sonig Labelnight

»sonig«, the famous electronic label of the Cologne uneven school, has released much more than just Mouse On Mars since it was founded in 1997. Following last year’s international club rock tour the label is now staging an extended evening at the ZKM somewhere between experiment and party with as many as five acts.

DJ Frank Dommert will be kicking off with some rarely heard vinyls. With Mouse On Mars he’s more or less taken over as accommodation manager for »sonig« and for the past 10 years has been a key feature of the Cologne experimental a-music scene. He’s also the sole owner of the fine traditional label Entenpfuhl.

Vert was recently the support for Tortoise in the USA and Japan, but now he’s got back together again with his label mates. The unique rhythmic and bodily contortions, virtuoso keyboard skills and ungainly poses enable this English gentleman to break with convention, style and beat. Schlammpeitziger, the lord of the Casio and the inventor of endlessly long song titles, is now back with some new material. Following interim activities (such as remixes for Depeche Mode and various festival gigs) the likeable lad from Cologne has now produced his fifth album. 

Schlammpeitziger has perfected his sound on »Everything without all inclusive«. His music is still characterised by friendly Casio grooves and irresistible melodies, but there are elements of doubt and seriousness, too.

Jason Forrest has recently begun putting his real name on concert posters to avoid disputes with established artists from a different era. But anyone who has ever seen this bundle of energy leap up and down like a madly bouncing ball and bawl into the mike to insanely fumbled break-beat remixes from ABBA to AC/DC knows that there is only one fitting name for this project: Donna Summer!

Not many artists succeed in developing their own musical language by means of a complex system of signs. Lithops aka Jan St. Werner (Mouse on Mars, Microstoria) is one such artist. The many directions Lithops moves in simultaneously enable him to create multi-linear structures, as it were. The third Lithops album »Scrypt« is concentrated music at an energy level that is intensive enough to make you dizzy. Harmonious contortions, veiled melodies and outbursts of exactly deconstructed beats produce a network that can serve both as a hammock and as an object of research. As DJ Lithops, Jan St. Werner has got more acoustic surprises and dance discs lined up for this evening than is allowed after closing time.