Something to be thankful for – some Thanksgiving day acid.

The Berlin Wall came down 20 years ago today – which is pretty amazing – or ancient history if you’re not a Gen X’er or older.

The fall of the Berlin Wall led to profound political changes, but also profound cultural changes, especially in the world of music.

Ueberschall – the samplemeisters of Germany – has put together a new sample library that tries to distill down the influential electronic sounds of the city – Sounds Of Berlin.

Description:

With the release Sounds of Berlin Ueberschall covers the different sub-genres of minimal sound — from 120 BPM Afterhour-House to 130 BPM Dancefloor-Techno — and is oriented around labels and themes such as “Kompakt”, “Mobilee”, “Vakant”, “Boxer” and “Cocoon”. The 1 GB content is built for professional club sound needs. 1258 Loops & Samples provide enough material to be invited to countless sessions and hours of inspiration and creativity.

Each of the 75 construction kits is broken down into its single lines, each kit offers bass loops, synth loops and drum and percussion loops which can be integrated easily into every live set, thanks to Elastik. For your own groove creation you can use the single drumsounds which provide the low-end treatment and high frequency sizzle for the right punch in every club. All material is preprogrammed and ready to roll out thanks to the bundled Elastik interface. Elastik has many features which complement the electro genre nicely: filters per note, hi quality transposition, granulation effects, volume settings per note and easy mixing with additional Elastik libraries.

Specs:

• 1 GB, 75 Construction Kits, 1258 Berlin Loops and Samples
• Elastik Soundbank for Mac/PC/AU/VST/RTAS/StandAlone
• Elastik Player included – no sampler required

Sounds of Berlin retails for 99 Euro.

See the Ueberschall site for audio demos.

Credits:

Asem Shama – There are just a few electronic artists that started 15 years ago and do still create new trends. Asem Shama is one of them. Since the early 90s he is one of the pioneers of Germany’s electronic music scene. Since his beginning the Berlin-based DJ released over 80 tracks on different labels and played in clubs from Brazil to Japan. Today he is producing artists such as Monika Kruse and Marc Miroir.

Ruede Hagelstein – The DJ and producer Ruede Hagelstein is resident-DJ of the Berlin “Watergate” club since 2006. He became a member of „Upon You” records with his first EP “Ghostdriver” in 2007. Since then his tunes are played by DJs such as Sven Väth or Michael Meyer and appeared on different compilations by “Cocoon” and other labels.

Sunday Synth Jam: BT rocks the crowd at Full On Ferry 2009 in Rotterdam, using Sonifi on the iPhone. 

Note to BT: This segment is too short to see how much of an individual spin you can bring to a Sonifi performance. Let’s see you melt some faces!

NSFW?

La Film Fabrique
Playboy’s Bend
Mefamo et le collectif Physalis

présentent
Production/ Jonas Luyckx
Réalisation et cadre/ Jonas Luyckx
Avec/ Caroline Dehareng
Amandine Bevalot
Marie Airo
Alice Piette
Emilie Hermans
pour le collectif Physalis
Estelle Bibbo
Ornella Vernica
Melody Willams

Montage/ John Pirard
DOP/ Shaban Krasniqi

Avec le soutien de Oxfam solidarité et de Jules Gazon

This is the video for Don Diablo’s Hooligans Never Surrender.

via selloutsessions:

The video was criticized on its violent character by the media long before the official release, after a set video had leaked on the internet.

Don Diablo responded on the criticism as presumptuous.

Don: ”I think this video gives a good representation of what goes on in my head when I am asleep, it’s like a drug free LSD trip for pros. Welcome to the future!”

This is a promo for Kraftwerk’s The Catalogue, 2009 digitally remastered releases of their most important albums.

The albums include:

• Autobahn (1974)
• Radio-Activity – (German title: Radio-Aktivität) (1975)
• Trans-Europe Express – (German title: Trans-Europa Express) (1977)
• The Man-Machine – (German title: Die Mensch-Maschine) (1978)
• Computer World – (German title: Computerwelt) (1981)
• Electric Café (1986) – (here given its original name of Techno Pop)
• The Mix (1991)
• Tour de France Soundtracks (2003) – (now titled Tour de France)

Individual albums will be available Oct 5th, and the box set Nov 16th.

The Catalogue (German title: Der Katalog) will be available as a boxed set of eight albums by Kraftwerk that were released from 1974 to 2003. All albums were digitally remastered, with most of the cover art redesigned, including rare photographs in the liner notes that were not part of each album’s original release.

“We’ve been digitally transferring all of Kraftwerk’s original recordings and sound sources from our badly degrading master tapes while our engineers, Fritz and Henning, have been working in parallel to remaster our early albums for re-release. So for the first time, our recordings will be available in crisp, clear Kling Klang sound with all the fold-out covers and images our label at the time either messed up or wouldn’t pay for. There will be some alternate mixes of tracks and some unedited versions, but unfortunately we don’t have much unreleased material. We never recorded extra songs or twenty different versions of the same song. We would complete a song and then move forward, always keeping very focused on one Kling Klang project at a time.”

via fantomas44

Cult of the Maschine is a techno jam produced entirely with Native Instruments’ Maschine.

via SuicideServer:

A little loveletter to Natives Maschine and my other lovely gear. This is the fist time i did a video with Modul8 to add some more spice instead of the old finger cam. The track was produced entirely with Maschine, which was hosted in Ableton Live8. I used a delay and Beatlookup from the Reaktor User Library. Enjoy

Here’s a classic from Fatboy Slim, the music video for Right Here, Right Now.

via freecss

Official video: Supershirt – 8000 Mark (Audiolith Records)
Directed by Stephan Strube & Hannes Seth

This modular synthesizer synth jam features Doepfer System A-100 modular synthesizer bass, sequenced with a Korg Electribe MX and Electribe MX Drums, filtered by Schippmann Ebbe und Flut.

via inbetweenmovements

High Tech Soul is a documentary that looks at the history of techno music.

It features interviews with Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin and others.

Manuel Gottsching performs his classic E2-E4 in a live electro-acoustic version, on September 5th 2007 at Watergate Berlin. Supported by Elliott Sharp (NY) and White (China).

via Phillygran

This is an unofficial cover version & video for Kraftwerk’s It’s More Fun To Compute – The Minimal Mix.

via syntesen:

After attending a Kraftwerk concert in Randers, Denmark, I just had to realize this classic track from the Computerwelt album.

I aimed for a quite straight version, albeit updated to a modern-day minimal house/techno sound.

I did the video in the style of the good ol’ Germans, hand-creating ~150 video frames in Adobe Photoshop and cutting them all together in Premiere.

I used the following gear on the track.:

• Clavia Nord Lead 2X (bass, leads/pads, sequences, drums)
• Ableton Vocoder
• SugarBytes Efectrix (FX sequencer for drums)
• PSP VintageWarmer for mastering
• Ableton Live 8 (sequencing, etc.)

In a way, it’s a “demo reel” for the Nord Lead 2X as well.

Here’s the latest from The Prodigy, Take Me To The Hospital.

via ProdigyChannel:

‘We shot parts of the video in a derelict mental hospital. A proper death trap. Holes in the floor and shit falling out the ceiling. We broke in which involved being chased by dogs and a run in with the cops. We wanted a hospital in there but didnt want to shove it down peoples throats. The video was recorded onto vhs. We wanted it to look like an 80s movie youve just found at the back of the cupboard. Doing it analogue gave it a real unique look that you cant create on a shiney computer. Keep it real. dugdale and the prodigy’

Take Me To The Hospital (’09 EQ mix) is the third single from the number 1 album Invaders Must Die.

Single out 31st August 2009 – pre-order here: http://bit.ly/ProdigyShop

Here’s something a little different for the Sunday Synth Jam series – a live performance of Derrick May’s classic techno/house track Strings of Life.

During the 5days off festival in Amsterdam, the Kindred Spirits Ensemble transformed a couple of techno and house classics into orchestral pieces. This clip contains the rework of the classic Rhythm is Rhythm – Strings of Life.

Sunday Synth Jam: Velvet Acid Christ jams with a Future Retro Revolution driving his modular synthesizer system.

This interview with techno music pioneer Derrick May is part of a series created by the Red Bull Music Academy.

Derrick May
Transmat, Detroit, USA

Description:

To be a living legend is not an easy game to play. Derrick May plays that quite well though for 20 years plus. As one third of the infamous Belleville Three (Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson being the other parties) he created a beast named techno that longed for a beauty called soul. Strings Of Life being the quintessential track of that genre, May is responsible for an armada of similar tunes that all mix and mingle with industrial melancholy and romantic futurism. Unparalleled and universally valid… It Is What It Is.

Here’s how the producers describe it:

A Rave is a Rhythmic Assault mixed with Visual Ecstasy and if you haven’t experienced one, you’re about to… It’s Saturday night in Los Angeles and 6 teenagers throughout the city are in search of the hottest Rave in the city– it’s the weekend and they’re ready to PARTY.

Over the course of less than one day, we see a portrait of these kids finding their way; their paths crossing in a universal setting…a big city with all the temptations, attractions and dangers.

Unfortunately, Rave is a craptacularly bad waste of film.

The movie fails to capture the attraction of electronic dance music and it fails to tell a compelling, believable story.

Here’s my plot summary:

A bunch of kids decide on impulse to go to a rave.

They all end up either: dead, mutilated, or traumatized for life.

Rave is just spectacularly awful, a heavy-handed anti-rave morality tale, devoid of even the cheesy appeal of something like Reefer Madness.

If you see this on DVD, it would make an excellent addition to your coaster collection.

Mr. Meeble’s Until I Grasp the Second