Digging through December with Ted
Under his Fugal moniker he has performed in Ankali a couple of times already and we consider him to be part of the family. Ted’s humble presence gets exalted into smooth coolness while he plays. He is able to sensitively absorb his surroundings and translate them back into DJ sets with an incredible sense of immediacy – if you’ve been to the Polygon Tag #3 in 2018 you surely know what we mean. It’s his ability to sense the potency of certain things, or simply cut to the chase, which enables him to create memorable moments when doing what he does. Maybe his humility is the reason why he chose only three events from our December’s programme for his Digging. Or maybe he just wanted to get straight to the point. Anyhow, these would be three reasons for him to come to the club and they might be yours as well. Dig in.
The picture you see above was from my very first trip to Prague in 2016, after the Polygon warehouse party with DVS1. How did I get there? A Korean-American from Seattle, not knowing anyone from Prague. I really owe it to my friend Laura Odin. We initially met in Seattle back in 2013 through my partner Diane Barbé, but had lost touch for a couple years as we got caught up in our own life stuff. Time and circumstance brought us back together in the fall of 2016 in Berlin after I had just moved there. Laura was telling me about her new life in Prague and about the burgeoning underground techno scene with parties in really unique one-off locations. I was immediately curious, because while Berlin has a multitude of great clubs, it is sometimes lacking a bit of the DIY spirit and communal intimacy I was familiar with from the scene in Seattle.
I asked about the next party – “three letters and a number. You know who it is.” Especially at the time, DVS1 was one of my favorite DJs, hugely influential to my taste as a DJ and a dancer. So I bought my bus tickets almost immediately.
Needless to say I had an amazing time… four-point Funktion One stacks, custom light installs, live-performance metal welding above the booth, outdoor chill area. DVS1 blew the roof off, and I also remember seeing Martin (fleika) go on afterwards in the morning, cigarette in hand, I was like “hey who is this?!” I was delightfully surprised to find this community that put a lot of heart and attention to detail into making this all come together. I just knew I had to come back.
6–12–2019 Archiv Teknologi: Efdemin & Marco Shuttle all night long
I was so excited and curious when the guys told me about the opening of Ankali. Marco Shuttle was playing that night. I remember that not everything was quite finished being built that evening – for example the toilets were still under construction! But honestly for me it added even more to the charm of the whole thing – you could really feel it was being built from the ground up by hand.
A particular dance-floor memory I have with a Marco Shuttle track was the night I played in Ankali with DJ Nobu and DJ So in 2017. Near the end of DJ So’s closing, I think it must have been only 20 of us left on the floor (including DJ Nobu, dancing with us), you know, that special time in the morning when all the rush and noise of the night has been stripped away and things come into focus for the final sendoff home. DJ So played this remix by Marco Shuttle and I distinctly remember how perfectly it gave us this reaffirming, centering sense of positive energy. In that moment I felt like the room was glowing.
Efdemin is one of those rare artists that has managed to keep my attention over many many years, despite my own musical taste changing. I distinctly remember Archivist, Aos and I listening to his album “Decay” as we were driving to our first gig together in Seattle in 2014. The song “Subatomic” came on, it was raining, misty, foggy, passing rows of evergreen pine trees on the highway as we were just getting to know each other better:
If you dig deeper, you will find that the scope of Efdemin’s work is not limited to just the techno/ house world. Under his own name, Philip Sollmann, the nature of his artistic works are extending much broader, ranging from electro-acoustic concert pieces to music scoring for film. I had the pleasure of seeing his piece “Monophonie” at the Volksbühne in Berlin, an electro- acoustic piece he composed for untraditional percussive instruments such as the Harry Partch instruments and the Helmholtz double-siren. Absolutely worth checking out!
Phillip Sollman’s website.
14–12– 2019 Yuggadus: Hydrangea, Efraim Kent, Alfred Czital, Yan
Get ready for a night of exquisite deep hypnotic textures. Between the Yuggadus nights and the Harmony Records imprint, it’s evident that Yan and Alfred Czital are constantly searching beneath the surface and digging deeper for some of the finest and grooviest selections of trippy techno, progressive, and trance-influenced tech.
A few years ago, Efraim Kent put out a stellar EP on Tikita Records – a collaboration with Swedish artist Dorisburg, and just recently he put out a track on a compilation for Swedish deep-techno label mainstay Hypnus.
Despite having a well-produced and mature sound, it’s quite difficult to find much information about him anywhere. One quick glance at his previous gigs online and you can see that he has played almost exclusively in Sweden – with the exception of one gig in Oslo. So I think for Yuggadus to bring him to Ankali it’s quite an exceptional booking and will be a special occasion!
I’ve enjoyed many of Hydrangea’s podcasts over the years – often ethereal and almost ritualistic in the feeling.. but perhaps what has caught my ear the most has been her low-slung original productions, often hanging out at around 105-115 BPM. For me, these tracks are riding this fine line between elegance and this almost heavy, intense momentum. Great music for the morning after:
If you’re looking for some serious noise or an outlet to thrash this month then look no further than this lineup. With the WRONG and RARE residents alongside the punk-infused industrial techno band The Empire Line, there’s going to be no shortage of distortion and rattling frequencies to mosh your body around to for this night.
The Empire Line is a collaboration between Varg, and two Danish artists Christian Stadgaard (of Posh Isolation), and vocalist Isak Hansen (of Iron Sight).
The Refined Experimentalism of Posh Isolation article on Bandcamp Daily.
Recently, during the May Day of 2019 in Copenhagen, there were peaceful antifascist demonstrations in the district of Nørrebro that were violently broken up by police in “what seemed to be a carefully planned revenge attack on the leftwing antifascist community.”
The police brutality caused several concussions, broken bones, bruises, and over 10 people were arrested, including Isak of the Empire Line. He was taken into custody and placed in solitary confinement in a closed cell for 15 days, and then his custody was extended even further until May 28th. The Empire Line released this track, a collab with noise legend Merzbow, with all proceedings going towards Isak’s legal costs:
But do know that Isak has since been released from custody and The Empire Line will be present in full-force in Prague!
