Introducing MPC Fly

MPC Fly merges unmatched Akai Professional technology with the power of your iPad 2, embodying legendary capabilities that have made the MPC an industry standard like real MPC pads, MPC Note Repeat and MPC Swing. Its multifunctional, double-hinged design gives you the flexibility to produce tracks anywhere, while also acting as a protective case between sessions and giving you total access to your iPad 2 for normal uses.

Introducing MPC Studio

MPC Studio offers the most streamlined MPC experience yet. At under one-inch thin, with low-profile controls and a brushed aluminum body, it’s made to move. MPC Studio merges real MPC pads, iconic workflow, and the same MPC Software used by MPC Renaissance to give you a fully integrated portable production solution. Welcome to production anywhere. The world is now your studio.

Introducing MPC Renaissance

Fusing Akai Professional’s legendary MPC layout and workflow with the power of your computer, MPC Renaissance is an unrivaled instrument for music production. The new flagship is a fully integrated hardware/software system: MPC Renaissance allows you to create using classic hardware controls and an integrated pop-up display, while its exclusive MPC Software empowers you with unprecedented, expandable production capabilities on your Mac or PC.
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Check out the website for more info on AKAI MPC Renaissance, Studio and Fly availability and pricing:

http://www.akaiprompc.com
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It all starts with various metal bands in the 90’s, but with distinct reference to the jazz guitar that he grew up with. This combination resulted in an aggressive sound with complex harmonic structures, shaped as the band Wombat in Combat. Later he turned towards modern jazz in Vestbirk Noiz Ensemble, a 13-man piece headed by Niels Præstholm, and known for playing anything from pipes, table tennis balls, washing machines, samplers, antique radios and a thundering bass.

Monolog | Ecule Drift

His activities in Berlin have often been rooted at wndl as well as the stage at ZR with its improvised music and modern jazz aesthetics. He soon bonded with EPY from Trust in Austria through a series of live shows in Berlin, while also playing doom jazz with Anders Holst Jensen of Danish stages. Later playing a number of other Berlin-venues indulging in more functional aesthetic delivering break core sets including the Berghain Kantine. Recently also in a duo project with Karsten Pflum aka A Dying User. Or solo launching drum and bass and skewed wreckstep sets at raumklang, m.i.k.z, subland or other bass dungeons.

Monolog | Vertigo

Currently finishing up the Aerodymanic vinyl summing up recent steps in a harder, more dense and direct form, new to the monolog alias. The Monolog project is constantly changing, aiming for extremities and seeking them musically, technically and emotionally. Whether it is hammering the drums or creating soothing harmonies, these musical poles are given life by Monolog’s binding of contrasts.
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monolog  LIVE
Support: Voidnoise, The Buddy System, Subheim + Kartsen Pflum DJ

Saturday, 14 Febraury 2012 | 20:00 CET
wndl | Schlesische Str 42 | 10997 Berlin/Kreuzberg

http://bitreactor.dk | http://www.uhrlaut.com| http://www.nstp.de/
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FACTS:

1:
2:
3:

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
C&E: Cosmic emotions

2. How and when did you get into making music?
E: Probably since I was in my mother’s womb, listening to my father play the guitar.  Have you ever heard what music sounds like in there?  It’s very much like Christy’s guitar style. As soon as I was born I asked for a piano!
C: when I was in high school I went through a medical procedure where I couldn’t play sports for a year. My father took pity on me and got me that guitar that I’d been asking for. That’s when I think I got really addicted to music.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
E: Maro Ajemian’s performance of John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano (where Cage himself has made the preparations) and Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger
C: I’m always in the mood for Neil Young’s “On the Beach” , “Afro Roots” by Mongo Santamaria , or the Dr. Who Soundtrack.

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
E: Darkness, unpredictability, Thai food
C: beautiful urban decay

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
E: The East River Ferry
C: my apartment

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
C&E: Run

7. What was the last record you bought?
E: Ethiopiques vol. 21
C: Zapp & Roger “Greatest Hits”

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
C&E: Brian Eno!!!!!

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
C&E: We don’t know but Sunday February 12th at The Roter Salon in Berlin will probably be the best gig ever.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
E: Vintage gear plays a big role.  The NORD scares me.
C: We aren’t scared of Nords!

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
E: I think my sister used to be really jealous of me growing up.  We were raised in the woods while my parents built our house, and at one point she hit me on the head with a hammer.  Now she sends me texts and tells me she loves me all the time.  So we figured it out.
C: I have a big sister too but everything is cool with us.

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Christy & Emily is a duo from Brooklyn, NYC. Its music has been described as “Arthur Russell jamming with Galaxy 500″.

Christy & Emily | Kings & Monsters

Like the Wonder Twins or a Reeses peanut butter cup, theirs is an interesting partnership for the strikingly different abilities and musical flavors these two multi-instrumentalists bring to the studio and stage. Gueen’s Head, the product of their work, isn’t just “rock” versus “classical,” but interpretive versus creative, mood versus hook, song versus sound.

christyandemily.com

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Like One Club, which twisted field recordings from the Frankfurt nightclub Robert Johnson into splayed-apart dance music, One Pig is an overwhelming, inscrutably political electronic record culled from an unlikely source.

Matthew Herbert | September

In this case, it consists of manipulated recordings Herbert made of a pig’s life, “from birth to plate.” This certainly isn’t the exploitation record PETA assumed it was gonna be, and it’s not a slab of musical vegan didacticism that presumably, many more, who prefer their music to be good first, and message-oriented second, feared either.

No matter how visceral Herbert’s mix of animal grunts and menacing electronics feel, the message is never something simple like, “it sure is sad that we kill animals.” Rather, it moves listeners to be more mindful of consumption and waste, while acknowledging just how strangely disconnected we are from the animals killed to put food on our table.

Herbert notes in the making-of video that, for legal reasons, he could not record the actual death of the pig. And that says a great deal more about government-sanctioned ignorance and the bizarre regulations on food manufacturing than One Pig really ever could.

What Herbert has put together is a witty, difficult, touching testament to making something lasting out of one of the world’s many cruel inevitabilities.
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Matthew Herbert presents “One Pig”  LIVE

Tuesday, 07 February 2012 | 20:00 CET
HAU 1 | Stresemannstr. 29 | 10963 Berlin/Kreuzberg

matthewherbert.com | hebbel-am-ufer.de
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The recording writing process this time out took Baldwin to a remote cabin in Maine. That sort of setting may sound familiar, and, like Bon Iver’s debut splash, this is a record with a wonderful ambiance.

Nat Baldwin | A little lost

Unlike most of 2008′s Most Valuable Player, People Changes finds Baldwin largely on his own: just his voice and bass, with help from a few friends.

Baldwin sings in a lovely melisma, the same slippery style used by his Dirty Projectors bandmate Dave Longstreth. But while Longstreth’s voice will often crunch itself up into grotesque shapes, Baldwin keeps his airborne.

It serves as a terrific juxtaposition to the spare arrangements of People Changes. The earthen tones of his double-bass act as both anchor and trampoline for Baldwin’s voice, an instrument that flutters and swoops as it pleases.

Whether Baldwin is singing with his throat or his bow, there’s a thrilling feeling of freedom to it all.
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Nat Baldwin  LIVE
presented by Kometenmelodien

Thursday, 09 February 2012 | 20:00 CET
Berghain | Am Wriezener Bahnhof | 10243 Berlin/Friedrichshain

myspace.com/natbaldwin | berghain.de
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In Christy & Emilys music, we find unconventional rockers with Brazilian baiao rhythms seated in a psychedelic netherworld, suicide ballads invoking the sordid tales in the Harry Smith Anthology and chords borrowed from Schumann and Liszt with a chorus that nods to Brian Wilson.

Christy & Emily | Kings & Monsters

Christy learned to play guitar from a “Metallica – Ride The Lightning” tablature book, and started playing in bands during her stay at the Rhode Island School of Design. She got exposed to a lot of good and noisy bands going to shows at the now extinct Fort Thunder.

Christy also plays guitar and sings in a punk band called the Totallys that gigs regularly in NYC. In addition she was the drummer for a psych rock band called the Sumerians.

Emily is a classically trained pianist who has studied at the New England Conservatory, the Oberlin Conservatory and Columbia University. In September 2009 her recording of the entire works of Anton Webern for soprano and piano with Jody Pou was released on the Shsk’h label to international acclaim.

She has contributed to the recordings and liveperformances of Brooklyn rock bands Oneida (Jagjaguar) and Oakley Hall (Merge) and has premiered the music of Elliott Sharp, Susie Ibarra, Matt Welch and many others.

Digital in Berlin recommended! We are giving away 2 x 2 tickets for “Christy & Emily”. Just send a mail to win@digitalinberlin.de with “Christy & Emily” as the subject.

You can read our 11+3 interview with Christy & Emily here.
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Christy & Emily  LIVE

Sunday, 12 February 2012 | 19:00 CET
Roter Salon in der Volksbühne | Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz | 10178 Berlin/Mitte

christyandemily.com | roter-salon-berlin.de
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Born on April 5, 1990, in Gnas, Austria, and raised on a pig farm, Plaschg began writing and performing music on piano as a teenager and ultimately went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Soap&Skin | Marche Funèbre

She made her commercial recording debut as Soap & Skin in 2008 with an eponymous four-track EP. The following year at age 18 she released her debut album. Comparisons were often drawing between Plaschg and celebrated female singer/songwriters such as Cat Power, Nico, Kate Bush, and Björk.

Now 21, her new album features a cover of Desireless’ Europop hit ‘Voyage Voyage’, and was also apparently inspired by the sudden death of her father in 2009.
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Soap&Skin  LIVE
with Ensemble

Dj: Falko Teichmann

Sunday, 12 February 2012 | 19:00 CET
Volksbühne | Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz | 10178 Berlin/Mitte

soapandskin.com | volksbuehne-berlin.de
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He has released numerous albums on labels from around the world & has authored several books of prose and poetry. Even though he likes to keep the arts well seperated, both his poems as well as his music share the same freeness of approach and can either represent a “stream of consciousness”, “spontaneous composition” or a carefully edited and fully composed work.

Aidan Baker | Twentyfour Hours

On his various recordings, he has explored many different sounds, structures and sources, but he is mostly associated with the minimal guitar patterns, delicately treated to create tender drones, which have become his trademark.

Time slowly looses its meaning, but if you listen carefully, you will hear a distant beat, a rhytmical recital and themes locking into each other like rhymes.

Baker shares the stage of the West Germany club with A-sun Amissa. The trio produces a dense, drone-like atmosphere accompanying evocative, melodic string sections and intertwining guitars.

The live show features sections of the recorded output combined with improvisation to unlock new movements and progressions in the music.
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Aidan Baker & A-Sun Amissa  LIVE

Wednesday, 15 January 2012 | 20:00 CET
West Germany | Skalitzer Str. 133 | 10999 Berlin/Kreuzberg

brokenspineprods.wordpress.com | slowsecret.com/a-sun-amissa | West Germany at lastfm
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Being the first Domino French signing, Fránçois and The Atlas Mountains are ready to spread their wings over indie pop’s vast international landscape. With vivid looks and a slender body, Fránçois builds up castles in Saintonge with Moroccan mountains, British phlegm and sturdy friendships.

Francois & the Atlas Mountains | Royan

After seven years of passionate gigs and road trips across Europe, Fránçois & The Atlas Mountains convey a magnetic presence on stage. A deep sense of lightness and sincerity sets in as voices, keyboards and African percussion blend in an instant pop.

Written between Bristol, Bordeaux and Saintes and weathered on the road and polished in Dakar, the songs on the new album reflect a strong bond between the band’s members and their relatives. Recorded live in an old wooden dance hall of Saintonge, the backbone of these tracks stresses the instinctive nature of the recording.
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Francois & the Atlas Mountains  LIVE

Thursday, 16 February 2012 | 20:00 CET
Festsaal Kreuzberg | Skalitzer Str. 130 | 10999 Berlin/Kreuzberg

myspace.com/francoisinbristol | festsaal-kreuzberg.de
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The man behind Dirty Beaches is Alex Zhang Hungtai; solo performer, sound-smith, and trans-Pacific nomad. Born in Taiwan, Hungtai has made Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver his homes.

Dirty Beaches | Lord Knows Best

Like Bo Didley or minimalist synth provocateurs Suicide, Dirty Beaches’ compositions are not so much stripped down as refined to their essence. Drum loops entrance, Hungtai’s croon enchants, and the yearning melodies draped overtop belie as much a sense of haunting mystery as they do romanticism and wry humour.

Some of his influences as mentioned on his myspace account are: Wong Kar-Wai, Vincent Gallo, Tsai Ming-Liang, David Lynch, Solid State Technology, Link Wray, Henry Chinaski, Alan Vega, Martin Rev, skylines, landscapes, trains, abandoned architecture, coffee, cigarettes, flowers, harbors and getting his face broken.

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Dirty Beaches  LIVE

Djs: Joe Le Taxi & Betty Pop

Saturday, 25 Februar 2012 | 20:00 CET
Kater Holzig | Michaelkirchstr. 23 | 10179 Berlin/Mitte

dirtybeaches.blogspot.com | katerholzig.de
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That spring, they played the MtyMx festival in Mexico as part of a block of bands curated by Denver venue Rhinocerpolis.

Gauntlet Hair | Keep Time

One of their songs, “I Was Thinking…,” was featured on a mixtape by local producer Pictureplane, increasing the buzz around Gauntlet Hair on indie rock blogs. One such blog, Gorilla vs. Bear, released the band’s debut 7″, I Was Thinking…/Our Scenery, on its Forest Family imprint as a limited edition of 500 copies in summer 2010.

After several other short releases, including the Mexican Summer single Out, Don’t/Heave, Gauntlet Hair released their self-titled debut album on Dead Oceans in October 2011. Gauntlet Hair are supported by Berlin based trio Skiing.
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Gauntlet Hair & Skiing  LIVE

Saturday, 25 February 2012 | 20:00 CET
Marie Antoinette | Holzmarktstr. 15-18 | 10179 Berlin/Mitte

gauntlethair.net
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He is currently exploring new technologies such as wave field synthesis and ambisonics, and makes use of large-scale high-resolution projections to create situations of total immersion and either decouple the spatial experience from a given space or enhance its inherent properties.

Monolake | Internal Clock

Many of his works are defined as potentially endless and slowly evolving states, thus inviting the audience to immerse themselves completely for a freely defined amount of time. His sonic explorations are rooted in academic sound research and computer music as well as in contemporary club culture.

With his collaborative musical project, Monolake, he helped shaping what later became ‘the sound of Berlin techno music’, whilst his more conceptual works are frequently performed or exhibited at art galleries and festivals.

Henke’s interest in the combination of art and technology is further evident in his contributions to the development of the music software, Ableton Live’.

Since Ableton’s founding in 1999, he has been central to the development of Live, which became the standard tool for electronic music production and performance, and is currently used by more than 100.000 people world wide.

Currently, he is working on a laser based audio visual installation, on a commission for the Acousmonium, the INA/GRM multiple speaker system, and is preparing a world tour with his Monolake project.

His next album as Monolake, Ghosts, will be available in February 2012 on his own label, imablance computer music.
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Monolake  LIVE

Djs: Shackleton & Peverelist

Wednesday, 25 February 2012 | 20:00 CET
Berghain | Am Wriezener Bahnhof | 10243 Berlin/Friedrichshain

monolake.de | berghain.de
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In their attempt to avoid the classical visual image, which would mean to “hang pictures on the wall”, the artists re-interpret this gesture in a new way. Even when their works do not produce something visual, an image appears to be their only possible form.

Sanela Jahić | Fire Painting

Both sound sculptures and performances that include many amenities, fire-spectacles or housefly-installations experimenting with controlled “randomness”, all these works deal with the movement of drawing, letting this technical spectacle become the ultimate image itself.

Within these subjects, the role of the artist gains more and more importance. The different interpretations of the observer not only provoke the question “Who is the artist?”, but also reiterate it over and over. In this constellation the image neither represents a result nor a starting point.

It appears to be much more a “porous membrane”, both present and obsolete; dominant and invisible at the same time. In this manner, the exhibition focuses on the artist and not primarily on the artworks, expatiating upon the whole system as machinery.

With works by Sanela Jahić (SI), Takahiro Yamaguchi (JP), Julius Stahl (DE), Daniel Franke (DE), David Bowen (US).

The exhibition DRAWING IN THE AGE OF ELECTRONIC EXPRESSIONS is part of the Transmediale & CTM’s Vorspiel, January 26-29.
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Exhibition Opening: Drawing In The Age Of Electronic Expression
presented by LEAP & CTM.12

Saturday, 28 January 2012 | 20:00 CET
LEAP | (Berlin Carré, 1. Floor) Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13 | 10178 Berlin/Mitte

drawing in the age … at transmediale.de  |  leapknecht.de
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Furthermore the Argentinian, Berlin based duo Mueran Humanos will perform. They are an electronic band in the vein of Suicide, Coil and Silver Apples, but with a unique personality. Experimental but pop, or the other way around. In short, punk psychedelia for the XXI century.

Mueran Humanos | Monstruo

Moreover, Ghazi Barakat (Golden Showers, Boy from Brazil, the Assassinations) introduces his new mutant ethno-psych-doom Pharoah Chromium project.

Last but not least, Kulku complete the evening with their magical mix of primitive music, drones and hoodoo blues, played on acoustic and handmade instruments.
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Jochen Arbeit & Schneider TM, Mueran Humanos, Pharoah Chromium & Kulku LIVE
presented by Future Days Booking, amStart and deli.kolder

Dance Performance: Elle Erdman
DJs: Steve Morell, Abraxas Rebels

Saturday, 28 January 2012 | 21:00 CET
.HBC | Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 9 | 10178 Berlin/Mitte

jochenarbeit.com | schneidertm.net | mueranhumanos.com | myspace.com/kulku | hbc-berlin.de
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The Mindpirates will celebrate with Lionel Williams, a hippie sun child from California, during the greyest of days of Berlin winter 2012. Lionel William’s art, his bright, imaginative world of colors, forms and mystical sensationalism is an exploration into the ancient wisdom and sacred locations of Egyptian priests, Sufi mystics, Indian philosophers, Mexican healers, Asian Buddhists, occultists and many more of the planet’s religious and visionary peoples.

Vinyl Williams | Open Your Mind

His music (produced under the moniker Vinyl Williams) is an attempt at creating “sonic matrices,” which are combinations of sounds that beneficially affect the body. The effects are released at the points where frequencies intersect, where certain tones, chords, and patterns come together to tap into the human psyche.

You are invited to share his stunning artwork — collages on paper and film — and to come together with a musical community for a seven-night series of one-off jam sessions.

For each of these seven nights a great pool of musicians and artists has been invited, like Raz Ohara and the Odd Orchestra, Jochen Arbeit (Einstürzende Neubauten), Verity Susman (Electrelane), Manfred Kage, Jens Zygar, Valerie Renay (Noblesse Oblige), Travis Stewart aka Machinedrum, Miguel De Pedro aka Kid 606, Infinite Livez, Sergei, Anika (Annika Henderson), Hopek Quirin, Sneak-Thief and more.

During the course of the week, all the musicians will join and jam with Lionel Williams and the Mindpirates, leading a trip into the undefined beautiful nowhere.
Session 1: Sun, 22nd / 18:00 – with LW, Jens Zygar & Manfred Kage
Session 2: Mon, 23rd / 19:00 - with LW & Raz Ohara and the Odd Orchestra
Session 3: Tue, 24th / 19:00 – with LW, Sergei & Anika
Session 4: Wed, 25th / 19:00 – with LW, Jochen Arbeit & Noblesse Oblige
Session 5: Thu, 26th / 19:00 – with LW, Machinedrum & Kid 606
Session 6: Fri, 27th / 20:00 – with LW, Infinite Livez & V. Susman (Electrelane)
Session 7: Sat, 28th / 21:00 – with LW, the Mindpirates, Sneak-Thief & friends
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Exhibition: Lionel Williams – Let The Sun Shine In
presented my the Mindpirates

Opening: Sunday, 22 January 2012
Exhibition: 22 January – 28 January 2012

Sunday, 22 January 2012 | 18:00 CET
Mindpirates | Schlesische Strasse 38, Haus F (3rd Hinterhof) | 10997 Berlin/Kreuzberg

lionelwilliams.com | mindpirates.org
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