The Moritz Von Oswald Trio have already made several live appearances, but this summer London’s Honest Jon’s label will release their first recorded effort, an album entitled Vertical Ascent.

The Trio (pictured above) is led by Von Oswald, easily one of the 20th century’s most important musicians – founder of Basic Channel, Rhythm & Sound, Main Street and Chain Reaction with Mark Ernestus, and producer of the seminal M-series as Maurizio, Von Oswald helped revolutionise techno as well as re-activating and re-interpreting dub for a new age. Not content with being a mercurially gifted producer, Von Oswald is also a renowned mastering engineer – and it’s in this capacity that he’s enjoyed a very fruitful relationship with the Honest Jon’s label over the years, offering his mastering and restoration expertise to HJ re-issues of reggae, dub and dancehall classics by the likes of White Mice and Selah Collins, as well as hi-life and afrobeat recordings by Tony Allen amongst others. One can scarcely underestimate the fresh life that he’s brought to the vintage tracks on compilations like Watch How The People Dancing and London Is The Place For Me.

The Moritz Von Oswald Trio finds the Berlin-based chap helming an electronic, improv-based group orbiting his own synth and sampler experiments. He’s joined by Max Loderbauer (formerly of Sun Electric and now one half of minimal techno iconoclasts NSI. with Tobias Freund) on analogue synthesizers and Sasu Ripatti (better known as Vladislav Delay and Luomo) on drums and percussion. Often all-star collaborations such as these don’t really work, but from what little we’ve heard of The Moritz Von Oswald Trio, there’s a chemistry between its personnel that results in a sound that’s subtle and refined, yes, but also organic and palpably impassioned.

What FACT has heard so far is excerpts of four tracks: ‚Pattern 1‘ is a low-slung but expedient progession of clipped drums and arcing, lyrical synths, while ‚Pattern 2‘ is more abstract – Lodebauer’s work volubly to the fore. ‚Pattern 3‘ is characterised by its faintly African-inspired percussion and deep blue keyboard licks and the juddering ‚Pattern 4‘ has an almost industrial burnish to it. It’s difficult music to describe, but there’s no doubting its brain-busting quality.

We’ll have more information about the album, including a full tracklisting, in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, hold tight…

via FACT Magazine

• Honest Jon’s
• Basic Channel