High-octane house and techno from a Smallville favourite.
No-frills Berlin beat maker Christopher Rau has been responsible for a steady stream of sizzling dance floor cuts in recent years, a stalwart of the Smallville label since around the time of its inception, Rau’s gritty late night offerings have regularly raised the bar for German deep house and techno. With a smorgasbord of new material recently being unleashed under some of his many aliases, Rau arrives here with a frenzied array of techno, chunky 90s house and ass shaking jack tracks.
It seems as though you’ve been particularly busy of late creating records under a number of your different aliases like Rhythmus Günther, Rixdorfer Grau and C-Rau… tell us about this kind of approach to releasing music, do you feel like it allows you more scope to push your own boundaries and explore new directions as an artist?
I was always was a fan of artists with a lot of aliases and I wanted to be one of them. Then there is the exclusive policy that a lot of clubs have, like when you play there you are not allowed to play in the same city two months before and after, so I thought that I need some other names to fuck this.
One record that’s due to drop soon under your own name is for Max Graef and Glenn Astro’s Money $ex Records, the record itself sounds like some of your most experimental work in a while, what can you tell us about this collection of tracks and your connection with the label?
I’m a big fan of Glenn Astro and Max Graef, and we live in the same city. Sometimes I go to Oye records and there is the third guy, Markus Delfonic, they asked me if I want to make a record for Money $ex records.. and I was like.. OK, thats a challenge. I consider it as a big honour that they asked me.
What’s the latest with your collab with Marieu from The Analogue Cops? Can we expect to see a follow up to your debut EP, or some more Colours Of Observation live sets perhaps?
We did some more stuff of course, and we will do more. There are some plans but not to be spoken yet.
This high-energy mix you’ve put together for us feels in many ways inspired by the fast mixing styles adopted by early Detroit techno and ghetto house DJs. What can you tell us about the idea behind the mix, and who are some of the artists you’ve featured?
Thank you! I mean I’m still trying.. there are some train wrecks here and there but I was just playing the new stuff that i bought and some recently bought second hand records. And then there are some unreleased tracks from 777 recordings.. Ron Wilson’s label, Qnete!!! and a record that should be mentioned is the 60 Miles one.. Persian Moon!!! Amazing track. 60 Miles .. always in the bag. Plus an extra copy.
What else do you have coming up?
Guess what.. I’m doing a new label, the name will be “Totally Together” and it will be mainly other artists featuring me. First one will be with music from Hakim Murphy, Nathan Johnson, Mézigue and me. There is a new Smallville coming called Yamato. I did a remix for Platte International. And not to forget the Orakel X Files which should be out soon too. I’m pretty sure i forgot something.. but I’ll keep you updated on Facebook or at your record dealer. Thanks for having me!
Enjoy the mix.