With song titles like “Regolith”, “Inner” and “Mantle” it’s not surprise that Ausschuss‘ music has an innate sense of physicality to it, a sensibility that is at once earthly and fantastical. Like paeans to crumbling mountains or fracturing worlds, Ausschuss has built a sound that positions noise as elemental without coming across as self-indulgent, maintaining wisps of tangled vocals and a cinematic possibility that always seem to underline the metallic bursts and seeping magma of his productions. Based in Berlin, the 19-year-old producer has found a set of fitting contemporaries, from the Bill Kouligas-helmed PAN to up-and-coming artists like Why Be, Mechatok, Organ Tapes, Eaves and Nunu and while he doesn’t envision his music existing in a specific cultural context yet, a shared passion for films like Akira and Ghost In A Shell have clearly drawn together a host of young producers from a host of disparate backgrounds and geographies.
In German, ausschuss refers to the second grade or sub par products that are shifted out of a production line, an interesting reference point for a project with such a cataclysmic sonic palette. After all, there’s nothing average about the music Ausschuss produces and whereas other industrial/noise-influenced projects might intend to sonically manifest the feeling or essence of a production line, it would be a mistake to paint Ausschuss’ work in such monochromatic fashion. And with a background buying techno and bass 12″ at Well Rounded Records in Brighton, he’s actually come around to more abstract sounds through more straightforward, 4/4 dance sounds, an element he’d like to maintain in the Ausschuss project. Fashion and film are also influential to his final output and while he has no design background, he physically writes out ideas for every track before entering the production phase, a process intended to organize ideas in the face of an increasingly distracting and overwhelming digital realm.
Two weeks ago, Berlin collective/label Anti-Ghost Moon Ray released “Ravoir” on their Annual General Meeting Record (Vol. 1) compilation, the first Ausschuss track to see official release, but tracks like “Regolith” and “Mantle”, as well as previous mixes for Primitive and Disc Magazine, the former titled “6 Paracetamols Deep”, represent the work of a young artist who has already carved out a distinctive space for his work, balancing on the fringe of club ready forms while engaging in more abstracted, dark sound design. His Astral Plane mix comes through as a mission statement of sorts, positioning a whole arrangement of solo productions that set an almost-apocalyptic tone early before drawing clear, and often surprising, lines between his work and tracks from Rabit, Dviance, Rizzla, Why Be and more, often matching towering sections of mechanical noise and alien vocal work with vocals from Tink, Kelela and others. And in the same vein of many of the aforementioned producers, it’s not all that difficult to imagine Ausschuss fuck up a club with this set, burying pop convention deep in the earth, but not quite going as far as to give up a human touch in the end. Hit the jump to read our full interview with Ausschuss and find the track list at the bottom of the article.
The Astral Plane 