For the last few years the “Neo Classical” label has been serving as a platform for curious and happy-to-experiment music hybrids that no longer bother about the traditional borders between classical and electronic music, but rather transcend them in very different and highly individual ways. Examples for this are works by Gas, Hauschka, Max Richter, Nils Frahm, Carsten Nicolai (alva noto) and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Composer and pianist Johannes Motschmann, born 1978 and living in Berlin, studied composition, piano and electronic music and also appreciates experimental new wave bands from the 80ies (OMD, Ultravox) and “Berliner Schule” electronic music of the 70ies around Tangerine Dream und Klaus Schulze. And, of course, not to forget Brian Eno, industrial and techno. On his current album “Electric Fields” recorded live in the studio and for the most part composed, Wofgang Rihm-Schüler lets analogue synthesizers encounter violin sounds, and mixes elegiac ambient surfaces with coarse-dark drones. And by the way, this whole flickering and pulsing fit-for-club avant-garde creation is meant as a tribute to nocturnal Berlin.
