STM 209 - Umwelt

Umwelt is an electro producer from Lyon, France, who emerged from a 90’s rave background. His edgy and sharp electro cuts are still true to the core elements of the style fashioned by the masters of old Detroit. Umwelt infuses this classic sound with fresh energy, while also maintaining the right balance between Drexciyan groove and gloomy electrified melodies. This is clear as day in his recent LP Days of Dissent released on Boidae. This is an album filled with dark futuristic vibes that remind a bad trip in an 80’s cyberpunk film. Unsurprisingly, Umwelt relies on time-tested analog equipment to sculpt his hard-wired beats and sharp tunes. In one of his recent interviews he mentioned TR808 as his primary tool. Apart from maintaining a long and consistent career as a producer, he also runs the Shelter, Fundata, Rave or Die and New Flesh labels. He prefers releasing his music and the music of his peers through these labels rather than relying on outside sources, thus remaining true to the underground.

In Umwelt’s own words, Secret Thirteen Mix 209 is “a journey which begins in interstellar abandoned bases and finishes in the guts of the ghost town”. Technical and sustained mixing creates subtly shifting and intense dynamics that fulfil the aforementioned narrative and maintain a solid electric pace. It kicks off with the groovy vocal line of The Exaltics’ remix of Dynarec’s “In Your Hand” - a track that blazes with a cold pulse. Umwelt also incorporates a large number of his own tracks, which form the general texture of the mix. Thus the overall selection has the same stark futuristic feel known from such neon dystopias as the Los Angeles of Blade Runner. Umwelt employs a diverse array of ominous tracks to transfer this atmosphere. From the almost industrial mood of Privacy to the aquatic waves of Arnold Steiner or the breezy drift of Anodyne, he approaches electro from different angles and shows various shades of it. It is also an effective statement about the powerful symbiosis of techno/electro.

The mix reminds this post-minimalist self-titled artwork from Jiro Takamatsu. He was working in the fertile ground between dada, surrealism, and minimalism, developing something quite similar to what Umwelt is building with his mix. This means mixing different kinds of electro, from the more acidized to more noisy or from the more IDM-based to early detroit electro. This was probably an intention to create fundamental investigations into the ideological and sound architectural origins of electro. Moreover, Takamatsu engaged the world through gesture, action, process, and experimentation, rather than formal studio-art methods or finished artworks. Umwelt did the same, the mix includes diverse emotional expressions, experimentations with beat and percussion structures and sometimes even impulsive mixing that creates a club feel. This mix should take you somewhere between space, reality and the dungeon, a place where ecstasy, confusion and hope coexist.