Artist: Mathias Schaffhäuser
Title: Diderot LP
Label: Biotop
Release Date: 10 October 2016
Cat.Nr.: BioLab022
Format: digital / limited-edition CD

 

Tracklist

01. Mathias Schaffhäuser – For Fritz I
02. Mathias Schaffhäuser – Abyss
03. Mathias Schaffhäuser – Bye Bye Backlash
04. Mathias Schaffhäuser – Skin Of The Night
05. Mathias Schaffhäuser – Enlightenment (In The So Called Wrong)
06. Mathias Schaffhäuser – Thanks For Leaving
07. Mathias Schaffhäuser – The Things That You Remember (And The Things That We Don’t)
08. Mathias Schaffhäuser – For Fritz II
09. Mathias Schaffhäuser – Dear D.D.
10. Mathias Schaffhäuser – Return

 

Biotop proudly presents the 8th studio album of Mathias Schaffhäuser. Mathias released on Compost, Snork Enterprises, Mo’s Ferry and BluFin lately. Furthermore a remastered version of his debut album Lido Hotel – a milestone of electronic music – was released on his own label WARE in May. Following naturally from his prolific collaboration with the Biotop family and label owner Patrick Zigon – including the single “I Feel Everything” and his contribution “Morose” to the “Cells In The Matrix” label compilation – Mathias decided to work on an album for Biotop. The release bears the associative name “Diderot”, and is probably the most experimental and diverse album by Schaffhäuser to date.

On “Diderot” he combines some of his well-known affairs of the heart: trippy, ever-expanding club tracks; electronic treasures between ambient and Dada, all with a subtile background narrative. Surely those who have seen some of the more sophisticated quiz programs and documentaries about philosophy on TV realize the album’s title and track names like “Enlightenment (In The So Called Wrong)” hint towards the modernity, emancipatory thinking, and laicism – doing so as a matter of course, without lecturing or any educational ambitions, as an homage and acknowledgement. Mathias’ main focus lies, as usual, with the joy of the groove and bizarre yet sophisticated sound design. Simultaneously, he casually hints toward multiple thoughts that are worth remembering, between the lines, betwixt the claps and bass stimuli, as a subtext very loosely based on Diderot: the joy of living (and raving!) comes with the joy of thinking.

Schaffhäuser finds further important inspiration in the albums of the sixties and seventies, in which diverse styles and tempos, strange experiments and pop shenanigans coexist without a problem, bound only by the artist’s handwriting. The absurd seriousness of many current productions is not Schaffhäuser’s cup of tea, though, with him, the devil is in the detail: getting serious in the creative essence, he subsequently takes three steps back to check in from a distance all over again, because taking oneself too seriously is the very last thing he would do.

“Diderot” will be released digitally and as limited CD in October, complete with delicate mastering by Martin Eyerer at Riverside Studios Berlin, with a beautiful cover design by Anina. More information on www.biotop-label.net. 


GROOVE Magazin Review (September/October 2016)
“Together, the ten tracks comprise an album that never gets monotonous, thanks to its meta-narrative arc. It could serve as a tutorial for heartfelt music-making. For classical deepness infusing the body immediately, and for a short spell makes it weightless”