Circuit Diagram
While it’s such a desirable formula, the fusion of electronic music and organic instrumentation is a difficult thing to pull off. However, some bands can embrace the limitless possibilities of technology, the psychologically thrilling effects of repetition and the adrenaline-fuelling nature of beat-driven music without alienating those who consider the future of laptop-dependent solo acts a dystopian prospect. Factory Floor, LCD Soundsystem and Brandt Brauer Frick make for fine examples, and now Circuit Diagram are channelling mechanical pulses through a live setup and a warm soundscape.
The Berlin/Hamburg duo are compromised of Kris Alert, who takes care of synths and sampling, and drummer Nicolas Sheikholeslami. Their onstage jamming, they tell us, is designed to make the audience feel “physically locked in a groove, with their minds in a state of trance”. Circuit Diagram’s forthcoming Motown EP blends ambient techno, neo-psychedelia and ultra percussive, galloping beats that remind us of NY post-punk/disco pioneers Liquid Liquid. And, of course, it’s difficult to discuss Circuit Diagram without referencing the pioneering Krautrock forefathers from their country’s past. “Of course we dig artists like Neu!, Harmonia and Can, but that ‘Kraut influence’ is rather some kind of philosophy about length, repetition and meditation”, they explain. “We’d say that the German artists of the 70s only transferred that kind of approach which artists like Steve Reich and Phillip Glass explored around ten years before”. It’s the kind of statement which suggests there are intellectual musings behind the project, but when listening to Circuit Diagram’s music, the analysis has to wait till after the gut reaction: an instinctive desire to dance.
The Motown EP is released 31 March via No Counter Records. Listen to the premiere stream below
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