Schone Neue Extrawelt

2017 edition. Double LP version. 2017 edition of the 2008 debut by Hamburg's Arne Schaffhausen and Wayan Raabe aka Extrawelt. The duo describe the aesthetic of Schöne Neue Extrawelt thusly: "It's all about hooking up our music to the emotional world of electronic music at the beginning of the '90s, however, without falling for nostalgic references. We don't want to do cowardly zeitgeist techno, we want to have the heart to dare big sounds and more melodies. Sunrise scenarios, energy, revolution and kaput-ness, all these are parts of the Extrawelt." Extrawelt have been unmistakably imprinting the last three years' club sound with widely-noticed releases on Border Community (Soopertrack, 2005), Traum Schallplatten (Doch Doch, 2006), and Cocoon Recordings (Titelheld, 2006) as well as with remixes for Gregor Tresher, Minilogue and Alexander Kowalski. Work on this record took over two years: "The initial idea was to present an album covering all styles of electronic music between ambient, breakbeats and techno. When we had 25 tracks for the album ready, we had to realize that this approach did not work for us. Insofar, we finally decided to use the 4/4 bass drum in all tracks except in the little intermezzo 'Kurt Curtain.' We have tested all tracks live over the last three months and constantly re-interpreted them. So, the 'danceability' is clearly our focus... but our intention was definitely not to deliver an album full of superficial peak-time hits." These 12 tracks represent a pleasurable "in-betweenness", the organic development of hypnotically compressed dance music that is more than just minimal techno, reduced trance or electronic circa Warp-era. From the richly decorated musical clock intro of "One Tree Hill" to the stereo singing bowl of "Trümmerfeld", to the Asian-sounding creaking of "Daten Raten", Extrawelt celebrate a vision of futuristic melancholy with organically detailed richness that is permanently in motion, but is nevertheless well-balanced.