As the rush of rediscovered excitement around hardware practices settles to a steady hum, it feels like there is a growing acceptance that it really is OK to use any tools you like to make your music; it’s the content that counts. That won’t stop people having their preferred workflows and waxing lyrical about them, but at least now the analogue dogma can resign to the same redundant pocket of hype-driven chest-beating that laptop-jockeying digital evangelists adopted once DAWs and plug-ins could stand up to the capabilities of drum machines and synthesisers.
You Have Two Osc And You Detune Them… Than What? asks the long serving Swedish techno producer on his new single.
Sweden: so techno right now. Take in Abdullah Rashim and his Northern Electronics crew, Peder Mannerfelt, SHXCXCHCXSH and all that encompasses Planet Skudge (yes, another sub-label is on the way); these Scandinavians are creating a similar stir to what Italians Donato Dozzy, Dino Sabatini and Lucy did back in 2010. But Andreas Tilliander, a techno authority, has always been in the thick of it, most prominently of late making acid-lines and Roland drum machine sequence in new ways as TM404, or trawling the nethermost depths of atmospheric dub techno as Mokira.
Andreas Tilliander will release his first TM404 material since last year with a three-track 12″ next month.
The Swedish label returns with a 12″ featuring a raft of TM404 remixes by the Semantica boss.
The next two releases on Svreca’s operation will see Tilliander debut the Svaag alias and Tolkachev make his label return.
Acquaint yourself with the Swede’s Mini LP for Frak’s label ahead of its release later this year.
The Swedish producer will release a mini album through the cult label run by Frak later this summer.
In a fascinating piece published in The Wire recently, producer Mark Fell explored the idea of open systems in the creation of electronic music versus closed systems, comparing Thomas Dolby’s “ideal synthesiser” – that is one that could theoretically create any sound his mind could conceive – against Phuture’s accidental creation of the acid house sound whilst experimenting with a Roland TB-303. For Fell, producers who use these open systems inevitably find themselves constructing sytems with “an inbuilt closedness”, something that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As Fell concludes, “let’s not assume that technical limits equate to creative limits”.
More details have emerged for Andreas Tilliander’s forthcoming album for Kontra Musik under the TM404 alias.