Classic Berghain

Shut Up And Dance! immediately reminds of the London based drum'n bass label and the Berliners will surely wonder when Berghain will introduce its new same name project as, of course, in Berlin this phrase will stand for something totally different.

Connecting electronic music with analog elements seems to become an integral part of techno and its varieties. After Laurent Garnier's rocking trombone performance and Jeff Mills' Blue Potential project next one on the bill had already been announced: Dave Clarke. Berghain is breaking new ground though when merging electronic music with classic dance such as ballet.

Debuting on June 27th "Shut Up And Dance! Updated" will involve five different choreographies by dance group Staatsballett Berlin performing to ad hoc electronic compositions contributed by Berghain regulars nsi., Âme, Luciano, Sleeparchive and The 7th Plain (aka Luke Slater).

Âme's as well as Luke Slater's production will be far away from their known musical path. Âme's "Fiori" is a slightly distorted experience of space, reminding of 70s epic rock music such as Pink Floyd or Tangerine Dream, while beatless "Symphony For The Surrealists" by The 7th Plain will be its mysteriously ambient, but beautiful counterpart.
The most humorous track of the evening is definitely Luciano's "Drunken Ballet", which lets the ballet group appear as a tipsy choir. "Bridge And Tunnel People" will then tighten things again as nsi.'s track is a masterpiece of concentrated groove. Last but not least Sleeparchive's "Perspective" will be a dash of ice cold repetitive minimal.

Luciano recently spoke about how he approached the project: "Before going into all production details I just imagined the dancers, how their performance merges with the sound and to which kind of music and sounds this should happen. I wanted to offer a correspondence between physical movement and music."

Further shows are scheduled for June 28th/29th, as well as July 3rd, 4th and 5th.

Of course the musical results will be accessible for club outsiders; the whole project will be released on Ostgut Ton, while being distributed via Kompakt.

Title: Shut Up And Dance! Updated
Label: Ostgut Ton
Cat #: Ostgutcd03
Release Date: 29.05.