ABREAKTOR: ANY DAY NOW AND

Alex O. gave up making music more than a decade ago. He had dabbled in everything from Jazz to Gabba without ever really feeling like he'd found his voice, and eventually real life took over. But in 2008 he discovered what ten years of development had done to the power of sequencing software and the flexibility of digital synthesis., and found himself back in the virtual studio with a renewed sense of purpose - and this five track EP showcases a distinctive soundworld. Abreaktor is the sound of a man entirely divorced from any specific scene (he lists his influences as Bill Evans, Ozzy Osourne, Richard D. James and Pol Pot), making tough, resonant music of his own. "Terce" welds some truly subtererranean bass frequencies to sheets of white noise, softening the impact with orphaned, technoid bleeps, while "Ercet" threads writhing patterns through vast choral caverns. Potent stuff.

Chris Sharp in WIRE # 309 November 2009

Düsseldorf based sound nerd Alex O. aka Abreaktor focuses on www's extended sociality, such as Web 2.0 and the likes. He posts his tracks on different web forums and then modifies them according to the feedback he is getting. In the end 5 such tracks made it on the EP, and they are cracking, squeaking and clanking weirdly and crazy like the music of Aphex Twin or Squarepusher. It is no straight Techno-Dancefloor-Sound, but more an acoustic Tetris effect made of synthesizer tones and samplings. The extensive sounds occasionally find a room for development. Since we like this we put our thumbs up, Mr. O. and Net Community!
8 Points out of 10.

sallys.net/Musik/Platten/Detail/111585/Demodesaster/ and unclesally*s Mag No. 148

Precise in a completely different way, the electronic compositions of Abreaktor, are glacial in their execution, scratched distorted beats and snatches of melody creating a glitchy ambient pulse that is pleasing to the ear. On the five track EP "Any day Now And", this ambience is broken up with some more insistent rhythms, such as on the creeping paranoia of "Ercet/Frequent Flyer", the downbeat mood maintained for the rest of the tracks.

www.terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Rumbles_June09.htm

TRI-MEH: ENDART

Recorded at the Endart Gallery, Berlin, the appropriately entitled "Endart" is a recording of one of the final concert from performance artists Tri-Meh.
Working between 1985 -1987, the duo of Bernd H and Safy used primitive synths, metal object, guitars, found sounds and prepared loops to create chaos and confusion through sound. Linked to the Cologne avant garde/fashion scene, the music drones, crackles and rattles its way through seventy minutes, revealing a surprising beauty and stillness at its heart, the drones producing an almost spiritual feel to the music, which is easy to get lost in.

www.terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Rumbles_December08.htm

ELECTRONIC SOUND IN PFORZHEIM::
RETROSPECTION OF THE UNDERGROUND

The unique Electronic Sound from Pforzheim has now been released on several CDs.

Pforzheim/Berlin. Botsch?, J.X.? There might be only a few people who remember the names of these two musicians from Pforzheim who have created quite a stir in the mid 1980s with their Post Industrial and Electronic Sound.

Matthias Fischer aka Jordan Xenon, Jassu Xavier or Jinn Xhosa has been living in Berlin for 20 years. With the release of 3 CDs he wants to keep alive the memory of this very specific part of the Pforzheim underground scene.

The CDs are titled "Botsch: Retrospektive 1986-1991", "The Legendary Jordan Xenon Project: Swan Lake" and "Mental Factory: Drowned" and were released by Fischer for the purpose of proofing the existence of the Alternative Progressive music scene in Pforzheim in the 1980's.

The record label "Brigade der besten Qualität" that released these 3 CDs does exist for quite some time now as it was founded in the 1990s by Matthias Fischer and some friends. "In the beginning we were very enthusiastic, but later the project came to a standstill" says Fischer as producer of the label. Now he re-established the label with the intention to bring the music of Botsch (who died on the island of Corsica in 1994) as well as his own material to a wider audience.
The album "Botsch: Retrospektive 1986-1991" was already released in 1995 on vinyl, in memory of Dirk Both who grew up in Pforzheim. Apart from two solo pieces by Botsch there are various songs of the two bands Botsch was part of on the album: Mental Factory and Crash Toys And The Botsch Boys.

In Pforzheim in the 1980s Botsch and J.X. were well known as unconventional fans of the Industrial and Electronic underground scene which was also linked to Pforzheim's Post Punk scene.
"There had been only a few tapes of our music circulating within the scene" remembers Matthias Fischer. Therefore the names of the projects soon fell into oblivion. In Jordan Xenon's opinion (this is one of Fischer's stage names) this is a real shame also because as the present 1980s revival focuses solely on the mainstream of that period of time and therefore does not reflect the whole 1980s with all its diversity and richness. For J.X. it is beyond debate that Pforzheim had a very creative underground scene and presumably the most important band of that period, The Lennons, do still exist.

With the recordings of Botsch's pieces as well as his own compositions and clang experiments that were created as d.i.y.-pratice material and influenced by the Punk and Post Punk movement, Fischer intends to oppose the so called "authentic eighties sound" with something real and genuine from the underground. He would like to put this particular part of the former underground into recognition and to introduce it to today's younger generation.
"Our motivation was the conversion of atmospheres, emotions and sentiments into sounds and electronics. The way we did it was skewed, deformed and distorted and the result can be considered as a sort of "Intelligent Techno of the eighties", comments J.X.

The third CD with the title "Drowned" is anything but mainstream of the eighties also. Originally it was intended as a side project of their other band Crash Toys And The Botsch Boys, but it soon became obvious that Mental Factory developed completely independently.
Botsch and J.X., the forming members of Mental Factory, had been ahead of their times with their experimental style of music - in the 90's and the beginning of the present decade, the sounds once developed by these two guys from Pforzheim could be re-discovered in the music of duos like Mouse On Mars or Autechre.

Ralf Recklies, Pforzheimer Zeitung 10.09.2008

BOTSCH: RETROSPEKTIVE 1986-1991

CRASH TOYS AND THE BOTSCH BOYS / MENTAL FACTORY / BOTCH LP
For months now I have this record on my desk and I am struggling to write the review. Not because it’s a bad record (on the contrary!), but rather because it’s hard to write about such a private and intimate affair. The protagonist Botch had been shot by the owner of a camping site on the island of Corsica in 1994. This record is the bequest of his friends to come to terms with his death. The large booklet gives information about the bands Botch was playing in, photos, concert posters, and finally photos of the short-lived friend with a text trying to digest his dead. It is self-evident that it is not easy to just review the music of this record. But on the other hand this is my job.

The photos and concert reviews show that there were a group of friends in the hinterland (Pforzheim and surroundings) who have created something really genuine – exceptional music that only can be created by a clique of capable friends and maybe this is only possible in the provinces of the hinterland.

The music consists of electronic experiments, music on oil drums, car doors, buckets with broken glass garnished with a distorted and degenerated dark blues by Botch himself. These recordings (“happenings of collective noise”) don’t have any flair of sophisticated galleries at all, as they are products of musty youth cellars. They emanate a manic aura which compares to the very early Einstürzende Neubauten, but the sound is completely different and can be compared to bands such as KONTAKTA or AMM. The lust for noise, steel, chink and flirted monotony, as well as for creative and ragged chants manifest in these recordings. The occasion is cursedly sad and maybe now this music will get known to a larger audience. This post-industrial sound is cocooning, angry and cogent in such a way that I have found my belief. Not my belief in God, but my belief in a musical movement that exists beyond all that hip stuff (that’s what BOHREN did their own way as well).

Martin Büsser in ZAP magazine

AVANT-GARDE SOUND

Visions of Noise

A sensational gig will be held tonight at the Hammer Mill in Pfinztal-Kleinsteinbach between Pforzheim and Karlsruhe. For the first time, the newly formed experimental band Crash Toys And The Botsch Boys will present their Industrial–Electronic–Sound in front of a large audience. CTATBB were formed in December 1986 and had their first performance at the Youth Center in Eisingen in front of about 100 spectators.

The band consists of eight members. 6 of them are from Pforzheim, one is from Berlin and one is from Stockholm. Their concept is to cause a positive consiousness by expanding a collective sound volume which again is projected by musique concrète. This nihilistic ideology manifests in a mixture of ethnic music, plainchants, rhythms and sounds. Supporting act is the newcomer band from Remchingen Ernie And His Doping Friends doing their debut, and the famous Berlin based avant-garde duo Duck & Cover. Doors open 20:00 h, show starts 23:00 h at Hammer Mill in Kleinsteinbach.

Pforzheimer Zeitung 26/03/1987

SLIMY V.D. / FRIENDS OF BARNEY (Split LP)

Benefit release for the arrested Kurdish and Turkish antifascist activists who are accused of the homicide of Nazi functionary Kaindl. Details are given in the extensive booklet of the record. With projects like, this the music is usually secondary and fading behind the political spotlight. But not in this case: both bands go for the “full throttle”. Multi-faceted political Hardcore, sometimes halting, sometimes at high speed. In the end the winner by a hair breadth is Slimy V.D., for being more fascinating and varying in my opinion. Nevertheless, FOB are absolutely above average in their genre, as well. Good record! Good aim!

Der Übersteiger magazine

Purchase is obligatory because all proceeds go towards the antifascists from Berlin who have been arrested or went underground. Self evident with an extensive booklet. Slimy Venereal Diseases are not as radically noisy as they used to be. Instead they have calmed down a lot since singer Glitch doesn't go to the Chaostage any longer and hangs out at techno raves instead.

Friends of Barney (not Rubble!) are ok as well.

Moses in ZAP magazine