Author: numpad

The anonymous fløw7nåke’s early impressions of the Berlin underground scene completely changed his perspective on music. After years of musical output as a drummer, he decided to start producing his own electronic music, and leave his acoustic instruments behind. After hearing the track “Marionette” from Mathew Jonson for the first time, fløw7nåke decided to purchase a drum machine and a synthesizer the following week to recreate this track, which is – as an homage – still part of his live sets today. Quickly getting hooked on sequencing complex and evolving electronic sounds, the artist started building his own tracks on analogue hardware. Early attempts of improvisational sets started to embody themselves into full live performances capturing interested ears around Berlin. With time, his sound would evolve to become harder, faster, more industrial and more abstract. Drawing parallels from his past as a jazz and metal drummer, the artist’s music is rhythm orientated with the added flavour of trance-inducing textures. Exploring his penchant for experimental and academic music, he is constantly incorporating diverse elements of musical concepts and is never afraid to push the envelope when it comes to creating hard hitting but groovy beats for the night club. Make sure to check out fløw7nåke’s feature on our latest podcast!

https://soundcloud.com/sonicgroundberlin/sonic-ground-podcast-003-flow7nake

Descending into darker spheres, fløw7nåke blesses our third podcast with a rebellious liveset. Pulsating Kick breaks team up with gritty percussions to put the deep and gloomy synths into their prefered space and convey an especially sinister experience when
combined with the full video edit of fløw7nåke’s live performance at Night Embassy Berlin.

As per usual, the podcast is also available on soundcloud.

https://soundcloud.com/sonicgroundberlin/sonic-ground-podcast-003-flow7nake

Dishing out the second part of our podcast series, Huellkurve invite us to a hypnotizing journey full of trancy soundscapes and trippy basslines, joined together into one hour of live performance.

Check out the full podcast on soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/sonicgroundberlin/sonic-ground-podcast-002

Huellkurve, the unequivocal duo from Berlin is a live techno act consisting of Kay- Uwe von Kiedrowski and Arne Janz.
In the early 90s, Kay-Uwe became addicted to electronic music and spent most of his nights dancing in Berlin’s techno clubs, which pushed him to start DJing at parties in his home village Werder and in smaller clubs in Potsdam.
Arne – a good ten years younger, jokingly calling Kay as grandpa – used to live in the sleepy Einbeck at that time and was a teenager experimenting with psychedelic rock with his electric guitar. His attention, however was already focused on the trippier and broken sound of goa and drum and bass.
In 2002 Arne, now living in Potsdam, moved into his first studio, while Kay – whose studio was in the same building – just moved out. They met by chance in the hall and started chatting about music – they immediately found each other sympathetic, arranged to jam and from then on played together in a kraut-rock band until 2008.
During this time they increasingly began to integrate effect devices into their setup to bend the sounds of classical instruments into psychedelic textures. These elements mixed with fat bass and a driving percussion are major elements in the tracks of their current project Huellkurve.
In the years following the break-up of the kraut-rock project in 2008, the two have largely lost sight of each other and independently discovered synthesizers and the associated possibilities of sound generation through subtractive synthesis.
After an accidental meeting in 2016 they’ve decided – driven by the euphoria of reunion and their fascination for hardware synthesizers – to meet again for a jam and to go on a musical discovery journey like in the past – Huellkurve was born. Their first performance followed in 2017 at an open stage in Berlin.
In the beginning, they mainly played ‘heavy ambient’ in the form of classical concerts. In the course of time, however, they increasingly developed their sound towards the dance floor, where they now interweave their exclusively self-produced tracks and sound fragments into live sets.
Huellkurve sees itself as a techno formation whose concept is to play live without the use of computers. They exclusively use hardware synthesizers, sequencers, and effect devices, which leads to an enormous amount of equipment but also allows them to access all sound parameters directly at any time as well as to interact with the audience in a special way.
They are constantly on an acoustic voyage, producing new sounds and tracks they then use as a framework for their live sets – arranging them differently and interpreting them live. Stylistically they move somewhere between techno and electro, mixed with trance and house elements, flavoured with a pinch of acid.

 

Make sure to check out the newest track from Huellkurve on Soundcloud:

Starting at September 20, Ghost, I x No Start No End will host a two week long residency for the Night Embassy Berlin. Each uniquely themed day provides a rich cultural program, ranging from workshops to art exhibitions and musical presentations. The events will take place in a new, custom designed venue in the heart of Kreuzberg.

Crouds, flow7nake, h1, huellkurve and numpad will represent Sonic Ground and contribute handcrafted livesets to the Night Embassy program during the two weeks.

Check upcoming gigs for more details on the individual themes and dates.

Starting off our artist introduction series, we put the spotlight on the two minds behind numpad!

 

Both coming from the picturesque city of Ulm in south Germany, Julian S. and Sebastian W. formed the now Berlin based live project NUMPAD in 2014. From the beginning, there was a vision in their minds of playing live electronic music instead of just spinning records. With the purchase of a first hardware synthesizer, both the outline of today’s project and the obsession for these machines loomed.
In August 2015 NUMPAD had their debut in a small Berlin club at Rummelsburger Bucht. Initially they played hybrid sets consisting of their own productions and tracks of artists they liked.
A few gigs in Berlin’s underground music scene followed. When they were invited to play the LIVE-Festival for electronic live music in Munich in January 2017, they decided to play a set consisting only of their own productions. This was also their first introduction to fully improvised live electronic music.
Inspired by the creative freedom, they decided to evolve into a completely improvised act from then on.
J. as a drummer and D’n’B enthusiast takes care of percussion and sub-bass arrangements using a computer and a hardware sequencer, while S. is mainly focused on more melodic content and abstract polyrhythmic events served from his modular system. The improvisational character of their performances enables them to thoroughly engage and interact with the given atmosphere.
Each set is a new journey into unknown territories for both of them. A process of constantly creating, listening, revising and optimizing. Both their engineering background as well as their deep passion for and insatiable interest in this music and the technology behind it, enable the two to constantly critically analyze themselves and further develop their ideas.
Classic Detroit rave stabs, wide ambient pads or bustling breakbeats can always be found amidst air-cutting percussion and enthralling dark synth lines. From squelching acid to cinematic soundscapes their sound, as diverse as their musical influences and taste, always invites the listener into a vivid sound experience.

 

Check out numpad‘s newest endeavor, as they are featured on Halle’s well established music and culture network Station Endlos on their podcast #035 with a full 90 minute performance of pounding techno improvisation:

 

Links:

Facebook

Soundcloud

 

With the dust settling ever so slightly after an exciting launch period, it’s time to get up close and personal for the first time!

Sonic Ground is hosting a Synth and Modular Flea Market on the first of September at Fabriktheater Moabit. Join in to get a chance to sell your underutilized gear to members of an enthusiastic community or simply show up to make a bargain on your favorite piece of music equipment. (If you want to sell stuff, please let us know in advance by dropping a mail at pewpew@sonic-ground.de so we can guarantee enough space for everyone!)

To create just the right set and setting, the haggling will be embedded in various live performances and a DJ set by the Sonic Ground residents.