FM | CLASSIC ALBUM
Chain Reaction, 1997
Most people come back off hollibobs with a wicker donkey, tan-lines, or a purse of manky coins to show for it. Not Monolake’s Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke. After their trip to China, the German duo amassed dozens of DATs of ambient noises, field-recorded around the streets, woods and tunnels of Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
These audio postcards weren’t just mementos of their travels. They’d provide the essential audio glue that would finally bind together the sonic sketches and analogue live jams they’d been making. Bringing these tracks together as an artist album, that’d go on to be hailed as a landmark in the evolution of early experimental dub techno.
“It was the most important album in musical history,” says Robert Henke, tongue firmly in-cheek. “I don’t know why anyone afterwards still tried to compose. That chapter was closed.”
The first chapter, however, goes back to when Monolake were asked by their minimal techno chums, Basic Channel, for beats for their fledgling record imprint.
“They wanted music for their new Chain Reaction label,” says Henke. “We played them Cyan and a few more, which all got released. And when it became album time, we augmented them with these field recordings we’d captured during the International Computer Music Conference we were attending in Hong Kong, hence the name.”
Henke and Behles had a hoot adding the field recordings to the body of ambient material they’d already laid down, with tones and textures of a Chinese transit system being a fave flavour of Henke’s.
“There was this great recording from inside a subway there,” he says. “Then I merged it with some sounds I’d created which we’d finally augment with synthesiser solos from Wieland Samolak, to make this perfect melancholic part of the album.”
The whole LP would be a similar masterclass in mood and movement, with Studio One dub influences meeting early Detroit, pieced together with the cutting-edge sound science of two producers at the top their game.
Today, the Field Recordings label honours the iconic album with a brand new remastered double 12”, presenting it for the first time as a complete vinyl package. Now, that should make for a nice souvenir.
Track by track with Robert Henke
“Making tracks in the 1990s was always a mix of a musical exploration and a technical one. The core of Cyan is a strange loop from a field recording I made in a forest near Berlin, and in it there’s a mosquito flying by the mic. We transposed it down a bit and it became that odd bassline/theme.
“Other ingredients which are important are the[Roland] Juno-6 with its arpeggiator running out of sync with the rest, played by Gerhard [Behles], and the ring modulator algorithm from the mighty Alesis QuadraVerb,
