![]() Dance music’s nature of being in constant flux is reflected in the compilation’s amorphous and abundant artwork, and its artists who “resist easy definition” while defining today’s electronic landscape. ![]() ![]() Powered by an insatiable hunger for sonifying the future across a discography spanning three decades, Tresor’s ethos and legacy are reflected in their latest compilation titled yet, celebrating 350 releases on the label. Interfisch formed in 1988, signing Sheffield’s Clock DVA with the album Buried Dreams, a move that would lead to hundreds of records from artists pioneering music scenes all over the world. “I was tired of standing in line at the live venues,” Hegemann said, “paying 10 Deutschmarks and going home again alone.” They formed a sprawling network across Berlin: the Fischbüro DIY lecture hall, the Fischlabor pub, the UFO acid house club accessed via trapdoor, and the zine turned label Interfisch Records. The Fisch collective that preceded Tresor was founded by Hegemann and Kohlberger out of a desire for community. From founding the Berlin Atonal festival in 1982 with the likes of Psychic TV, Einstürzende Neubauten and 808 State in the lineup, to initiatives revitalising the nightlife and empty buildings of Detroit, Hegemann is something of a ferryman connecting artists and communities across the Atlantic and beyond. Naturally, Tresor's history goes much further back than its fledgling moments, with Dimitri Hegemann being instrumental not only as the label’s founder, but as a central figure in Berlin music scenes. They renovated a bank vault lying in the abandoned Wertheim department store in Potsdamer Platz, giving Tresor its name and historic space. Dimitri Hegemann, Achim Kohlberger, and Johnnie Stieler were the original treasure hunters over 30 years ago, digging through the sand-buried buildings of East Berlin in search of a venue that could hold space for their future-facing club ideas. “Tresor” means “safe” or “vault” in German, in other languages “treasure”. The label’s uniting sound of techno has brought together East and West, Detroit and Berlin, and stands as one of the global capitals of electronic music. Born in 1991 mere months after the demolishing of the Berlin Wall, and months before the reunification of Germany, Tresor has always operated with a revolutionary spirit. I want the music to stimulate discussion and new ideas.” Such a convergence of community and forward thinking music lies at the heart of Tresor Records, the iconic and pioneering Berlin label and club founded by Dimitri Hegemann. “I see the club as more than just a place for a party. Not only is The Cosmic Memoirs… a necessary chapter in the wider Drexciya story, but it is also an essential electro album of the highest calibre holding influence still to this day and beyond. Low end conversations in ‘Dance Of The Celestial Druids’ occur between a thumping four to the floor pattern and rumbling synth lines, taking on a meditative quality that is broken up by the complex and whimsical melodies on ‘The Freak Show’, propelled by a squeaky, booming kick, and curiously reversed vocal samples. ‘Solar Wind’ speeds in with swishing beats, chopping up interplanetary signals atop a deep bass. The album verges on experimental and even intimate, with the tender pads of ‘Lonely Journey Of The Comet Bopp’ introducing icy piano particles that flutter across tightly woven beats, while the anxious shuffles of ‘Alien Vessel Distress Call’ glue together sirens, alarms, and sonic tornadoes buzzing from side to side. The lone album from his Shifted Phases name surely sits high up in those ranks, and with Tresor’s continued reissues of the Drexciyan canon, has been rescued from the depths for us to revisit once more.Ĭonceived as part of the Drexciyan storm series that struck throughout the early 2000s, The Cosmic Memoirs… departs from the bubbling techno of Earth’s oceans to pursue extraterrestrial electro rhythms (perhaps reaching its destination at Drexciya’s Grava 4). Take a dive into any one of them and it’s not hard to see why. ![]() ![]() Many of the releases that have passed through James Stinson’s hands have been labelled as “essential” and “classic”, from the universe-spanning Afrofuturist saga of Drexciya to those produced under his various aliases (such as Lifestyles Of The Laptop Café). ![]()
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