NUDE163: Rico Puestel

Rico Puestel makes a strong statement on his fantastic new album #technohasleftthebuilding, which he also says will be his last after a celebrated career.

The title and the album are a reaction to what Puestel sees as the collapse of the techno world as he knows it. He feels its spirit and cultural impact has been watered down to the point of meaninglessness, at least for him, and says “There is nothing left to tell.”

The German producer, live-act, DJ and label owner has released plenty of seminal tracks on the underground’s most influential outlets and adds that “the self-consuming scene has reached its grotesque climax and left an empty shell of something once filled with so much passion, warmth, strength, heart and hope. The times just haven’t changed – they lost their self-fulfilling purpose and authenticity.”

For one final time now, Rico has gathered all his experiences & emotions together and poured them all into this heartfelt love letter to the ashes of the genre he once loved. The whole thing was crafted in one 12-hour session in which he relived his most deeply rooted techno moments. As the track titles count down to zero in Esperanto, Rico finds his own inner peace and balance before finally bowing out.

The album kicks off with unrelenting dark techno funk and never lets up from there. It is rooted in classic sounds that layer up raw synths and rusty metal surfaces with potent drum programming. Every single one is carefully arranged and ever-evolving to keep dance floors on the move as Puestel brings in subtle peaks and troughs of emotion through his synth work. Some are dark and heads down like ‘du’, others like ‘kvin’ are more bright and light with uplifting melodies. ‘nulo’ twists synths into contorted, brain-frying forms and ‘sep’ will zone out any dance floor with its more sleek and minimal styles. All in all, this is a superb snapshot of the innovative and artful techno that Puestel has always dealt in.

Today, he joins the NUDE Techno podcast, with an hour of Techno. Listen to it below on SoundCloud & Mixcloud. If you are feeling this series, then please consider supporting it on Mixcloud Select.

Sum up this podcast in 10 words…
Well, what once was, is now without form and void.

Whatís your personal favourite track on it?
Umek – Cavist. You don’t hear and sense anything like it anymore.

Whatís the special ingredient in this mix?
Vinyl.

Tell us about your next EP?
It’s #technohasleftthebuilding – my last album. It falls back on everything I ever liked and needed in Techno. I challenged myself to produce it in a highly dense and focused manner, finishing it in 12 hours from scratch – like dancing all night into a late morning, really feeling it, darkness, lights, in a real club.

What have you got coming up?
I’m a born performer. I should perform more. That’s what I should do. That’s what I will do.

And finally, do you have a special message for our readers?
Don’t believe any hype. It’s a trap.

Tracklist

1. Tool – (-) Ions
2. WJH – Yasai
3. Chris Liebing – Drum Kitchen
4. Jamez And Derric – Virtualize
5. Trancesetters – Roaches
6. TST – TST 5
7. DJ Gilbert – Dulux
8. Glenn Wilson & Mike Humphries – Pleasure
9. Ben Sims – Manipulated (Joel Mull Remix)
10. Adam Beyer & Marco Carola – Combined Force
11. Electric Deluxe – Electric Deluxe
12. Johannes Heil – Die Eigene Achse (Heiko Laux Remix)
13. Depeche Mode – Dream On (Dave Clarke Remix)
14. Headroom – Hunt
15. Speedy J – Krekc
16. Adam Beyer – Tasty Bits
17. Umek – Cavist
18. Terence Fixmer – Out In The Space
19. Thomas P. Heckmann & Marc Rombey – Ultra Vixens