Premiere & track by track: Bochum Welt’s previously unreleased ‘Extra Life (Take 2)’ from Module 2

The mid-90s classic, originally released on Rephlex, is back after a quarter of a century

Bochum Welt’s classic 1996 album Module 2, originally released on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label, has just been reissued on vinyl with five bonus tracks via BMG.

Bochum Welt – a combination of the German word for ‘world’ (welt) and the name of a high-powered astral telescope –  is the stage name of Italian electronic artist Gianluigi Di Costanzo. Di Costanzo has been releasing boundary pushing electronic music since the 90s, his first single for Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label, ‘Scharlach Eingang’ (1994), made such an impact NME ran an article speculating Bochum Welt was actually a new ghost project by Aphex Twin himself.

Di Costanzo’s first album Module 2, is a collection of his first recordings and was originally released in 1996 and followed by another Rephlex release Robotic Operating Buddy and a string of acclaimed albums in the years since. Other collaborators throughout his expansive career include Drexciya’s Gerald Donald and Nine Inch Nails touring member Josh Eustis.

Bochum Welt told us: “During the period in which I was recording the album I spent a lot of time in London as a guest of Rephlex, the record company of Aphex Twin and Grant Wilson. It was nice to spend time there, in the Arsenal area. You couldn’t get bored, between baseball games and designing records/sounds. This album was recorded in the same period that we left London together for some tour dates, including heading to Australia – where I opened for Aphex Twin’s concerts. Something I look back on fondly.

“Listening to the original tape recordings for this album, I found some alternate versions and unreleased tracks. Among the unreleased ones, ‘Electro 1’ is a look back at the Sheffield melodic electronic music scene; ‘Extra Life (Take 2)’ is a version with more ambience and delay tips than the original; ‘Over Time’ is a tense and dark soundscape at the end of the album. Any part I was playing with a synthesiser was digital information that I programmed into my Macintosh. The results were lo-fi electro tunes made using my own sounds and analog gear. It’s the first album I made for Aphex Twin’s and Grant Wilson Claridge’s Rephlex Records, plus five bonus tracks.”

Hear the track on YouTube:

or Soundcloud:

Module 2 – track by track

Extra Life (Take 2)
It is a bonus track, which was not included in the first edition of the album. This version has more ambience and delay tips than the original ‘Extra Life’. A dreamy rhythmic sequence of chords is accompanied by minimal touches of bass lines and a moving beat.

2 Electro 1 (Knightsbridge Mix)
Taken from the album recording tape, it had never been released. It’s a simple track, where I used an old drum machine and analog Roland synths.
It is inspired by the early Sheffield music scene of the 70s, electronic and sentimental.

3 Mechanique
It’s a hard and energetic track, with a scratchy bass line, drawn using a 1983 duophonic synth from Oxford Synthesizers Company.
Drum machine inserts come in and out to emphasise the flow of the track.4 B2 (Live in London, 1996)
It’s the live recording of B2, in London, one of the concerts that Rephex used to do in London without any big announcements. Listening back to the recording it seemed clean enough to be released.
It is produced using all old Roland equipment.

4 B2 (Live in London, 1996)
It’s the live recording of B2, in London, one of the concerts that Rephex used to do in London without any big announcements. Listening back to the recording it seemed clean enough to be released.
It is produced using all old Roland equipment.

5 Radiopropulsive
Like ‘Extra Life’, it is characterized by a suspended rhythm that is accompanied by a sequence of very short cut chords and a delay that moves them. It was inspired by the time spent at the Rephlex HQ, which had a positive influence on me during the recordings.

6 Lunakhod
A 12-bit drum machine is accompanied by nostalgic and meditative chords and melodies. I often find myself composing with this mood. I think I was born with a nostalgic and heartbroken mood, because since I was a boy I always tried to express these moods of mine with music.

7 Asteroids Over Berlin
It is inspired by the German and Detroit electronic scene, with synthetic rhythms and a quantized bass line that punctuates the drum base. In contrast, however, everything is made more human by evocative chords and sounds.

8 Mechanique (Live at the Rocket, London)
A live version of Mechanique. Listening to it again it seemed very spontaneous and so I proposed adding it to the tracklist. Live, I played the chords with an old Oberheim synth. In the end I kept the original Oxford Synthesizer bass line but closed the track with Oberheim chords completely different from those of the studio version.

9 Extra Life
Compared to take 2, this take 1 has a leaner rhythmic base and the effects are used in a more limited way. The melodies are also less developed than take 2.

10 Avtomaticesk
A hard and experimental track, for which I had prepared an ad hoc drum kit, it develops with inserts of chords and meditative melodies. The drum beats I was recording were so robotic that I naturally titled the track “Automatic”, even though in reality it’s all very human and there are constant interactions during the recording.

11 Path
It has a positive and carefree mood, highlighted by an analogue bass line, like all those on the album, energetic which aims to support the melodies.

12 That’s Mutuality
Old school electro track with a romantic chords arrangement that led to the title of the track. I was inspired by the first album release of Thomas Dolby, for whose Los Angeles multimedia company I would soon collaborate.

13 Over Time
This is a tense and emotional dark soundscape at the end of the album. A growing Moog Source bass line and a rhythm obtained with the Moog noise generator reaches a base of pads and then closes the track.
I like the Moog Source because it has such an 80’s, electric sound, I still use it a lot in the studio today.