EXTRAWELT Vinilo y CD

Review: Talented artiste Gui Boratto makes his first outing on German Boxer Recordings alongside Extrawelt with Tuning 08. Gui's "Half Life" comes remixed by Frenchman Patrick Chardonnet; a punchy tech-house track on first appearance, "Half Life" beholds cracking sounds, sweeping brush strokes and big room chord reverb that unfolds into a warm and brooding vibe. On the flip, "Vorsprung Durch Hektik" from Extrawelt gets reworked by exceptional German producer Dominik Eulberg. Riding of a penetrating bass line, Eulberg's plethora of idisyncratic sonic touches are crisp and sharp, warped and arranged to perfection for an eye opening journey.

Review: Feel My Bicep has long been a home for big hearted, high impact, festival sized house and techno tunes. Next to serve up the weaponry are the collaborative pair of Defekt and Extrawelt, who kick off with "Field Day". It is a rugged, high speed electro tune with frazzled synths and gritty bass that powers into the cosmos. "Off Planet" is another journey through space, this time on more far sighted chords that have a mournful feel while the well programmed drums keep things pumping. These are likely to get big reactions but do so with a nice sense of style.

Review: Veteran Hamburg duo Extrawelt released another one of their singular 'maximal' style epics in the form of tongue twister 'Jetzt Neu: Alles Wie Fruher' on Gregor Thresher's Break New Soil imprint last year - and now we're treated to the remixes. Rising French producer KMYLE's steely and pitch black rendition is aimed squarely at the peak time dancefloor, while label chief Thresher's version in collaboration with the one-and-only DJ Hell is a more low-key affair. Taking the track in a more deeper and minimal direction is Artrik's perspective over on the flip.

Review: German techno pair Extrawelt are next up on the Dreeaming Awake label and true to the label's form so far, they offer up some hard to define new electronic sounds. 'Gazelle Flip' kicks off with warped techno sounds, bendy bass and slapping hits that are all about making you move. The 720 Degrees version is even more electro styled. Remixing then is the one and only Sebastian Mullaert (who also works under the names Minilogue and Son Kite). His take is a dubbed out and widescreen deep techno roller and then comes a Wa Wu We Prayer version that is all zoned out underwater ambience and slow rhythms.

Review: Main room techno innovators and long time festival headliners Extrawelt are new singings to the agency arm of Berlin club Watergate. They now serve up some of their maximalist analogue sounds on the label and go dark for the opener. 'Alpha & Oma' is all edgy and suspensory synths that wring out your senses. 'Email Auf Klinke' is dense drumming and industrial atmospheres and then things switch on closer 'Automatik Akrobatik.' The melodies here are lighter and brighter, the drums have more air in them too and the whole thing skips along breezily.

Review: Longtime main room techno cohorts Extrawelt have sure been around a bit, and later in October will release their latest album Extra Welt Hits on Cocoon. But before that the German pair land on Traum with three more of their muscular and robust analogue workouts. 'Mr Wednesday' is a real teeth clenching ride with a taught baseline snaking beneath slapping hits. 'Little We Know' lightened the mood with airy flute sounds and a more rubbery and warm bassline that does some fine acrobatics. Last of all, 'SEM' gets back to paranoid and dark dystopian techno territory and will keep dancers rooted to the spot.

Review: The 110th release from Kompakt Extra comes from Extrawelt, a long-serving electronic band from Hamburg that has previously impressed via albums and singles on Traum Schallplatten, Border Community, Darkroom Dubs and Cocoon Recordings. They naturally hit the ground running with "Pink Panzer", a bustling affair that mixes live drum breakbeats and tough machine percussion with moody, booming bass, creepy strings and evocative, ever-building tech-house electronics. Flipside "Argonaut" is an altogether sleazier and heavier affair full of thrusting, non-stop distorted bass, redlined post-electro drums and all manner of mind-mangling electronic effects. It's effectively the Yang to the A-side's Ying and, like its' predecessor, very good indeed.

Review: Given that they've long been one of techno's busiest live acts, it's perhaps unsurprising that Fear of an Extra Planet is Extrawelt's first album for nearly five years. We'll forgive them for taking their time, though, because it's really rather good. It's largely warm, atmospheric and melodious, flitting between shuffling techno floor fillers, analogue-rich electro, low-slung breakbeat-driven creepiness (see the Brown Album-era Orbital style goodness "Oddification" and "Gentle Venom"), acid-flecked late night throb-jobs ("Silly Idol"), deep space hypnotism ("Fear of an Extra Planet"), James Holden style positivity ("The Friendly Coroner") and surprisingly loose, Giallo-influenced soundtrack fare (excellent closer "2084").

Review: While Extrawelt's post-prog house Border Community days are long gone, you can still detect a hint of that early progressive ethos in this second album for Sven Vath's Cocoon imprint. Musically, their various takes on house and techno benefit from a similarly atmospheric approach, even if their aesthetic is more fiercely contemporary and deeply rooted in German club culture. There's certainly something vaguely proggy about the blissful dubbed out sounds of "Schlusslicht" and the melodic dub house of "Die Welt Ist Nacht Schelung". The same can be said for the touchy-feely "Blendwerk", which sounds like classic Orbital reworked by Sasha or John Digweed.

Review: Kompakt's Speicher series has always been somewhere to go for more frazzled and textural techno from the Cologne based label. It now arrives at an impressive 121st volume in the form of this split from Extrawelt and 1979. Extrawelt go first with the fizzing synths and dark wave bass of 'Stabilo' designed for maximum impact in the main room. 1979's 'Vulcano' on the flip side is a computer game meltdown with pixelated melodies flashing over a tight and loopy groove. It is controlled chaos and we love it.

Review: For more than a decade Harthouse has been one of the most influential trademarks within the Techno scene. The releases during the 1990s have been landmarks, pioneering the forefront in sound innovation, being a role model for countless artists and labels. Harthouse acts achieved world fame and climbed into the international charts. Artists like Sven Vaeth, Hardfloor, Alter Ego, Resistance D. or Der Dritte Raum became synonymous for the sound of Harthouse. In other words: Harthouse has a glamorous past, a musical heritage, a name that always stood for constant progress and high quality - two keywords that are becoming more and more important these days. But Harthouse is not only one of the biggest myths in the encyclopaedia of electronic music. After some time the fog has risen and the legend is back with producers like Zoo Brazil, Alexi Delano or Gui Boratto, and with overwhelming success. So it is no surprise that Harthouse is presenting a unique various artists compilation - which is available as a Triple Vinyl package. And it wouldn't be Harthouse if the track selection wasn't extraordinary. Consequently only handpicked artists found their way on this supernova sound, artists who are all considered as innovative, pioneering and creative representatives of their guild. So we are more than proud to present you the outstanding artists like Hardfloor, Der Dritte Raum (two Harthouse legends), Özgür Can, Groove Rebels, Extrawelt, Zoo Brazil, Swedish Techno pioneer Joel Mull, electro infant terrible Terence Fixmer, Alexi Delano (AD Remix), John Dahlbäck. All these artists are presenting their very own sound, which is far away from monotony - their sound is fresh, tight, groundbreaking and shaping our musical landscape in a new and exciting way! The bandwidth is reaching from fragile minimal sound structures over mind burning acid flavoured tracks with hypnotic melodies to massive electro bombs with freaked out basslines - altogether proving how exciting planet Electronica can be, if you follow the right artists on their mission!