Monolake :: Interstate (Remastered) (Field)

Each Monolake release is, of course, sui generis with a context and sound never to recur, but Interstate is unique in its way—document of a vital musical and cultural moment capturing paradigm shifts in (pre-)millennial music production; its deep textured electronics and ever-morphing cyber-rhythms a snapshot of two phonauts boundary-surfing with then cutting edge tech, causing ripples that became waves that would break over the ’00s and beyond.

Interstate teems with insectoid detail and dizzying depth of field

 

The ’90s: an arena for innovative endeavor, in electronic music more than most domains, a simultaneously post- and pre- context eliciting hark-back feed-forward works from e.g. Aphex Twin, Autechre and Boards of Canada that felt, differently, futurist. Likewise Zeitgeist-wise was Interstate, dub techno/ambient electronica duo Monolake’s second album—the last with Gerhard Behles, who left here (1999) to focus on developing the ground-breaking Ableton Live, leaving Robert Henke solo.

It started at Technische Universität Berlin—two programming students, early adopters in a burgeoning digital scene, writing music in Max. It would influence the local scene in Berlin and beyond, preparing the ground for Ableton Live—1999 also saw Ableton founded by Henke and Behles with software engineer Bernd Roggendorf. The rest is Geschichte…

In this light then may be seen the choice of Interstate as first vinyl in Field Records’ Monolake reissue program. Truly seminal, essential for dub techno and ambient electronica heads alike, along with the reissues of Hong Kong (2008) (see igloo-‘view), compiling the early Chain Reaction EPs, and Gravity (2025) (see igloo-’view); among the most idiosyncratic works where dub techno, microsound and hyperreal electronica intersect, the duo cemented a vision of a quasi-organic post-techno crossing club-home-’phones via a custom sound design and syncopated beats mix.

Max/MSP enabled envelope-pushing into vibrant forms where rhythm and sound move in mysterious ways. “Abundance” sets tone, gaseous atmo solidifying into click-y rhythmicity, whirrs and judders cycling echoically into the aether in a fuzz-wash haze. “Gecko”’s full-on techery creates almost total mechanicity (mechanicCity?), electric chirp meshing with birdsong bleeps. “Tangent I” and “Tangent II” hitch roiling low-end to layered synth, “I” with liquid textures like digital drizzle and chattering percussive hiss, “II” with heftier metallic parts, its head-nod slashed with springy stabs. “Perpetuum”’s electro pong workout cedes to “Amazon”’s tract of neo-virtual reality, then “Ginza” and “Terminal” abstract d’n’b geometry into a sleek dub-inflected design. Throughout Interstate teems with insectoid detail and dizzying depth of field, the two like Circe in circuitry conjuring from code immersive spaces as deft in kinesis as they are questing in timbre.

Each Monolake release is, of course, sui generis with a context and sound never to recur, but Interstate is unique in its way—document of a vital musical and cultural moment capturing paradigm shifts in (pre-)millennial music production; its deep textured electronics and ever-morphing cyber-rhythms a snapshot of two phonauts boundary-surfing with then cutting edge tech, causing ripples that became waves that would break over the ’00s and beyond.

Interstate is available on Field Records. [Bandcamp]