Sasha Ring’s work under his Apparat moniker has always been evolving; over three albums on the Shitkatapult label and the collaborative full lengths with Ellen
Allien and Modeselektor as Moderat on Bpitch Control, he’s surprised a lot of
listeners with his output. Confined to little or no definitive style his music
has always been in a constant state of metamorphosis, simultaneously breaching
new waters and staying true to his unique spirit of musical openness and his
obvious passion for sound design.

Aptly joking that his DJ KiCKs selection reflects his style to “not really have a style” it’s evident that Ring is more than aware that his contribution to the
series might look ‘intelligent’ on paper – with the tracklist aligning variant
artists like Oval, Autechre, Ripperton and Thom Yorke – but given his recent
tour at the start of the year, it’s simply a representation of where he’s at in
terms of modern music. “I didn’t want to
make this kind of ‘smart’ mix, that’s eclectic and sounds like it’s done ‘on purpose;’
but I need to do different things to keep myself motivated,” Ring explains. “At
first I wanted to make a collection of influences, all kinds of old songs but
then sometimes with those mixes it’s hard to keep some kind of flow and they’re
just not very easy to listen to, so I ended up using good new music; music that
almost gave me hope that there’s more out there than boring minimal
techno.” The Apparat contribution is as
stylized as the preceding mixes in the series from Kode 9 and James Holden; with
Ring embracing the opportunity to create a mix that represents both his
personality and his brave take on ‘club’ music. With an incredibly prevalent
talent for manipulation of both tempos and melodies, Ring includes tracks from
a handful of dubstep producers like Dutch producer Martyn – whose ‘Miniluv’
provides a glorious rhythmic propulsion when under-layed beneath Patrice
Baumel’s ‘Sub’ – and Ramadanman’s ‘Tempest’ – whose melody all but dissipates
at the optimum moment – layering and blending them perfectly with tracks from
across an array of genres from Autechre’s percussive white noise to Oval’s
erratically colourful sound slices or the echoed clicks of Phon.o’s
‘Intervall.’

“A mix needs a bit of dynamic,’ he states. “There were these weirder things I wanted to use, like this Four Tet remix (of Born Ruffian’s ‘I Need A Life’) and
then there are some tracks i had to use as tools to glue it all togehter. The
way I used the Martyn track is more of a tool to adjust the Patrice Baumel
track dynamically to the following ones. But most of the songs are in there for
musical reasons. All these artists have their own sound signatures and manage
to inject that space into every new song they produce.”

Achieving a sense of progression in the mix through both his selections and his awareness of sonic space, Ring manages to harness his enthusiasms for frequency perfect
soundscapes, often creating moments of sheer beauty out of his polarized
composite parts.

“The mix isn’t that balanced when it comes to melody I guess,” he continues, considering his point. “There’s a lot of sweetness on there, but it is dark and
mysterious at points. I guess the bittersweet-ness has long been kind of my
thing and with this mix I was just trying to spice it up a bit.”

TRACKLISTING

1. Apparat – Circles

2. 69 – Rushed

3. Telefon Tel Aviv – Lengthening Shadows

4. Apparat – Interlude

5. Luke Abbott – More Room

6. Oval – Legendary

7. Patrice Bämel – Sub

8. Martyn – Miniluv (Original Mix)

9. Ripperton – Echocity

10. Cosmin TRG – Tower Block

11. Scorn – Falling (Autechre “FR 13″ Remix)

12. Born Ruffians – I Need A Life (Four Tet Remix)

13. Pantha Du Prince – Welt Am Draht

14. Phon.o – Intervall

15. Burial + Four Tet – Moth

16. Vincent Markowski – The Madness Of Moths

17. Ramadanman – Tempest

18. Thom Yorke – Harrowdown Hill

19. Spherix – Lesser People

20. Oval – TV Power

21. Joy Orbison – The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow

22. Apparat – Sayulita (DJ-KiCKS)

23. T++ – Worn Down

24. Tim Hecker – Borderlands

http://www.apparat-djkicks.com/