Jump to content

Anthony Rother


RTP

Recommended Posts

Hey, I must say lately I'm digging Anthony Rother a lot!

I never listened to any of his stuff because I thought "Rother is kinda popular, so he must be shit" (yeah, how stupid) ... but then one day I more or less accidentally listened to one of his songs and I was very positively surprised.

 

Point is though, Anthony Rother is a two-sided sword for me. I found that he has songs which I love, but also some I don't like at all. I discovered that in the past the guy did many works which were great, but the rather newer stuff is not that much to my liking anymore.

The key to this lies not only in the sound, actually I don't dig the sound that much per se, but also in the theme the music is about. In an article I found the best description why I like the theme: the music is technology-critical! And in the openminded techno/trance (and also psy) scene, where technological advance and new ways of thinking and cosmic or whatever development is generally something that is appreciated and looked forward to, I find this theme, which is a rather critical opposite to the aforementioned subjects to be an extraordinary exception. Combined with the kraftwerk-esque technoish sound that Rother had in the past this is totally awesome (by the way, Krafwerk are also technology-critical, remember Radioaktivität). When I listen to this I feel reminded of old days, old films and my old way of thinking, this good oldskoolish (to me) feeling of technology-critisism paired with computers, cyberspace, utopia, late-night tiredness, some mystery and such ... this is great!

 

I'm still digging into his stuff at the moment but I must say I adore his song Hacker, this one is really really awesome! Also Biomechanik, this one is great aswell. And Maschinenwelt and La Bete. I haven't heard the complete album "Hacker" yet (since three of the aforementioned are from that album), but I definitely will because I gotta say I like that type of sound, the rest of what I heard from it was good aswell...

And then I also like Father ... but not because of technology-critisism, this tune is just awesome :)

 

Point is though, I don't really dig the rest of Rother's work hat I heard. I mean, it's not awful, you know, I can listen to it, but it just doesn't kick. It feels like there's something missing. It's rather the newer stuff that doesn't kick. On his Myspace, Father is the only one that I dig. I don't know.

 

Any comments? Recommendations?

 

Point is, I don't want "ordinary" techno (even though I gotta re-constuct my picture of it because I always thought techno = schranz, but that's the chav variant and I fell for that illusion) ... I don't even think I'm ready for that yet.

I want some with this oldschoolish touch. Old sound. And it should be kinda technology-critical. Not pessimistic, but critical. I totally dig this right now...

Machines, computers ... any good techno sound in that direction? Preferably with german text, the german text fits to this theme, I dunno why...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw Anthony Rother live last some time around March 2007, and it was awesome. A little too short, but awesome nonetheless.

 

As for recommendations, I don't know, electro is not really my thing (yes, Rother is electro, so if you're after techno you're pretty far off...), personally I prefer more sinister electro sounds, like Dopplereffekt, The Hacker and especially Advent.

 

Rother's biggest club hits to date are Father and When The Sun Goes Down, both of which have been canned to death by everybody who have a fully functional turntable at their home. Simulationszeitalter is overall a very worthwhile electro album, though the german singing irritates me, but mainly because I don't understand it :) He's had great tunes, no doubt, but a shit load of filler as well. But that's only based on a fraction of his work.

 

But I'd go to see him live again any given day of the week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

(yes, Rother is electro, so if you're after techno you're pretty far off...)

whoopsie!

maybe I'm searching in the wrong genre then :D

 

I'd really like to see that guy live ... but apart from never coming here and playing mostly newer stuff that I won't like ... this stuff doesn't fit in a club IMO. He should play a concert! Like Kraftwerk...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anthony Rother has been around for ages, hes produced music with a lot of the German scene. He comes from the town where Eye-Q was originally founded, and is actually having his studio in the old Eye-Q / Harthouse HQ! :) His way of thinking about music is amazing! Live he was fantastic this summer :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have only Magic Diner which has nothing to do with electro. Some nice ambient :wub:

never knew that he made ambient too

 

the plot thickens...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

never knew that he made ambient too

 

the plot thickens...

dude, check him out on Discogs, the guy has made SHITLOADS of music :) Sven Vath, Pete Namlook.... well it makes sense, they are from the same area in Germany (Main Rhein Gebiet) its all inbred there :lol:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

dude, check him out on Discogs, the guy has made SHITLOADS of music :) Sven Vath, Pete Namlook.... well it makes sense, they are from the same area in Germany (Main Rhein Gebiet) its all inbred there :lol:

yeah, but none of the others are like him, are they?

 

I mean, especially that technology-critical ... you know...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

:drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama: :drama:

And Nacht der Götter ("Night of the Gods")

 

The only lycrics are two times two almost same sentences:

 

first the male computer voice: Erzählten die Engel, dass dies die Schöpfung Gottes sei. Erzählten sich die Götter, dass dies ein wundersamer Zufall war.

engl. translation: "Told the angels that this is the creation of God. Told the gods themselves that this has been a curious coincidence."

 

followed by the female voice: "Erzählten die Götter, dass dies ein wundersamer Zufall war. Erzählten sich die Engel, dass dies die Schöpfung Gottes sei."

engl. translation: "Told the gods that this has been a curious coincidence. Told the angels themselves that this is the creation of God."

 

 

It's short but still it seems state of the science. Men & Women the ongoing quest ... :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

first the male computer voice: Erzählten die Engel, dass dies die Schöpfung Gottes sei. Erzählten sich die Götter, dass dies ein wundersamer Zufall war.

engl. translation: "Told the angels that this is the creation of God. Told the gods themselves that this has been a curious coincidence."

 

followed by the female voice: "Erzählten die Götter, dass dies ein wundersamer Zufall war. Erzählten sich die Engel, dass dies die Schöpfung Gottes sei."

engl. translation: "Told the gods that this has been a curious coincidence. Told the angels themselves that this is the creation of God."

that one is good aswell...

 

but nothing against Protektor, especially that video ... trippiest ever, blow ya mind:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

may somebody write down the lyrics of "gene structure"

and translation to english

please!!!

 

"der mensch verändert die Genstruktur" / "human is changing the gene structure"

that's all that I recall out of my head. can't listen to it here at work, I have no sound :D

 

but what's most important:

 

POPKILLER II is coming!

 

Oh and I have discovered more great songs of him! He has put a big load of material on his homepage which can be listened to! This is great!

Lately I absolutely dig No Love, We Are Punks and Follow The Leader.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Just got back from Frankfurt and went to Cocoon on Friday where Anthony Rother was playing! I have to say that it was one of the best sets I have ever heard in my life. I had no drugs or anything like that and the music just took me away to places I never even thought existed. Fantastic, I'd really like to see him again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Just got back from Frankfurt and went to Cocoon on Friday where Anthony Rother was playing! I have to say that it was one of the best sets I have ever heard in my life. I had no drugs or anything like that and the music just took me away to places I never even thought existed. Fantastic, I'd really like to see him again.

 

this is interesting, because I too saw him playing just 14 days ago ... and he did the same to me!

I can't describe it, I have never felt like that before ... it was like somebody having attached strings to me, directing me like a puppet, even though I swear to god not having taken drugs except a ridiculously small amount of beer. I think, for the first time in my life I have been into something such as "trance" ... because until to that point, all that I felt when on psy arties was EUPHORIA, but not trance!

What flashed me the most was the time perception ... I was thinking having been already dancing for two hours, while Rother did not even have played one! That was so strange, I was almost getting sick and scared, but fortunately the music was so gentle to not make me freak out (if this happened on a psy party I'd certainly have flipped). But after some time, my perception became clearer, more whole, crisp clear and sharp vision and such. And after Rother was done, it was all gone all of a sudden.

 

I never have felt anything like this before. Totally interesting.

 

And the atmosphere was great ... this was supposed to be a big party on a festival, but it was utterly badly promoted and there were almost no people, only 100 instead of the supposed 2000! It was almost like a private small party from some rich as fuck person ... totally strange. I have payed 27 Euros and I just went ther to see Rother (because the festival was actually shit and no people), but it was worth every cent, such an awesome experience ... and because there were no people, I could even walk up front and shake hands with the man himself :) ... normally this would never have been possible if I hadn't payed for the super expensive VIP ticket (an absolutely idiotic practice). So there's only positivity to report ... even though that was surely a one-time event because the promoter and organizer have probably lost a huge amount of money because so little people were there...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I have seen a lot of people play, I have done it in many different states but I never thought I could here something so amazing and be sober (well a little drunk but no hallucinogens or club drugs) but feel like I had taken so many drugs. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the club (it wasn't as the next night wasn't nearly as good) or a combination of the two.

 

I only own 1 Anthony Rother CD and that is Magic Diner and as I mentioned before is ambient. Since I got back to Japan I have been listening to that again and it is really good. I need to get some more of his upbeat stuff. The party I went to was apparently his release party for Popkillers II so I think I will look into that in the near future :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yep, Anthony Rother rules!! My only objection is that his tracks are extremely linear, like the same loop played over and over, no climaxes, no nothing, but I guess that those are the carachteristics of electro.

 

BTW, you have a point with techno... Few people know this but actually the first generation of Detroit techno sounded a LOT more like electro than like techno (remember breakdance? ;) ). Stuff like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson etc only came afterwards. Why am I saying this? Because if you search hard in the Detroit techno area you will stumble on some perfect electro-style tracks (but it's not easy to find)

 

 

Here are some examples:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9y9Snt1g5E

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I280cxs2jvA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BTW, you have a point with techno... Few people know this but actually the first generation of Detroit techno sounded a LOT more like electro than like techno (remember breakdance? ;) ). Stuff like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson etc only came afterwards. Why am I saying this? Because if you search hard in the Detroit techno area you will stumble on some perfect electro-style tracks (but it's not easy to find)

 

I just have to chip in and put a question mark above the eventual reader's head.

 

OK, first of all, there was nothing before Saunderson, May and Atkins. There were, and there still are today, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins (who at the time was working under the Model 500 alias, and is widely acknowlegded as the man who produced the first ever techno track).

However, there are debates as to what is, and by whom, was the first proper Detroit techno track ever delivered. Naturally, the sound was heavily electro influenced (because of Kraftwerk, duh), and Atkins best exemplified it in the early days. The thing to keep in mind is that, while historically speaking, Atkins had a record out first, the stuff he was releasing was pure electro, with a slight twist. Sure he had a record and his label made before May and Saunderson, but it wasn't until Derrick May dropped Nude Photo that it was fully understood what Detroit techno was. As much as Atkins was at the forefront of producers hailing from the Motor City, his sound was as much interpretation as it was innovation. From what I've gathered, it was Derrick May who really gave Detroit that "trademark" touch, the sound which made people identify the city with techno music.

Simultaneously with Atkins' input in the Cybotron project, his high school buddies were more into the sound of stuff like Manuel Gottsching's "E2-E4", where the hypnotising, loopy effects, phase patterns, the superb use of synth stabs and melody work were placed above the machine, computer dominated sounds of Kraftwerk and other emerging projects of the eighties. Hence the large difference in Derrick May's and Juan Atkin's production opus; one opted more for the wicked electro painted tunes, and made a respectable career out of it (along with recording proper Detroit techno under influential pseudonyms such as Infiniti), while the other took the more harmonic, melodic, and (call it that if it is going to make you feel better) organic path, kick starting the entire Detroit techno movement as we know it today.

So, now, anno 2010, when one shoots off terms like Detroit techno, you have people either thinking of the whole U.R. fraction down with Mad Mike, Drexciya, and many of their affiliates and studio partners. The other cheek of Detroit techno shows the soulful side, the mellow and the deep, brought by artists such as Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, Eddie Fowlkes and Stacey Pullen.

 

Yeah, this is not like an attack or anything, more of a second opinion. Very often, people get the sensation that just because Atkins had a record out first, that it must have been him who had done it. Which is kind of unfair, because at the time of his first 12"-ers, a term "Detroit techno" was something nobody had in mind yet. Whatever your opinion on the matter may be, it took more than Atkins' take on an already exisitng genre to forge and install Detroit techno as the force to be measured against. Most of the stuff posted here, all of it being classic regardless (such as U.R., Suburban Knight and Drexciya) came much later. Sure Cybotron had tunes out before Derrick May, but if you listen to their electro, and then head striaght to May's Strings Of Life, it can become confusing as to where subjective interpretation ends and where real innovation starts...

 

Whatever, I hope all of it made sense...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just have to chip in and put a question mark above the eventual reader's head.

 

OK, first of all, there was nothing before Saunderson, May and Atkins. There were, and there still are today, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins (who at the time was working under the Model 500 alias, and is widely acknowlegded as the man who produced the first ever techno track).

However, there are debates as to what is, and by whom, was the first proper Detroit techno track ever delivered. Naturally, the sound was heavily electro influenced (because of Kraftwerk, duh), and Atkins best exemplified it in the early days. The thing to keep in mind is that, while historically speaking, Atkins had a record out first, the stuff he was releasing was pure electro, with a slight twist. Sure he had a record and his label made before May and Saunderson, but it wasn't until Derrick May dropped Nude Photo that it was fully understood what Detroit techno was. As much as Atkins was at the forefront of producers hailing from the Motor City, his sound was as much interpretation as it was innovation. From what I've gathered, it was Derrick May who really gave Detroit that "trademark" touch, the sound which made people identify the city with techno music.

Simultaneously with Atkins' input in the Cybotron project, his high school buddies were more into the sound of stuff like Manuel Gottsching's "E2-E4", where the hypnotising, loopy effects, phase patterns, the superb use of synth stabs and melody work were placed above the machine, computer dominated sounds of Kraftwerk and other emerging projects of the eighties. Hence the large difference in Derrick May's and Juan Atkin's production opus; one opted more for the wicked electro painted tunes, and made a respectable career out of it (along with recording proper Detroit techno under influential pseudonyms such as Infiniti), while the other took the more harmonic, melodic, and (call it that if it is going to make you feel better) organic path, kick starting the entire Detroit techno movement as we know it today.

So, now, anno 2010, when one shoots off terms like Detroit techno, you have people either thinking of the whole U.R. fraction down with Mad Mike, Drexciya, and many of their affiliates and studio partners. The other cheek of Detroit techno shows the soulful side, the mellow and the deep, brought by artists such as Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, Eddie Fowlkes and Stacey Pullen.

 

Yeah, this is not like an attack or anything, more of a second opinion. Very often, people get the sensation that just because Atkins had a record out first, that it must have been him who had done it. Which is kind of unfair, because at the time of his first 12"-ers, a term "Detroit techno" was something nobody had in mind yet. Whatever your opinion on the matter may be, it took more than Atkins' take on an already exisitng genre to forge and install Detroit techno as the force to be measured against. Most of the stuff posted here, all of it being classic regardless (such as U.R., Suburban Knight and Drexciya) came much later. Sure Cybotron had tunes out before Derrick May, but if you listen to their electro, and then head striaght to May's Strings Of Life, it can become confusing as to where subjective interpretation ends and where real innovation starts...

 

Whatever, I hope all of it made sense...

 

ummm... not quite... you said it yourself that the first generation were largely inspired (and understadibly so) by Kraftwerk... and you said yourself that Atkins kindof started it all by doing electro and that May and Saunderson came in afterwards, so I don't really see why you claim to give counter arguments, it looks to me like you're confirming what I've said lol Anyway, I know that all this "who came first, the chicken or the egg" debates are endless and that no matter how far you dig you'll always find some other underground artist who has done it before already, I was simply pointing out that one can find some cool electro tracks under the "Detroit techno" category, even if at first hand it might sound confusing. I myself started to know these kind of tracks in sets played by Dave Clarke under tha name "Detroit techno" and didn't really understand why until I read a bit on the history of techno. Mind you, it is not ME who lables them "detroit techno", it is the DJs or the artists themselves... And then this whole confusing name-branding/ style thing isn't anything new, I mean I bet that in 10 years time there will be people wondering just why the hell are both progressive and full-on called "psytrance" since they have like nothing in common.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was simply pointing out that one can find some cool electro tracks under the "Detroit techno" category, even if at first hand it might sound confusing. I myself started to know these kind of tracks in sets played by Dave Clarke under tha name "Detroit techno" and didn't really understand why until I read a bit on the history of techno. Mind you, it is not ME who lables them "detroit techno", it is the DJs or the artists themselves... And then this whole confusing name-branding/ style thing isn't anything new, I mean I bet that in 10 years time there will be people wondering just why the hell are both progressive and full-on called "psytrance" since they have like nothing in common.

 

Well yeah, they don't call Mad Mike, Dopplereffekt, DJ Stingray and Drexciya Detroit techno because it sounds "gangzta", thugged out or just plain cool, but because of the mere fact they all happen to reside in Detroit, from where they've all been churning out high quality electro tunes for over fifteen years... Don't see where the "first hand confusion" part comes in. They have all been around since, about, forever.

 

Anyways, funny how you came across them listening to [DC], the same way I got to discover some of these artists as well... Anyways, glad to see we agree on the whole name giving/labelling thing. By this day and age, you'll hear (at least I do) people placing Detroit techno stamps on anything that isn's Viper XXL, Deep Dish, or Burial :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah since going to his album launch party I have been eager to get his new album as it sounded so good on the dancefloor and I wasn't off my tits so it might sound good off the dancefloor too :ph34r:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...