Then we tech Berlin

>> Ellen Allien of BPitch Control on her schizoid town


by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

When the Berlin Wall came tumblin’ down in ’99 (hereafter, the event called Mauerfall), the burg it bisected saw a sociocultural shake-up that would be hard to match. Capitalism crashed into the former East, filling the vacuum the Reds had left, with a lip-smacking vengeance. The government in Bonn packed its bags and relocated to the Reichstag, the once and future capitol edifice—meaning Berlin had to fit the bill as a nation’s capital. Smaller walls came down as skanky East Berlin became a renovation contractor’s wet dream (likewise for can commandos—hip hop graffiti caked the virgin walls within minutes). Potsdamer Platz, the once-dignified centre point of the city, began a long, distasteful morph into Yankified mega-mall, while many structures predating the Nazis and the commies got flash-frozen and buffed to a high gloss. Others just sat there rotting, bullet holes and all.

Something called guerrilla nitelife kicked in then too, with rave kidz staging hit-and-run illegal parties and the now-monstrous Loveparade outdoor techno festival groaning to life. In there from square one was West-End girl Ellen Allien, DJ, producer, partymonger and BPitch Control label boss. “The Mauerfall was so important for us, for the young generation,” she says, “because east and west came together in the clubs. Very important at the time was the music—techno went political.

“Since then, the new social generation has grown up. After Mauerfall, everything went better for me, because all this military shit was nearly gone, and life showed me that all walls can fall down. Now Berlin has changed into a modern new building, kapitalism city. Also, it is very international now. A lot of artists are moving to Berlin. Anyway, it’s still chaotic here and that’s the point—that’s why it’s still so interesting. It changes all the time. It’s a musician/club city. And very fast. The history is in our brains.”

And in their faces—on an architectural level alone, the new Berlin was an intense mélange of old and new, dignified and debauched, that continues to this day. The nervous, fragmented reality of the city comes through on the releases from BPitch Control—brainy, funny, unpredictable electronica from Allien herself and numerous co-conspirators (Tim.Buktu, Tok Tok, Sascha Funke etc.), as hyped on the Berlin 2001 comp or Allien’s Flieg Mit… mix.
“What’s important is they have to be new, fresh and talented. The best is to see how they ‘grow up.’ Mostly, they’re coming from Berlin. Modeselektor here are new and talented. I signed them because they are fresh—slowbeat fat shit. Smash TV are great producers, too.”

Over-simplified and formalized a bit, the BPitch sensibility reconciles snarky neo-electro, cerebral IDM and high-performance club thumpers, ditching the lamer aspects of each in the process. In more off-the-cuff terms, here’s Allien’s pronouncement on the matter: “I always need hot shit, man. Rock ’n’ roll. The tracks have to be fresh and not too dark. No minimal boring shit, dude. I love breaks. A track always has to do something new for me, it has to go directly under my skin and into new sound dimensions.” :

With Mini, db and visuals by Passagers at the SAT on Saturday, March 30, 9pm, $15