Submitted By: lil_al_5

Genre: Techno

Date of Set: Sep 28th, 2005

Filesize: 78.40 MB

Total Downloads: 4

In 1993 Anton Banks was a student at the University of Rochester and was into hip-hop and euro-dance pop music. He especially liked the beats and rhythms found in this music but became increasingly disinterested in the lyrics. Looking for something different, Anton borrowed a compilation CD from a friend. That CD was 'Moove Your Body' from Tribal America Artists. Soon he was obsessed with all forms of underground dance music and broke all ties to the pop music scene. Anton found myself buying all the rave and house music he could find at a store called 'The Record Archive'. Also at about the same time Anton started going to a club in Rochester called 'Heaven' which was a stripped down version of New York City's infamous super club , the Limelight, as it was also built out of an old church. He only knew that he liked the music but it would be almost a year and a half later before Anton realized that he had been listening to early techno in it's heyday in the form of tracks like The Goodmen's 'Give it up', Jaydee's 'Plastic Dreams' and an assortment of music from early Detroit and Plus 8. The turning point came in 1994 when Anton first heard 'Psychotrance', a mixed CD by Mr. C on Moonshine Music. This CD and his experiences at 'Heaven' gave him a desire to learn to spin records.

In 1995 Anton transferred to Central Connecticut State University and joined the school's radio station, 107.7FM WFCS, as the student engineer shortly after that. As the engineer he had 24 hour access to turntables and an audience and used this opportunity to learn to mix records by taking advantage of dead air (which was and still is often at WFCS) to practice mixing. Through WFCS Anton met other people such as DJ Rockphonics- founder of Equinox and O.L.- the third hillbilly on 'Hillbilly House', who showed him the ropes and got me bookings. In 1996 Anton got his first booking at the now legendary Equinox weekly (Webster Theater in Hartford, CT from 1996 to 97). This turned into his first residency which gave him the opportunity to open for Frankie Bones, Ani, Carlos Tera, and many, many others.

Anton's first radio show, 'Spatial Distortion', was first heard on WFCS on January 18, 1995 and was on the air until May of 2000. In July, '99 Anton started a second show, 'Vault Radio' (formerly Mobius Radio), on 89.3FM WRTC (Trinity College) as an offshoot of 'Spatial Distortion'. Anton is now one of a small number of people promoting underground music in Connecticut on a station that covers most of the state.

It has now been over 10 years since Anton began DJing and he has become one of the most versatile acts around. He has built up a musical repertoire of several thousand records that span from minimal house to techno to industrial and most styles in between.

Submitted By: lil_al_5

Genre: Techno

Date of Set: Sep 28th, 2005

Filesize: 78.40 MB

Total Downloads: 4

There are not many DJ`s of this type. DJ`s who believed in Techno from the first minute, DJ`s who experienced Techno from the very beginning, DJ`s who made techno their own thing. DJ`s who found their own style, even more, who developped it over the years, Dj`s who`s name is the expression for a specific sound. Alex Bau is one of them. But at the same time, there are some slight differences with this guy. Why focussing on just one style of music? Why only minimal sounds? Why only Techno? Why? If cou can have both…

Is it related to the fact that there has been a time before Techno for Alex Bau? Thousands of records in his collection, different styles, different music, for sure something that leaves its marks, no doubt about it. Still he is doing Depeche Mode-Nights from time to time, just for fun, and his activities on Techno don`t really suffer from that, not at all! With his 5 or even more hours sets at his first resident club in his southeastbavarian homearea, the „Libella“, where for example also DJ Hell started his career back in the 80ies, he achieved the reputation as somebody who is totally aware of what he is doing, totally dedicated to it and also totally loving it. He had his own radioshow for over 2 years on a local radiostation, still so far the only technoshow in this area, but after countless gigs at the local clubs time was right to proof that he is also able to play at other places all around. Especially the productions together with his friend Sven Dedek, mainly released under their moniker „Basic Implant“ or „Electric Envoy“ on labels like the at this time starting „Fine Audio Recordings“ from Chris Liebing have hit the technofloors in a very impressive way, so that he was able to collect also international experiences behind the decks while Sven was playing live. Releases like the „Phase Edit EP“, a highly acclaimed and well sold rework of some Nitzer Ebb EBM Classics, or their work for Dave Angel`s 'Rotation', Justin Berkovi`s 'Predicaments' or Pascal FEOS` 'PV-Records' enabled the guys to reach a much bigger audience. Finally, after numerous releases for different labels beside his own label “Toneman”, Alex released his debut-album “Connected” in late 2004, which immediately draw the attention of many high class DJ`s like Chris Liebing, Pascal FEOS or Good Groove to name just a few. The fact that these artists, all standing for a different kind of style, grabbed the tracks from “Connected” constantly shows that the name of the album couldn`t have been chosen in a better way.

With starting his own label „Toneman“ back in 2000 Alex Bau also started to his soloproductions for labels like Chris Liebing`s “CLR” or the Montreal based label 'Default Recordings'. Montreal can be understood as a kind of scale of Alex` DJ-activities too! Within 3 years he has been booked to Montreal four times, his set from the legendary night at “Aria” from january 2006 was even released as a mix-cd “live at Aria / Montreal” so that Alex came back months later to perform on the releaseparty, once again a night to remember for the Montreal technomovement. At this time Alex was already booked as the headliner, and its reported by numerous mails and guestbook-entries that it was not a mistake to do so…

But it`s not only Montreal, where Alex is being booked again and again, there are also other places, which obviously is a sign that he seems to be a guy who understands what to do when standing in front of people and trying to bring the party to the max. Clubs like Frankfurt`s 'U60311', where, among other dates, he was part of the closing night of Chris Liebing`s legendary partyseries “Es ist Freitagaaabend”, Munich`s 'Electric Delicate', Würzburg`s 'Airport', or the legendary 'Tresor' in Berlin are not only the trademarks of german technoclubculture, they can also be found on Alex Bau`s giglist. Japan, Braszil, USA, Canada, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Holland or the closer Austria and Switzerland are some of the tourstops on Alex` calender, and no matter where, all over the places people can hear and feel how interesting, versatile and powerful techno can be if you understand to combine minimal and straight techno as a constant up and down. Always everything under control while the party is going wild, that`s what Alex is always going for.

The fact that Alex became an official artist on the highly acclaimed label „Zenit“, that has been the platform for acts like Marco Carola, Adam Beyer, The Advent, Gaetano Parisio and many more, is a kind of logical consequence of years of hard working for good, high quality techno. Techno in its purest form, just as described above, this is the goal for Alex, not matter if playing or producing. On his current album „Credo“, minimal tunes go together with peaktime slammers in a way that appears obvious and logic. Techno can do a lot, if you let it do so. That`s the credo. His credo.

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