Extrawelt
Schöne Neue Extrawelt

Once upon a time, there was a new genre, there were Get Physical, Border Community, Cocoon, Traum Schallplatten, Klang, Force Tracks, Poker Flat... labels whose goal was clear right from the start: quality, quality, and more quality. A way of conceiving techno that incorporates the timing of house, the rhythms of minimal techno, and the sounds of more mental IDM, doing so without ever sacrificing virtues such as creativity, experimentation, personality. Some called it tech-house, a term sometimes fitting, other times decidedly less so (as is the case with those reviewed). A lot of people operated particularly in Germany between 2003 and 2007, some more oriented towards techno and others towards house, producing a handful of records that are already classics: Mandy vs Booka Shade, D. Eulberg, J. Holden, Nathan Fake, Trentemøller, Fairmont, Elektrochemie, Minilogue, Efdemin, Isolée, Roman Flügel. Once upon a time, precisely because the movement, once it took hold elsewhere, including Italy, generated a series of embarrassing clones, all in search of easy money, total flattening, productions without a shadow of what we previously defined as quality, sometimes leading even those who started the movement to recycle and trivialize themselves for records, if not years. A few years later, tech-house, or alleged such, gave way to the revival of M-nus-style minimal techno - a process that was already anticipated by the increasingly minimalist nature of the latest tech productions - generating more or less the same process, a genre that goes from niche to trend, clubs that suddenly offer 'the minimal', digital labels printing every possible crap, vinyl labels seeing the quality/quantity of their offerings decrease greatly, a flooded market and, worst of all, an imaginary that turns the genre into a 'fashion thing', passing off as house what in most cases is nothing but techno, a word that sells decidedly less, not neat enough, not trendy enough.

This is a necessary preamble to remember what is instead one of the most unscathed, continuous, and interesting projects of this scene, Extrawelt, a visionary German duo source of great trips and EPs now consigned to history. Although they also are not exactly infallible (currently in free fall), in 2008 they came out with a phenomenal, inspired, original, uncategorizable album, which also went quite unnoticed compared to others for whom the excellent musical offering was paired with a cloying marketing/image factor that was not insignificant (want to compare these two anonymous faces with this cover face that resembles a third Gallagher?); we're talking about the first and so far only album "Schöne Neue Extrawelt".  

The art of Arne Schauffhausen and Wayan Raab stands out for a remarkable musical personality, a very particular approach to melody and arrangement, strongly influenced by the background of the two (already seasoned as psy-trance producers), a melting pot of heavy citations ranging from Detroit to electro, passing through IDM, ambient, significant echoes of the same psy proposed by the two with the aliases Midi Miliz / Spirallianz) and obviously techno, a solid base where to place everything, and the main territory of the album, which should be clarified has nothing to do with house, with Extrawelt being, contrary to what an Isolée might be, the more tech side of so-called tech-house - in many cases an 'umbrella' term and anything but clear -. 

The album is exceptional and doesn't shy away from repeatedly recalling what were the two masterpiece EPs "Schmedding 8000" and "Soopertrack / Zu Fuss" (authentic sell-outs as well as records of disarming beauty), thus often and willingly preferring atmosphere and melody to the bass drum, addressing both bodies and minds indiscriminately (just as it happened on "Zu Fuss", surely their most famous track, also due to the majestic, cosmic, burial-esque and alien ambient version) or reprising the progressive structures of the statuary "8000" and the formal/structural aspects of the less cerebral "Doch Doch", with pulsating lows with elaborate and round lines, slapped bass drums, rich, curated, and trippy arrangements. This, I believe, is enough to understand what kind of album we are dealing with, a primarily self-referential album (which isn't bad at all given what it refers to), composed of long tracks, slow and measured progressions, geometric micro-sounds, nods to minimal techno, and a good dose of melody, but not a banal and predictable melody, rather an absolutely psy/tech-trance format (which the two know well), more 'suspended in the void', sometimes distant and imperceptible, a way of posing that recalls the Berlin school of Schulze as well as early nineties English ambient-techno.

Extrawelt know what they want and they get it: creating a trip to transport the listener, between cold technology and a warm human touch, between future and psychedelia: on one hand, subtle and evocative soundscapes with a touch à la Boards of Canada, on the other, the bass drum and a swarm of restless rhythms and micro-sounds never intrusive, a prestigious surround, which instead of providing a 'drive' to the tracks almost seems to want to take it away, 'softening' everything, always preferring the most spectral approach possible to a wooden one. When they want they know how to push, but here the focus is primarily on the concept of the album, where you have to say something after all. And this something here is a journey to fantastic shores, alien third worlds ("One Tree Hill", out-of-this-world stuff, "Must Attack" and "Added Planet", with clear electro reminiscences complete with vocoder), fears ("Dark Side of My Room" deep and nocturnal, "Trummerfeld" urban and paranoid), hallucinations ("Wippsteert" and "Wolkfenbruch" subliminal deepness in the purest sense of the term, "Lost in Willaura" a bone-piercing bass) and grey futuristic visions ("Daten Raten" sort of orgy between Monolake and Plastikman, "Homing", a glance at the most disenchanted Detroit). 

Then the album ends, and you realize you have no idea what you just listened to. Is it minimal-techno? Is it slowed psy-trance? IDM in 4/4? If it's tech-house, why do the lows sound like electro records while the synths are dub stuff? Originality, a singular sound but also experimentation, which is not lacking at all, absolute mastery in creating all the 'backdrop' that regularly accompanies everything (a triumph of micro-rhythms, micro-cymbals, and micro-finishes that even IDM nerds would admire, horror-like textures and tight frequencies reminiscent of work done with the project Downhill) ["Silent City"], galactic basslines as ever Moog-influenced, now devastating now incredibly sinuous and graceful, with more than one invitation to move your butt (the train "Messy Machinery" is the only track to slightly break the trip mood of the work, and it does so admirably showing a unique pull).

"Schöne Neue Extrawelt" ranks among the best albums of the past decade, an album that before even showcasing the talent of these two key characters in the recent developments of techno sound, and among the most remarkable surprises of the 2000s, is an authentic journey, as have been heard very few. The long duration and the interminable developments of the tracks may perhaps discourage at first approach, but it is an obstacle worth overcoming. Make it yours without hesitation. Fantastic. Monumental.