoan and Vrika to organise CALMA, a series of daytime events dedicated to easy listening electronic and ambient music in Madrid. He is also co-director of the Downbeat, Eleve and Memories on Wax labels. He co-directs Sonikas, the experimental music festival, and owns the record shop “...is the place”.

#2

"As state and capital continue to deny their systemic violence and we collectively sink into a myriad of global structural failures, here are some pieces of music that are helping me to attempt to make sense of this moment".

rkss

As a musician and producer, rkss takes a critical approach to music with their experimental productions, using sound as a series of gestures to explore complex socio-political issues by working with and pushing against social contexts.

rkss' live sets fuse unpredictable, divergent rhythms with radical synthesis techniques to reimagine and explore speculative futures, creating space for new and different ways of being. Releases include Brostep in the Style of Florian Hecker and DJ Tools (UIQ) and was named one of Pitchfork’s experimental albums of 2018.

They are currently an artist-in-residence at Somerset House Studios and are about to begin a month long residency at Wysing Arts Centre.

#3

“With profound gratitude to my colleagues for their magnificent music for my 777 years: Aleksi Perälä, Aner, Alva Noto, Claudio PRC, Donato Dozzy, Matteo Cortese, Perc&Fractal, Rrose, Ryuichi Sakamoto, SARS & AR, SØS Gunver Ryberg and The Lotus Eaters.” Cio D´Or

777 years or 16 min or the hypnotic iterativity of forgetting time

Changes slowly unfolded, capitulated, without major breaks. Kinetically rather than synthetically, the piece 777 years by Cio D’Or moves (un)consciously towards the production of a new time. A timeless, elastic, uchronic time that eludes musical grammars, intruding on the frontiers of techno, ambient and dub to hear its own listening.

Cio D’Or

Cio Dorbandt is a key figure on the German techno scene. Born in Hannover, she spent part of her youth in 1980s Berlin, studying and working as a dancer. A resident DJ at Munich’s Ultraschall club since 2001, she rose to international fame in the late 2000s while spinning in booths at the Berghain, Tresor and ://about blank.

With years of experience as a DJ, studio work came slightly later, although her sound has become essential to tracing the fragmented genealogy of minimal and deep techno, along with that of more habitual artists like Mike Parker and Donato Dozzy with whom she regularly collaborates. She has recorded albums and EPs for labels like Prologue, Telrae, Hypnus, Time to Express and the Madrid-based Semantica, which just released her latest album, Fluidum III (Semantica, 2010).

#4

"listening to a mix is to witness an unfolding over time. tensions and narratives play themselves out, as themes rise up, disappear and return. this mix is indebted to the loop. the loop is a point of eternal return, and a mix of loops is maybe less of an "unfolding" than it is an "oscillating" or even "flapping". this flappy mix centers on the mythology and aquatic justice of Drexciya, which is itself a world dislocated from overriding conceptions of time and "progress". let us take a swim in watery eternity."
tuuun

tuuun

Stephen McEvoy is a _______ living in Copenhagen. He usually manages to make enough time to water his ______ and maintain a fairly healthy _____. When not making techno or researching “space”, he tries to learn new ________, but often struggles with assertiveness. He is trying to get better at Danish, to integrate better into the Danish ________ and so please the racist Danish government. He works at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine _______ and makes radio for Dublin Digital Radio. He records music under the artist names tuuun and ___________. Since 2016 he has led the label and publisher FLUF, which acts as an inclusive platform for daring artistic work. He is unfortunately addicted to ________.

#5

Records mutate the forms drawn by maps and permit gestures we use to mix narratives. Post step ideas born as dub, organic lines like flares. Objects that make it possible for us to discuss certain sonic contagions that help us to demilitarise, putting the geo-temporal lines of content production and distribution to the test. Selection and mix operate by curating sound, provoking thought through an experience akin to making patches with the body. Techno music as a context that listens rather than a 4/4 style. An interstice for working as a way of reflecting on the brown, interconnected common ground, now vulnerable and muted.

“I’m very happy to share the music we listen to and mix with Edu at home, which is part of the trans-thesis narrative experiment that is writing a session.” Felisa Magui

Magui Dávila y Felisa

She runs laslindaspobres (laslindaspobres.tumblr.com) and is one half of @deleteD_accion_sound. She curates graphic self-publishing and sound performance initiatives in projects like “Cabaret” and “I’m Building a Geodesic Power Structure_ Clinic/encounter on print and sound self-publishing” with Svreca and Semantica Records for MACBA, Barcelona. She also facilitated “Corrimientos de Voces”, “Arbustos, Sustancias, Pelos y Ruidos” and “Internatural Techno Waves” for the Picnic Sessions of the CA2M, Madrid. She is in charge of graphics for the She Makes Noise festival at La Casa Encendida. Magui is currently doing research on 90s techno music in Madrid for the Museo Reina Sofía Study Centre. She studied Visual Arts and the History of Contemporary Art and is researching sound performance and the political value of bodies in techno club culture for her doctoral thesis at the UAM. She also coordinates and produces for Stardust, Aback and Cassette Club.

#6

“it’s a mix of nostalgic emotions that were never danced, a union of songs created between thin walls, with no other sweaty bodies, and listened to with reclining torso and fidgety legs in studios inside airtight houses. when i think of the possibility of escape the tracks had, i also think that the ideology of listening needs to add body to the ears, system, recognition of living interdependent materiality. or perhaps not, but this mix is a matter of exploring sound with the legs, so that the landscape isn’t always so far away, walking a bit, or running, or swimming, or dancing in the sounds with no aim other than to let the air between beats seep identity into our pores. there are many friends i couldn’t listen to, couldn't see, couldn't dance to in bodily person this year, so in a way i’m thanking them by putting them together with other sounds, some my own and some very much not, so that they can still be heard and overlapped like when sweat drips from the ceilings of poorly ventilated dives.”

Efe Ce Ele aka Feli Cabrera López

Colombian artist, trans and non-binary activist, founder of the Fragment A label. Defying classification, she works in an emotional, cinematographic style with no defined genders. For a long time she defined herself as a “noisist” and maintained that spirit until her latest productions based on beats that oscillate between styles like IDM, techno, electro and ambient. She has played in various cities across Latin America and Europe and released music on different labels, including Insane Industry (Trieste), CONCRETE (Brazil), Specimen Records / Sound-Space (London), Éter (Medellín), Dissident Movement (Naples), Ghara (Switzerland / Spain), Píldoras Tapes (Bogotá) and Cartel Recordings (Berlin).

#7

This mix is Damián Schwartz's review of Detroit techno based on his personal experience. The set attempts to convey what this producer and DJ considers indispensable or genuine elements of what “Detroit sound” means to him: risk, daring and the abstraction of African American music traditions, guided by funk, soul and jazz. The ability to combine these elements is what made Detroit a unique, easily recognisable sound. From Atkins and Omar S to Drexciya and Robert Hood, this podcast was recorded on vinyl at the Palma 39 record shop in Madrid and includes a few needle skips courtesy of some heavily spun records.

Damián Schwartz

Damián Schwartz (Madrid, 1983) is a musician, producer and DJ. Since his career began in 2002, he has performed at clubs and festivals like Mutek in Montreal, Sónar in Barcelona, Berghain in Berlin, Rex in Paris, Lux in Lisbon, Resolute in New York, Flash in Washington and Robert Johnson in Offenbach, among many others. Damián is a key figure for understanding contemporary experimental and electronic music in Spain and its impact on the international scene. He has worked with cultural institutions on the production of works and installations; for example, he composed and selected the soundtrack for Jean Painlevé’s documentaries at the Museo Reina Sofía, and his collaboration with architect Andrés Jaque was presented at the Design Museum in London. Damián currently runs Lyrebird Sound, a sound mastering, design and restoration studio in Madrid.

#8

“I made this mix in a different way than usual. These days I'm listening to a tone of beatless music mostly ambient or music concrete. I tried to find a way to give more important to quiet and "silence" moments.

I hope in a way this mix represents my current mood". Aho Ssan.

Aho Ssan

Aho Ssan is the artist name of Paris based Niamké Désiré. After studying graphic design and cinema, he began to compose electronic music and create his own digital instruments. Shortly thereafter he went on to win the Foundation France televi- sion prize for his soundtrack to the lm D’Ingha Mago in 2015 and has worked on several projects related to IRCAM. His debut LP Simulacrum was released on the 7th of February 2020 Via Subtext Recordings.

Based on the concept of Jean Baudrillard, it navigates through society’s presentation of inclusivity and equality against my own experience of growing up black in France.

Aho Ssan debuted Simulacrum at Berlin Atonal 2019.

#9

"I'm happy I get this chance to invite you for a little dive into my world. Big up & thanks to all the friends that feature on the mix that I recorded at villa Nyege in Kamapla. We hope you'll feel the vibes. Sending love to Madrid and all over from Kampala! Big up to the WW Nyege fam & friends! Hakula kulala. Enjoy!". Rey Sapienz.

Rey Sapienz

Born and raised in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rey Sapienzfirst got in touch with the musical world in church choir. By age 12 he started performing as a rapper for the Independence day of Congo. In 2002 he formed a band with Jay Dragon aka Hallyson with whom he would rap on Congolese soukous and perform in local shows.

Rey was always involved with his community, and regularly organized writing workshops in youth centers. In 2012 after completing his studies, he traveled to Uganda for a collaboration with various producers from Kampala. As the war made it impossible for him to return to Congo, Rey Sapienz extended his stay in Uganda.

In June 2017 Rey Sapienz self-taught music production and within a year, released his first EP HAKUNA KULALA, which became the paragon of the Nyege Nyege sublabel Hakuna Kulala. MUSHORO, his second EP was released in August 2019 on Hakuna Kulala again with great critics that made him one of the East African club scene's key artists.

Rey gives lectures to young artists in Kampala. He has toured Europe, East-Africa and played three editions of Nyege Nyege festival. For the last 5 years he has been the residency manager for the label. He is also a certified Ableton lecturer and gives workshops to emerging new producers of Kampala.

His first LP is to be released later this year.

#10

“It took me a while to get in the mood, because I hadn’t spun records for a long time, but after a few tries I warmed up and it was no looking back. It was three hours, in the end. I thought about doing an edit and cutting here and there, but since it was all recorded, why cut. I’m sharing it the way it happened.” The style is much the usual with Refracted: techno as an idea and a channel, rather than a sound that can be labelled easily. Dance music in which rhythms act as layers at an almost under-the-skin level, in the neurons, where landscapes of sound in motion and evolution attain a touch-like physicality.

Refracted

For the Berlin-based producer and dj, electronic music, and techno in particular, are the chosen medium to find a voice that connects, above and beyond scripted entertainment or danceable soundtracks. Examples of this may be found in the releases of his own label, Mind Express, and other famous labels such as PoleGroup or the Canadian ambient/deep-techno label, Silent Season, in addition to the booths of Tresor, ://about bank or the now defunct Griessmuehle, from Berlin, together with Contact, Domune – in Tokyo – or the Paral·lel Festival.

#11

“Making this mix I was thinking about the dreams I have recently seen, in them moving from distress to relief. A mix of reality and illusion, from hopes to anxieties, where am I exactly? Where do I belong? Where do I want to be? “And no dream is ever just a dream". Paula Koski.

Paula Koski

She has carved out a niche for herself with a multifaceted sound that ranges from ambient to experimental to richly layered, hypnotic and mental techno. Finland-born but Berlin-based Paula projects her sense of aesthetics and composition into non-verbal tensional sound creations, that are always emblazoned with a clear common thread. Paula is a resident artist and musical curator of techno collective, festival and event series Monument, and this position gives her a kaleidoscopic perspective on contemporary techno.

#12

“This set is a mix of tracks I’d normally play at the club and – in counterpoint – more experimental sounds, funky tribal rhythms with typically latin reminiscences of the Caribbean coast in Venezuela, where I was born, breakbeats and a touch of progressive trance from the 90s”. Hyperaktivist.

Hyperaktivist - DJ

Venezuelan born Berlin based, Hyperaktivist has been shaking the scene in and outside Berlin, with her characteristically energetic sets, unleashing a new wave of faster psychedelic-tinged trance, tribal techno and old school house pulsations, often with a cheeky nod to the 90’s rave era.

She started working for the development of club culture in her native Venezuela since an early age. There, she co-founded SOLO, the first club dedicated exclusively to electronic music in her hometown. After finishing a degree in mass media and journalism, she relocated in Berlin where she completed a diploma in sound engineering at the studios of the infamous Funk Haus.

In Berlin, she continues her work for the development of club culture as the architect of not one but two vital community-focused club nights.

#13

“The mix is a short version - not reduced - of what I usually do in my live sets. A sample of tracks that I have selected from among some that I have received recently”.

Adriana Lopez

Born in Bogotá and living in Barcelona, Adriana Lopez is one of the most prestigious techno artists at an international level and is considered a pioneer and key figure in the Colombian electronic scene. He began his career at the end of the 90s and since then she has performed in emblematic clubs and festivals such as Berghain and Tresor (Berlin), Village Underground (London), Concrete (Paris), Basement (New York), Vent (Tokyo) , Faust (Seoul), DGTL Festival (Barcelona, Madrid) and Rainbow Serpent Festival (Australia), among others. In 2013, she created the record label Gray Report, in which she edits her own material and the work of artists related to her sound. She has also released her music on other record labels such as Stroboscopic Artefacts, Modularz, Semantica, PoleGroup, BPitch, and Mistress Recordings.

#14

As Akua herself comments in our conversation, this is a “little rough” mix, recorded at a time when it wasn't possible to share it with an audience to vibrate with as the music happens. High-speed bpm's, hoovers, breaks, vocals that appear and disappear, and an exceptional "hardcore sensibility" flesh out a mix that is a sonic biography of the fastest techno and brings back and forward the rhythmic delirium of so many dance floors since the 90s.

Femanyst

With a recent EP released on Paula Temple’s ‘Noise Manifesto' last year, a string of international festival and club appearances, and a frenetic expression of militant techno individuality, Akua Grant sets theirself as one of the most unrelenting and innovative artists working in Berlin today. Whether it’s taking from her esteemed production time under the alias Lady Blacktronika or experience growing up in California, their self-assured approach to gripping and brawling techno tension sees them perform a fast paced and fervent flow on the dance floor.

Femanyst continues to bring their unapologetically bold signature sound with their new techno imprint “Dark Carousel” as an extension to their much revered DJ sets of twisted and aggressive, 90s influenced high octane electronic music.

#15

“This set has been a trip to deep techno with dark landscapes and a touch of light. As in all my sets, I try to tell a sound film with an introduction, middle and end; a sound narrative with a global meaning, like a shamanic journey where medicine is music”. MouseDown

MouseDown

Salva Coromina is mouseDown, a regular DJ on the Barcelona scene since the late 90s, resident at The Loft and a regular at Sonar for many years. He has always been exploring the deeper face of electronic music moving from ambient to techno. He is also deepening his role as a producer with his ABSIS project where we can see him doing live shows and publishing on labels like Hivern Discs and On Board Music.

#16

“I like my mixes to be a depiction of my current state, so I tend to create them based on my mood. I recorded this on a very mellow day; London was grey, but calm, and I had just recovered from a cold. I also base my mixes on the bpm I’m most interested in at the time, which then happened to be 132.

My signature mixing style is a combination of intense club tracks and delicate finales that contradict the sometimes-overwhelming nature of club music, intending to create serene and, hopefully, reflective environments for my listeners.” Michelle

Michelle

Michelle is a London-based DJ, radio host and writer, who has been sharing her love for club music through these outputs since 2012. Her monthly residency on NTS Radio captures her eclectic taste exploring drum tracks, instrumental grime, experimental dance, jersey club and more. Michelle’s impressive selection is also present in her DJ sets where she has played around Europe, including Wanderlust (Paris), The White Hotel (Manchester), The Whitworth (Manchester), Soup (Manchester), Wire (Leeds), Belgrave (Leeds) and several venues in London. She loves to support great artists through her written work for Resident Advisor, Truants, Crack Magazine, Insert and Electronic Beats.

Michelle’s passion for music also extends to her other endeavours in research. She has a PhD in Music Psychology and works as a Research Fellow and Music & Wellbeing Research Consultant, specialising in the different ways that music (and sometimes other arts-based activities) can be used as interventions for mental health problems.

#17

"The pieces in the mix are composed with the exclusive use of a single instrument and were released by the One Instrument label, created by Grand River in 2016".

Grand River

Aimée Portioli is a Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer who produces and performs under the name Grand River. Her music infiltrates the experimentalism of electronic music with a cinematic slant, placing an atmospheric lens on complex rhythmic structures. These lush and quirky landscapes blur long-lasting transitions with suspense.

In 2020, Portioli published his second album Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes on Editions Mego, following the Pineapple album published in 2018 on Spazio disponibile, along with appearances in Ghostly International and the Australian Longform Editions in 2019. His first work, Crescente (2017), was considered one of the best releases of the year by XLR8R. Since then, her work has been featured in festivals and venues around the world such as Berghain, Mutek, Mapping Festival, Nachtdigital, Le Guess Who, De School, Paral-lel Festival, The Labyrinth, Funkhaus, and many more. Since 2016, Grand River runs the record label One Instrument: https://oneinstrument.bandcamp.com/.

 

#18

'The sound continuum that never ends. And so I feel. Since the machine began to be an ally to introduce us to endless sound possibilities, up to the present moment and its constant evolution, technological music fascinates anyone who has eyes for it and its ramifications are as exciting as they are infinite. This doesn't stop. This is not over...

I enjoy understanding music as a place where many things can happen and, above all, where there has to be room for play, expression and surprises. I also feel that this mix is more of a tribute than anything else. Without these artists and their work, my relationship with electronic and club music would be very different...'

Mbodj

Mbodj is the name under which the selector Maguette Dieng spreads sounds that go through her and that tend to navigate between styles of electronic current and advanced air. Genres such as gqom, idm or post-club electronica are some of them, with a special weakness for bass, rarities and decentralized DNA sounds. Her chameleonic fantasy aims to deconstruct that idea of​​musical monogamy that so limits the creativity and nature of any music lover who wants to create and share heterogeneous and unobvious dance and listening experiences.

For the last three years Maguette has been exploring in depth the African and Afro-diasporic electronic scene with the intention of spreading a broader vision of the sound imaginary on a global level. With this motivation, she was encouraged to create, together with other colleagues, the Jokkoo collective, from where these broadcasts work through the programming of events, parties, radio, musical production, etc.

With the support of: Goethe Institut

Collaborating media: Radio 3