Dummy Mix 89 // Cologne Tape
Cologne Tape is a supergroup formed from a love of the great German city and has released some of the coolest electronic music of the last few years. The core members include Axel Willner (The Field), Michaela Dippel (ADA), Jörg Burger (The Modernist/Burger & Voigt), Philipp Janzen (Von Spar), Jens-Uwe Beyer (Popnoname), John Harten, and Daniel Ansorge. It’s no surprise that the sum of all these incredibly talented parts has caused waves throughout the dance music scene. Cologne Tape’s first mini-album, Render, was released in June of 2010 on the equally great record label created by some of its members, MAGAZINE. The collective is busy working on a longer album to be released hopefully in 2012.
Cologne Tape Dummy Mix tracklisting
1. Fabio Frizzi – Paura E Liberazione
2. Wolfgang Voigt – Frieden
3. Kenny Larkin – Keys, Strings, Tambourines
4. Seahawks – High Tides
5. You – Zone Black
6. Slapp Happy / Henry Cow – Caucasian Lullaby
7. Cologne Tape – Unreleased
8. Jürgen Müller – Sauerstoffblasen
9. John Cage – Dream (Version For Archlute And Bass Viol)
10. Maxmillion Dunbar – Ambient Lemon & Lime
11. Sun Araw – Holodeck Blues
12. Radiohead – Morning Mr Magpie (Pearson Sound Scavenger RMX)
13. Mark Ernestus – Mark Ernestus Meets BBC
14. Sven Väth – L’Esperanza (Doub Mix Feat. Patricia)
15. Colored Mushroom And The Medicine Rocks – When You’re Gone
16. Outro (Reprise)
How’s it going?
Thanks for asking. Brilliant. (If it is possible to say so as a group.)
Can you please tell us a bit about the mix?
We love the idea of seeing the mix as a Cologne Tape music piece. Speaking of theme, tracks, flow, etc … Hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious: Imagine all those people getting together for an album. As Cologne Tape. A group of 50 people. Some of them dead, others probably not willing to work in a group. But still, here they are, all together for a brief moment. Sven Väth, John Cage, Mark Ernestus, Anthony Moore… It might not make sense on paper, but…
In an interview from May 2010 you say how the Cologne scene has become smaller and tighter in a way because a lot of artists have moved to Berlin. Now in September 2011 how do you feel about Cologne and what’s happening musically and artistically in your city?
Speaking of the group: Cologne Tape loves Cologne. At the same time we know the name is somehow misleading (always has been) and not meant literally. John Stainer lives abroad now – but still is a substantial part of the idea of the group. Ada moved to Hamburg – and is still so present. Cologne Tape would have never happened in any other city than Cologne, that’s for sure. But tonight you can call us New York Tape or Hamburg Tape also!
Speaking of Cologne, most of us live in a harbor by the old River Rhine, some of us above the legendary Kompakt studios. That’s all you can ask for, isn’t it? Well, apart from the Dom. But we know someone who has the keys to it (really).
The one problem with the city is, you can hardly find a vacant space that could be transformed into a venue. That is really a problem and always has been – as opposed to Berlin. We were luckily able to cheaply rent a warehouse in our harbor for years in order to stage uncommercial special concerts and other happenings. Also, our good friends from Cómeme are really good having parties of improvised nature. This summer them and us got together to throw a lovely little outdoor festival in the middle of Cologne that lasted for three days. We are grateful that the city let us do that. But that is not normal.
In the last few years we have missed a regular club with a proper sound system and an ambitious line up were you can here good music loud. But now it looks like there is one in town again, called Gewölbe, having some great traveling guests like Andrew Weatherhall.
Where would you like to see the collective and label going in the future?
We are so thankful that so many people have supported us so far, especially in the UK. Impossible to say what the future will look like. We look forward to it. And all of us will still be making music in 5 years, no question about that.
What’s coming up for you guys over the next few months?
We will get together this autumn to finish our first album. Ok, we said this last year. But every time we got together since then it was so much fun and energy, it was just impossible to transfer this to tape. But this time we really want to strike proper chords and share the results!
