Monolake

It’s Friday so we’re listening to something more upbeat. Today we’re listening to Monolake, a German electronic music project started by Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke. They teamed up in Berlin in the mid ‘90s and released their debut LP, Hongkong, in 1997. A couple years later they co-founded the music software company Ableton, which Behles went on to run (to this day), leaving Henke to helm Monolake. “They took the repetitive pulse of Detroit techno music and fused it with the studio-as-instrument ethos of Jamaican dub music,” noted Ramon Pang. We’re first playing Hongkong, which seamlessly blends synth sounds with field recordings from the titular city. We’re also playing Gravity from 2001, which is darker and takes a more minimalist techno approach with its intricate percussion and synth micro-orchestration.

Hongkong - Monolake (59m, spoken vocals at the beginning of tracks 5 and 6)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Gravity - Monolake (67m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Have a great weekend.