Ostgut Ton Germany レコード& CD

Review: When announcing the release of her sophomore set, Steffi Doms told Resident Advisor that it was "much more about how I see the dancefloor these days" than her "conceptual" 2011 debut, Yours & Mine. While there are some IDM and vintage electro influnces - most notably on opener "Pip", throbbing electrofunk jam "Treasure Seeking" (a hook-up with old pals Dexter and Virginia) and the picturesque closing track "Fine Friend" - for the most part Doms sticks rigidly to the kind of club-friendly fodder with which she made her name. By and large, this means vibrant, Detroit-influenced techno, with the throbbing "Bag of Crystals" and sci-fi leaning "Selfhood" standing out.

Review: Berlin's lady of ladies, Steffi, returns to familiar settings with this latest album, a deep and calculating blend of technoid sonics for the mighty Ostgut Ton imprint. The DJ-producer has been known to deliver absurdly twisted sets at the Berlin institution over the years, but the majority of her work has been made up of short collaborations and comparatively more dance-centric material. World Of The Waking State feels like a change of gear, where the focus on dance has been replaced by something much more imperceptible and inward looking. From "Different Entities" to "All Living Things, the opening three tunes point to a noticeable struggle behind the production desk, a deep sense of melancholia which enables these spectacular electronic gems from having cross-cultural appeal. The flip of the first disc further experiments with the deeper end of the sound palette, which is something that can be said about this entire LP. While this might get the Ostgut hype at first, the passage of time will undoubtedly get people to see it as a classic. What an album - very hotly recommended.

Review: Ostgut Ton has been trailing Steffi Doms' third album, World of the Waking State, as a departure for both artist and label. Certainly, it's an altogether more considered, complex and musically expansive set than its' predecessors. It's rich in evocative electronic soundscapes, whose scuttling rhythms look to IDM and vintage "intelligent techno" for inspiration. The assembled musical elements - think bubbly and occasionally wonky electronics, sweeping synthesized strings, deep space chords and Motor City melodies - often tend towards the heart-aching and melodious, lending the set a genuinely poignant feel. When Doms decides to change tack and head towards the dancefloor - see the ghostly, industrial electro assault of "Mental Events", sparkling positivity of "Cease To Exist" and bustling, intergalactic title track - the results are equally as inspired.

Review: Away from her more austere techno output, Steffi can known to be a big lover of unabashed party-time electro, and it doesn't get more exuberant and catchy than this collaboration with Dexter and Virginia in a departure from most of the output you'll find on Ostgut-Ton. "Treasure Seeking" is a craftily penned crossover cut with as much pop nous as underground clout, with Dexter's squelchy sound-design looming over the mix. The 130 BPM version gets a little more of that Detroit electro style looming over proceedings, while Diep delivers a straight-talking Motor City techno version loaded with plush string synths and stacks of energy.

Review: While Steffi and Virginia have been working together on and off for the best part of a decade, "Work A Change" is undoubtedly their most significant collaborative work to date (both in terms of its expansive nature and the quality of music on show). With Virginia handling singing duties throughout, "Work A Change" rides on waves of tasty electro grooves and hazy synth-pop motifs and futuristic electronics. It's a blueprint that guarantees goodness throughout, from the quietly euphoric shuffle of opener "Be True To Me" and the pulsating dancefloor fizz of "Help Me Understand" (one of two cuts showcased in both vocal and instrumental forms), to the high-tempo thrust of "Until You're Begging", the bass-heavy, future dancehall wonkiness of "Internal Bleeding" and triumphantly intergalactic title track.

Review: Ostgut Ton ain't just house, techno and concrete, they're ambient, experimental, electro and musique concrete. This is the biggest compilation the label has released since they let Emika run wild in a closed Berghain and Panorama Bar to capture sounds of the humming club for 2010's Funf compilation. Barker & Baumecker and Fiedel saw releases on that compilation and now they contribute a track each to Ostgut Ton's abstract Various LP. B&B offer up some dubby frenetics in "Meiose" while Fiedel supplies some melodica and two step rhythms in "Grunewald2". Tobias' "Dark & Troubling Things" share a similar beatless murk to music from Canadian ambient artist Loscil, while Rolando's track "Neglected" is a stand out. DIN adds some minimally-charged Chicago house to the LP, while Virginia and new name Crushed Soul opt for something more electro. Dave Sumner then seals Various with a primitive "Golden Dawn" featuring Stefanie Parnow for something totally different to what Function fans are accustomed to.

Review: The Loch & Hill EP sees Steffi vocalist and Panorama Bar resident Virginia debut proper on Ostgut Ton. Perhaps best known to the world for her vocal contributions to Steffi's 2011 album Yours & Mine including the ubiquitous "Yours," Virginia is nevertheless a seasoned DJ and producer in her own right, having emerged from the Munich scene to take up a residency at Berlin's Panorama Bar in recent times. She's also grown into something of a producer under the tutelage of Steffi, most recently remixing the amusingly named "Shit On Me", a track Virginia vocalised on last year's Third Side LP . The Loch & Hill EP contains four vintage-leaning house productions with a modern sheen that clearly demonstrate her Panorama Bar experience; "Neurosis" for example is succinctly described by the label as a "playful, uplifting night-time jacker", while "Shifter" brings more explicit Detroit influences to bear with its elastic synth line and rumbling techno bassline.