Due to technical reasons, the originally announced performance of Robert Henke’s spectacular laser show, “Lumière”, has been postponed to a later date. Instead, the restless experimenter proposes a unique sneak-peek at another work-in-progress. The Monolake Live 2015 Preview celebrates classic Monolake sounds in its most up-to-date form alongside new visuals by Tarik Barri, whose high-resolution real-time 3D pixel explosions match Henke’s sonic intensity. Crystal-clear sound, wide open spaces, complex driving rhythms and precision computer groove are all in store for the evening.

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Please note that tickets previously purchased for the originally scheduled “Lumière” performance remain valid for this event. Should any ticket-holder like to reimburse their ticket, they are invited to email the amiando ticketing support system and follow further instructions: support@xing-events.com

Since the peerless, timeless Monolake releases on Chain Reaction, Robert Henke's Monolake stands apart from all other projects exploring the adventurous sides of electronic music and club culture in Berlin. Through a new, more stringent understanding of sound, the Monolake project has distanced itself from the party frenzy and techno hype of the early 90s, aiming for more unique aesthetic club experiences. Today Monolake continues to evolve along the edges of experimental contemporary club sounds and research into the possibilities of their further extension and development.

Drawing inspiration from the opposing poles of techno and academic computer music, Henke and Gerhard Behles founded Monolake in 1995. When Behles founded the Ableton Live music software company in 1998 with Henke as its main developer, Monolake continued as a solo project of Henke’s. Dutch video artist Tarik Barri has joined the project since a few years now, providing visuals for Monolake appearances with Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace project and Nicolas Jaar among others. In conjunction with the virtuosity of Tarik Barri’s 3D imagery, Monolake is plunged into a futuristic world of sound and light – a world that is far more expansive than what is defined by loudspeakers and a screen could ever be.

Monolake exists as a project of the highest conceptual stringency that nonetheless aims for emotive access and sensual experience. For many years, Robert Henke worked intensively with the possibilities of multi-channel surround sound and live electronic performance. This allowed him to construct his own instruments optimized for intuitive performance focused exclusively on listening. Fluidly moving high-resolution spatial sounds produce crisp, alien soundscapes of great immersive power. Precise beats resonate in large reverberation chambers, and are crossed by pulsating bass and ethereal clouds of sound. Towers of noise tower are pierced by crystal clear sounds while whirring sounds fly over constantly changing hallucinatory soundcsapes.

Robert Henke + Tarik Barri: Monolake Live Surround from EMPAC @ Rensselaer on Vimeo.

Modularity, transformation, sound generation and sucession are the keywords that can help open up one’s understanding of Ame Zek’s music as a kind of paradoxical exploration of "order in motion" – an order that remains intangible and cannot be caught. His idiosyncratic sound design makes impossible a hasty classification using known points of reference, thus opening the door to the rare pleasure of listening without allusions, comparisons, preconceptions.

Ame Zek’s boundless awareness is linked to his life trajectory. Born on the coast of Dalmatia in Croatia, he left the country in the 1990s ahead of an increasingly tenuous political climate in his homeland. In 2005 Ame Zek came to Berlin and quickly developed links with the local club, experimental, and improv scene, collaborating with the likes of Andre Vida, Kevin Blechdom, Clayton Thomas, Jamie Lidell, or Tim Exile.

Counted among the limited number of artists that move beyond familiar schools and genres, within their own musical orbit, Ame Zek appears in support of his first full-length album, Rostfrei, out on Keep It Business this June 2014. He is also one of the latest artists to be added to CTM's Berlin Current initiative - an ongoing project supported by Musicboard Berlin that identifies and supports emerging Berlin-based musicians via performance opportunities and more.

→ roberthenke.com
→ amezek.com
→ more on Berlin Current

Berlin Current is a collaborative initiative from CTM Festival, Berghain, Boiler Room Berlin, BLN.FM, No Fear of Pop, and ICAS. Sponsored by the Musicboard Berlin.