The Bunker Podcast

The Bunker Podcast 235 comes from Erik Luebs. This is a live set recorded in Milan on March 28 at the party Acquario. Erik Luebs is a US-born musician and sound designer based in Japan. Eschewing typical genre tropes, Luebs approaches techno with a playfully disruptive technique, reinterpreting the fundamentals using built-from-scratch patches and labyrinthine sequencing. While the labor-intensive process is inspired by a wide range of luminaries such as Mark Fell and Rrose, the resulting music is firmly tied to the dance floor. Luebs released an EP on The Bunker back in 2021, and has since released on DJ Nobu’s Bitta label, and Nous’klaer. He also has an upcoming release on the legendary Kompakt imprint. Erik will be playing an ambisonic surround sound set for a horizontal audience at Going In at Reforestor’s Laboratory in Brooklyn this Friday, and an extended sunrise dancefloor set at The Bunker’s takeover of Nowadays Nonstop on Sunday morning.

This edition of The Bunker Podcast comes in the form of a peak time live set from Doltz, a label artist on DJ Nobu's Bitta imprint who will be performing live at The Bunker x Bitta party in Brooklyn on Friday November 29. When we asked Nobu who else he wanted to bring from the label for this showcase, he immediately suggested Doltz. Doltz started his musical career in 1998 as a drummer in a hardcore punk band, and had a fateful encounter with DJ Nobu, who shares the same musical roots, when they were billed alongside each other at a party in 2022. Impressed by Doltz's live performance, DJ Nobu immediately booked him for his residency party 'reprise' at Womb Tokyo. The two hit it off and began exchanging tracks, with DJ Nobu actively playing out Doltz's tracks while touring across the world and receiving a good response. Doltz's live set at The Bunker will be his US debut!

“For the closing night of Return to the Source at the Interdimensional Transmissions presents The Bunker party, we have a night of unique pairings, back to back sets from people who knew each other mostly, but usually don’t play together. After a full weekend of non stop great music, what better than the drama of the unknown combinations to keep you fully engaged, with deeply curated pairings and flows for each room. On May 27, Mike Servito x @Jeffrey Sfire scheduled from 1am until 3am. Mike Servito always majestically closes out No Way Back, but what would this combination bring? Sfire brought the heat, and their styles melded in a slightly pitched down form, music from all eras appeared. To me, it was a form of sonic bliss. I went and asked the Danny from Bing (who does the sound and built the speakers for the Garden Stage) if he minded if we went later, he was all for it. So were Servito and Sfire, and it just kept getting better and better. The crowd was totally locked in, the feeling was ecstatic, it was truly a beautiful moment. A magical closing set that naturally extended from two hours to 5 hours of pure heat from two DJs whose whole life is this music and this culture — who could ask for more?” — BMG Catch Servito and Sfire playing an extended set to close out No Way Back NYC presented by The Bunker at the Chocolate Factory as a day party on Sunday November 12: https://ra.co/events/1983236

This episode of The Bunker Podcast comes from Brussels’ Fuse resident DJ and label co-curator Altinbas, who has been playing all over Europe lately. Through his excellent Observation Station imprint, and other labels such as Token, Non Series, and of course Fuse, Altinbas has released a ton of great music in a relatively short period of time. Altinbas makes his US debut closing out The Bunker at Good Room this Saturday July 20.

Umboma, is a collaboration between Omar Ahmad and Miss Alicia. Umboma is a project that emphasizes African, Arab and Latin American contemporary rhythms. A combination of Arabic, Swahili and Spanish words, Umboma signifies a Congregation of Freedom & Dance. Umboma do long-form journeys, starting with the experimental and psychedelic, moving into the rhythmic and euphoric. Here they present a studio mix of driving percussive house music in advance of their appearance at The Bunker at Good Room on July 20, 2024.

This edition of The Bunker Podcast comes from Camille Altay (they/them), a visual artist, composer and DJ who lives and works in Climax, New York. Camille spent formative years as a drum and bass dj in the house-heavy rave scene in Chicago in the late 90s. A contrarian in nature, Camille has been known to play genre-bending dj sets with influences ranging from Cumbia to Ghettotech. Camille’s live sets lean toward the spiraling, runaway arpeggiations of synth music in its initial stages of identity crisis - whether to emulate real instruments, or subversively carve a path towards unnamed and evolving shapes of space and identity. Camille has a recent release on the The Bunker’s long-form sub label Going In, is a founding member of of the group Birds of Prey (Kathexis Records, Mysteries of the Deep), and collaborates with LA artist Israel Vines under the moniker CAIV, with the most recent release Dwellers EP out on Tresor Records. tracklist: 1 Reflection In Your Eyes / A.Fruit / Your Inner Sun 2 Bella di Giorno / Marco Shuttle / MSP01 3 Trunk Junk / Mad Zach / Out of Body 4 Tribes / Oceantied / Tribes 5 French Lessons / Beatrice M. & Trois-Quarts Taxi System / Spiral Study vol.3 6 Mhkl / Siu Mata & Amor Satyr / Nechung 7 Ritmo Actual / Toma Kami / Speed Oddity vol.II 8 Ecstatic dance / Vardae / The Kaipos EP 9 Odd / EM + STAV / Endless 10 Tunnel / Ghost Warrior / Fracture EP 12 Göbekli Tepe / CAIV / DWELLERS EP 13 Subspark / Aa Sudd / Pushedd 14 Deconstructor / Felix K / Die Verachtung 15 Run / Sully / UH-02 16 Orange Sunshine / Stakka & K.Tee / The Speed of Sound 17 napar / dadan karambolo / deers by bess 18 Multidimensional / Oscean / Multirays 19 Brahma Kamal / Space Drum Meditation / SDM005 20 Phaya Naga (INN Remix) / Sunju Hargun / Mooping Cuts #1 (Re-Meows) 21 Endless Vanishing Point / Marco Shuttle MSP01 22 Clastic / Vigliensoni / Clastic Music 23 Özlem / Konduku / Mantis 0910

The Bunker Podcast 229 comes from Berlin's Sarah Wreath, who takes you on a journey of intricate rhythms intertwine, leading you deeper into a mesmerizing labyrinth of sound. If listening, collection, and selection have been daily habits since her youth, the processes of production and devoted explorations into the ripples of sound became the most important aspects of her current practice. In her vision, there is no prevailing preference over the role of producer or DJ - no hierarchical distinction amongst the club’s dancefloor, the acoustic hall or the healing sound bath. In the same perspective, both the creator and the careful selector of music & sound are entrusted with the power of touching the body-mind complexities of listeners and dancers with forceful acoustic messages. Starting off 2024, she made her debut at Tresor Berlin for her first contribution to Infrastructure New York, which also features her collaborative work with David Sumner aka Function, from the collective Sandwell District. "My aim with this mix was to take listeners on a journey—deep yet uplifting—reflecting my diverse taste in club music. It's like a rollercoaster ride of energy; sometimes we plunge into the depths, facing challenges, but consistently rediscovering our path to light and euphoria.” - Sarah Wreath Tracklist: Anthony Linell - Advanced Spiritual Evolution Stereometrix - Phone Number Otodojo - Suzumebachi Artefakt - Hypnosis Valentino Mora - Portal Rrose - Open Cell Applebim - Vansan Droneghost - Ember Alan Backdrop - Nemon Dasha Rush - Dream n68 Etapp Kyle - Polar Franklin De Costa - Poseidon ASC - Telomere TM404 - Rymdeko Luigi Tozzi - Aztlan (Refracted Remix) Slam - Infra GiGi FM - Amadamushies Anthony Linell - Path of Surrender

This edition of The Bunker podcast comes from our old friend Blacklauren, recorded live at The Bunker at Good Room in July 2022, when he opened for DJ Nobu and Wata Igarashi. Mastered by Russell E.L. Butler. artist statement: "At some point during the late months of 2013, a close friend at the time sent me a podcast mix to listen to from a young Japanese DJ who was completely unknown to me at the time - Wata Igarashi. This same friend coincidentally took me to my first Bunker party a few months prior & I became a regular attendee from that night onwards for many years. In the early spring of 2015, my collaborative partner and I, collectively known as The Long Count Cycle, were asked to do a podcast mix for The Bunker as well as an invitation to play the party following it’s release. For us, this was monumental and just when we thought things couldn’t get any better, we were invited to play Rural festival and Dommune in Japan that summer based on our mix. One of the artists on the lineup was Wata Igarashi. I was excited for many reasons but also because I now had the opportunity to tell him in person how phenomenal I thought his mix was. We spent quite a bit of time together during that trip and became friends. Additionally, I gained a new perspective on techno seeing how he performed and the sonic palette necessary for creating states of psychedelia and euphoria. In the years following, we would cross paths several times at Nowadays, Good Room & Sustain Release. Each time, I left with a deeper understanding of the music and my place within it. So when I was invited to open for him and the exceptional & exemplary DJ Nobu, there was a visceral sense of validation in being entrusted to set the tone for what was to come that night. Please enjoy, listen on headphones or a system that can carry bass weight, “turn on, tune in, drop out”.

For this edition of The Bunker Podcast we're releasing @otodojo's live set from their album release party at The Bunker in April. artist video explanation accompaniment: youtu.be/h-xMUetPiTg?si=9qj-4DNHj2dHUBtT artist statement: In February 2023 I focused on developing a new live set for my debut with @thebunkerny for an album release, named one of the best releases of 2023 by @mixmag-1. I trained the set with performances at Bossa Nova Civic Club with Perfect Party Look Book and at Forest City Lodge with Microtones in Ithaca. Maybe describing this can help you process some live set ideas. My previous approach to delivering this material live (originally at The Long Count Cycle, then at Technically Yeah) was using stems as a bedrock and improvisation on top. Even though this worked fine, it got a bit stale for me and I wanted to be as satisfied as a listener when a groove sets in. So I decided to go fully based on MIDI information and instruments, with an added challenge that my CPU can’t take too much of a load, so I needed to make sure I disabled certain instruments before bringing others in. A disclaimer is that I am not fully endorsing all of the equipment in this list, there are some caveats that I’m happy to discuss. In Ableton I created custom instruments through stock plugins like operator, collision, wavetable - these instruments are divided into ones I cycle through and ones that are constant throughout the set. The constant ones exist in instrument racks and are freely interchangeable through chains - all of the parameters are mapped to the same knobs on my Novation Launch Control XL enabling me to wash through several instruments running varying sounds. I also have stored macro variations for those instruments in case I need some sound immediately without menu diving (like 1/16 note hi hats). The cycled instruments instruments are mostly from my tracks in Amphibious / Aural Spirits that are all controlled by four channels on my Xone K1. Initially I tried using Tip by K-Devices and Map-8 to disable a swath of devices (thanks One Child Policy for the tip!). Yet I found that the CPU load was comparable with just leaving the devices on and simply stopping clips. This made for a much better workflow. I slowly progress through the cycled instruments while improvising with the constant instruments and the main drums / accenting discussed below. My iPad is running Werkbench by Karl Scholz @karlalamusic, a sequencer sampler app that can easily form interesting polyrhythms and is great for anything sample-related, like live accenting, bass lines, drums, etc. For the main drums I didn’t want to be too focused on sequencing as it takes up a lot of time, so I just wanted to scroll through patterns that I generate beforehand. I opted to use a modified version of Instant Haus by @alexkid which stores drum patterns for four-five instruments. Modifying this was a bit challenging as it is difficult to determine what kind of patterns I think can stay interesting over an hour time period. This is playing Smackos 808 Simulator by @legowelt-official as well as other custom drum instruments. For acid lines I am using a Roland TB03 on lend from Indy Nyles and sequencing the 303 with Sting by Iftah Gabbai as well as his Microtuner device coupled with note echos (I believe this is the most CPU intensive part of the set).I am using Ableton Push as a means to do miscellaneous control and Jaw Harp / Mic for some added organic-ness. I am running all of this through an Apollo Twin Duo and Allen & Heath Xone 96 at the club.

artist statement from Sister Zo: My sound has evolved a lot over the past year living in New York. While I feel everyone knows me primarily for my percussive broken beat productions and sets, anyone who's seen me play recently will know I've been leaning heavily into driving psychedelic techno and hard groove house. So I wanted to make something that reflects my evolving tastes. In that sense this mix is very much a statement of range and intention. I'll always love UK Bass and broken beat stuff but there's nothing like a good deep grooving wormhole to lose yourself in as a DJ and a dancer. Also, having been heavily involved in plant medicine this past year I've been making an effort to incorporate sounds that connect with my experiences in ceremony—sometimes light and joyous, often dark, cavernous and all-consuming. But, not to take myself or this vision too seriously, this mix is first and foremost for moving your bones and shaking ass, but in a hypnotic sort of way. Hope you enjoy it start to finish. Tracklist: Black Dove - Leon Vynehall Bellz (Swing Ting remix)- Beneath Rise - Max Ulis Patience - Mown X-303 - Kassian Outburst - Wata Igarashi 7 Mile Dog - Robert Hood Lemsippin' - Cassini Fermi Don't Stop - Maccari Dart - MoMA Ready Forever - Eddie Fowlkes Unreleased - Sister Zo Knife - JSPRV35 loaded tool (extended mix) - BLACK GIRL / WHITE GIRL Gravity Control - Christian Wünsch equanimity (original mix) - Arnaud Le Texier Tiki Taki - Hassler Cavernous - Bluetoof Spirals In The Sand - Otodojo Suzumebachi - Otodojo