FRANKFURT techno scene founding father Chris Liebing has announced that he’ll be releasing his first album in more than three years for Mute this November, and has garlanded that announcement with a slice of airy dancefloor abandon, “Whispers And Wires”, the monochrome visual patternings accompanying which you can watch below.
It simmers, surges and thrums with the graininess of great techno, while retaining an airy abandon and lifting soulful grace, this last due in no small part to the vocals of Ladan – the singer and artist formerly known as Cold Specks.
Another Day is the name of the new album, and it will be Chris’s first full-length outing since 2018’s Burn Slow. It sees Chris once again inviting guests in to bend and mesh his music into new colours, including some returning from that last set.
The album features one of Akron/Family founder Miles Cooper Seaton’s last vocal performances before his untimely passing in a road accident just weeks ago; Polly Scattergood takes the lead on a track, and Sink Ya Teeth’s Maria Uzor, fresh from her contributions to A Certain Ratio’s masterful ACR Loco, also lends a hand.
“With this album, I wanted to take myself out of it as much as possible,” explains Chris, who’s worked dancefloors for three decades.
“I’m a strong believer in letting the moment decide what’s happening,” he says. “If you’ve studied your set-up and you know what you’re doing then you can let the moment take over because you’re not busy trying to figure out how things work.”
Chris sees the album as being one very much shaped by the aesthetics of those coming aboard to collaborate; and Mute founder Daniel Miller is another big name who’s brought his talent to the record.
“Daniel’s input was just incredible,” Chris says. “He brought his modular setup in our studio and he added this extra flavour.”
Chris is reimagining the album for a club context and later this month, will premiere some of this music for the first time when he takes part in a new three-part stream series powered by Beatport. A 90-minute DJ set will be broadcast from Teufelsberg, a decommissioned Cold War listening station in West Berlin at 8pm Central European Summer Time (that’s 7pm British Summer Time) on Wednesday, May 26th. To come envelop in that, you’ll need to be on Beatport’s channels on Facebook,Twitch and YouTube.
Chris Liebing’s Another Day will be released by Mute digitally, on CD and on double vinyl on November 19th; and it’s available to pre-save and pre-order now.
1 comment