Blog

If Monotronix was a city in Germany it would be the city of Dortmund. An urban environment with a distinct edge that’s too easily underrated. It’s also the place of choice for Hendrik Lensing, an extraordinary drummer and the second half of our Monotronix project. Strong electronic hooks and beats produced by myself collide with live drum performances by Hendrik. Rough loops and vinyl styles taken from hip hop meet the punch and sonic attitude of electronic music like dub step, trap, and future bass. This is a true stress test for any subwoofer. On stage our music gets extra energy by live visuals and guest features to explode as a collective music experience that truly moves people.

Hendrik and I have developed an incredible chemistry in our way of working with each other. We bounce musical ideas off each other via DropBox and other services. Hendrik brings strong influences from reggae, hip hop and trap to the table, while I’m usually in charge of focusing ideas and making them more pop compatible. As a result, I can really dig in deep in terms of sounds and production styles. Often times we will work on a single hook for several days before finally settling on an idea. Usually I work mostly in Pro Tools, particularly when mixing. But Ableton Live has proven to be the perfect tool for our creative songwriting for Monotronix. It’s super fun and effective for electronic music and it also allows us to turn sessions into live performance sets in a heart beat. We actually work with quite a few guest artists in the studio, mostly for vocals but also for other instruments. So far we’ve had the great pleasure of working with artists such as Frau Karo, Jeff Amankwa, Andy Smart and Hanno Busch at my own Satellite studio.

Our first track “Golden Days” was released as a live performance video at the end of August 2016. In 2017 we’ve released a couple of new songs and played our first show at the Extraschicht festival in Bochum, Germany. 2018 will be super exciting for us as we plan on releasing our first EP (both digital and vinyl) and as we will bring Monotronix to the stage more often. This one is going to be so much fun!