Influences: The/Das

The one shirtless dancer, an almost motionless crowd and Richard D. James sitting at his youth-room desk, most likely circuit bending, at least tweaking the shhht out of his gear.

When my uncle introduced me to Zappa, me being an 8th grader listening mostly to a mix of Stevie Wonder and Nirvana, I thought Zappa is weird, maybe a little too weird for me, only a few months later I had already accumulated around 15 albums by this Zappa person. Sure when Aphex Twin struck me a few years later I went and sold all my 30 Zappa CDs, but still this guy is important, and great and entertaining and witty and unique and smart and eloquent and therefore this documentary is, too.

This Autechre track is a prime example of their production skills. The beats are super intense but somehow very groovy and the amazing pad constantly fights to cut through the compression.

Listening to MF Doom can teach you a lot about making smooth beats. The flow of this piece is just amazing and the Sade sample rounds it off perfectly, of course.

The early Karate just perfectly combine great songwriting, blues guitars with a post rock kind of vibe. In Place of Real Insight definitely is one of the most precious records in that area and one that you will always come back to.

For those who speak german, this guy figured out the one or the other important thing about the way humans treat, well… could or should treat each other. When sharing his thoughts he is def entertaining, too. Maybe some of you know his famous text about the guy who is not sure if he should ask his neighbour if he would lend him a hammer, thinking back and forth, pondering, getting more and more insecure about the idea – what if the neighbor doesn’t want to lend the hammer… until he is so confused that he rings the neighbours bell and just screams something like: “You can keep your damn hammer to yourself!”

Life is not that serious, man…