function
Sandwell District – End Beginnings LP [PODR012LP]
‘End Beginnings’, the new album by Sandwell District, is the collective’s first new music since the tragic death of Juan Mendez (Silent Servant) in January 2024. Mendez’s stunning artwork and visuals have always been a central pillar of Sandwell District; in fact, he worked on a piece titled ‘End Beginnings’ – now the title of the third album and a tribute to their late friend. ‘End Beginnings’ invites new recruits – Monic, Rivet, and Sarah Wreath – and brings together towering techno and mind-blowing dancefloor dynamics, a masterful combination of innovation and ecstasy. It’s as deep, sturdy, and hypnotic as you would hope from the unit that invoked a sea change in techno and related club music during the 2000s and early 2010s.
VA – Where Next? [PODR011LP]
Fans of the much-heralded Sandwell District are in for a real treat with this new compilation. This package collects in total 12 tracks that span the three producers’ respective individual careers. These tracks present some amazing moments in techno. Highlights include the amazingly haunting Regis edit of ‘Sampler 1’ as well as Function’s tribute to Icelandic minimal in ‘Reykjavik’. Also included is Kalon’s devastating techno pounder ‘Violencia’ by the recently departed Silent Servant aka Juan Mendez. Regis’s edit of Kalon’s ‘Haiku’ is downright wicked. This collection will not disappoint fans of the artists or the label Sandwell District.
Function – Green EP [INF-025]
To relaunch his seminal imprint, Infrastructure New York, Function presents his new 12″, Green EP. Celebrating 27 years of Function releases this year and the label’s 25th anniversary, the label will serve as an outlet for his new material, reissues of out of print classics from Synewave, Sandwell District and Ostgut Ton (and of course, Infrastructure), as well as developing new artists. Green EP encapsulates the same raw power and hypnotic energy of his genre defining Sandwell District releases updated with a modern flair.
Function – HATE Podcast 326
VA – Tresor 30 (30th Anniversary Edition) [TRESOR330]
Since 1991, Tresor has provided a home for artists to germinate their ideas for advanced new sounds and broadcast them to the world. The pioneers that first traversed the Detroit-Berlin connection and were at the forefront of a new cultural movement gave to Tresor its original and continuing mission: community, resistance and reshaping the world to come. The Tresor 30 compilation represents a major land- mark in this continuing history of electronic music. This unique collection of music profiles some of the artists that gave the previous three decades of Tresor its sound and foundation, but it also casts its gaze forward. Writing new postcards from the future, this collection brings new artists who main- tain a connection to that original mission to the fore, charting ways in which this ethos can contin- ue to build bridges and break walls in the next 30 years. Bringing together 52 essential tracks – both clas- sics and exclusive commissions – each of the 12 records in this box-set charts a unique line of flight from those artists that helped define the shape of this new music to those who continue to pattern its landscape further.
Function – Awakening From The Illusory Self [TRESOR320]
An enduring fixture in the techno and electronic music landscape, Dave Sumner continues to step through new terrains, reinforcing his spike and vision. He returns to Tresor Records with a new Function record, entitled Awakening From The Illusory Self.
Function – Subject F (Transcendence) [EAUX1491]
Seven years after its inception, Eaux is announces the first solo release by an artist other than Rrose. As a member of the Sandwell District collective, David Sumner aka Function was instrumental incultivating the Rrose project. After releasing the first three EPs and album by Rrose between 2012 and 2013, Sandwell District terminated their mission abruptly, prompting Rrose to start a new label (Eaux) for solo projects andcollaborations. This EP brings history full circle.
VA – Air Texture Vol.7 [AIR007LP]
Since launching in 2011, James Healy’s Air Texture label and compilation series has become something of an institution within the ambient scene. As with its predecessors, the seventh volume in the series has been jointly compiled by two artists with an existing musical relationship, in this case Rrose and Silent Servant. Their selections are on point, drowsily drifting between academic ambient compositions (see Rrose and James Fei’s “For Bass Clarinet 8.97 (Rrose Version)”, uncomfortable electronic explorations (Ron Morelli, Anthony Child), modular movements (Not Waving), jazz-flecked deep space soundscapes (Luke Slater), horror-influenced throb-jobs (Phase Fatale, June & An-i) and 1990s style ambient electronica (Octa Octa, Function).
20 Albums from 2019
Yesterday we presented the preferences of our readers from last year, now this is a list of 20 albums from 2019 that made an impression on us.
We have three pure electro albums from E.R.P., Jeremiah R. and Plant43 and the new electro-synthy album of veteran David Carretta, his first solo album for ten years. On the darker side of the synth palette we have two EBM/synth-pop albums from Boy Harsher and Years Of Denial, the debut album of Kris Baha, the third album of Greek producer June, a new one from Jason Letkiewicz aka Steve Summers under his new moniker Opposing Currents and two more industrial albums from Autumns and Colombian Filmmaker.
On the other had we have two acid gems from DimDJ and Paranoid London, the first ever Gladio album, the second album from Mannequin boss Alessandro Adriani and an experimental/ambient album from veteran Function on Tresor.
So, here it is compiled in chronological order.
Continue reading “20 Albums from 2019”
Function – Existenz [TRESOR315]
For his new album Existenz, Function marks a clear step away from the corporeal techno of his recent releases. Pivoting around themes of religion, sexuality, trauma and healing, it is a work expansive and celebratory, a clear liberation from a deeply internalized past. Formed from a collection of recordings made in a period from late 2016 to mid 2019, Existenz takes the form of a creative outburst in reaction to a number of traumas – recent, childhood and throughout Function’s life. Life partner Stefanie Parnow assisted the production process in its entirety, providing inspiration, spiritual healing and featuring vocal contributions.
Damon Wild – Cosmic Path [INF024]
Damon Wild and David Sumner (aka Function’s) relationship dates back to 1991 at Lord Michael’s Future Shock, Limelight, New York City – when Damon was running Experimental Records via Northcott Productions. At the time, he first saw something in Dave and added him to Brand X, a record pool run by Moneypenny. But their bond is based around a period 5 years later when Dave had an apartment above Rogue Music at 251 West 30th Street in Midtown, Manhattan. It was during this time Damon developed him as a Synewave artist and released his first EP as Function in the Fall of 1996 – catalog number; SW-24. Falling in and out of contact over the years, across continents, the two have somehow remained on the same cosmic path. So it’s not a coincidence that now Damon has turned to Dave to release his first album in 13 years. This is where those paths cross again…21 years later, this Fall, Dave will release Cosmic Path on Infrastructure. The cosmic connection.
Function – Recompiled II/II [A-TONLP03]
Damon Wild – Subtractive Synthesis [SW120]
Damon Wild’s Synewave label is still going strong, plunging ever further into the hinterland of looped up techno and dragging your consciousness with it. On this new release Wild is pinging bleeps around the sequencer grid through the course of “Timelapse”, and highly immersive it is too. The “Timemachine dub” of the track is even more seductive with its Sleeparchive-style synth oddities and sparse arrangement. Function comes on board for an un-easier remix of “Timelapse” that veers towards the full-blown paranoid, and then Postscriptum drops a killer version to finish the EP off, all jagged off beat kicks and heavy textural swells.
Function – Recompiled I/II [A-TONLP002]
Function retrospective landing on Ostgut Ton’s sublabel A-Ton. Essential techno selection. Recompiled I/II is the first of two vinyl-only releases of Function, which previously contained unpublished pieces as well as already out of print music. Function, one of the true techno-underground veterans, has been active as DJ and musician for over 25 years. He is a founding member of the Sandwell District collective, Berghain-Resident, operates the Infrastructure label and has been publishing Ostgut Ton since 2013.
Planetary Assault Systems – The Light Years Reworks [MOTELP003]
Having already unleashed a considerable amount of collaborative magic with the ”Planetary Funk: 22 Light Years” series of remix EPs, Luke Slater has now upped the ante with six full sides’ worth of material,all of them injecting the spirit of classic P.A.S. into new sonic organisms. Behind the controls: Marcel Fengler, Function, Psyk,Octave One, Kamikaze Space Programme, Lucy, Slam and Steve Bicknell.
VA – Infrastructure Facticity [INF022]
Function & Inland’s Infrastructure introduces its next milestone – Facticity. A 4×12” vinyl box set, CD and digital compilation featuring 15 tracks by key artists, label colleagues and new faces. Function, Inland, Campbell Irvine, Post Scriptum, Cassegrain & Tin Man, Rrose, Efdemin, Vatican Shadow, Silent Servant, Blue Hour, Steve Bicknell and Cleric all feature, spinning a narrative ranging from lush, ambient electronics and post-club diversions, to contemporary club techno and back again. Carefully curated as an album, Facticity represents the foundations of what Infrastructure stands for – a manifesto for 2016 and beyond.
VA – Zehn/Drei [OSTGUTLP2003]
Drei of Zehn comes with original tracks by Function and Substance as well as Len Faki remixing L.B.Dub Corp.
VA – Ostgut Ton: Zehn [OSTGUTLP020]
Its been zehn years, ninety-two 12”; EPs, twenty albums, fourteen DJ mixes, seven Unterton releases, two compilations, one 7 single and one cassette. Within this time, Ostgut Ton has grown as a label not only in terms of catalogue numbers and musical variety, but also in terms of experience, professionality and as a musical haven for Berghains and Panorama Bars residents.
The Hipodrome Of Music 