Sweet N Candy - Berlin Mitte Institut - Nov 2008

Biography of Sweet N Candy

Rico Henschel was born in Berlin in 1980 and at the end of this eventful first decade of his existence his hometown was infested by a musical revolution - the first Loveparade. Infected by this event he bought his first 12” records at the tender age of 13 and dabbled in being a DJ at the old gramophone of his parents.

So Rico started working after school, to afford two DJ-Turntables and with it the needed vinyl. Initially he played for friends on parties he organized on his own in cellars and garages, which was soon followed by gigs in bars and on small events.

But why only buy and play records, when you can also make them yourself? So the logical consequence for him was to produce music on his own. Early driven by own ideas, it´s was the lack of knowledge and technical possibilities that prevented these to be put into action.

The solution quickly has been found with “Fast-Tracker”. A program which offered the basic functions needed to challenge himself as a producer. The first hardware instruments followed, but they got almost completely displaced, thanks to a rapidly proceeding development of computers and software.

As every artist is equipped with a certain curiosity regarding to possible reactions of his environment to his own work, Rico introduced some of his early works to his closer circle of friends. Those encouraged him to keep on going and soon he decided to send some first demos to labels.

In November 2002 he released his first Solo-E.P. “Vom Tag zur Nacht” as SweetN.Candy on the also young label “MusikKrause” from Jena. One Year later it was followed by the “Phonoautomatiq”-E.P. on Frankfurt´s “raum…musik” label. This was just his second release, which already rose to rank 10 of the Groove-Charts!

Following were two releases on the Berlin label Lebensfreude Records, which took their place in the playlists of various well-known DJ’s. Thereby Rico managed
to storm the Groove-Charts again (place 17) with his end of 2004 released “Multiplex”-E.P. 2005 was followed by the “Dishes!”-E.P. on [raum…musik] and “It’s a possum!” (Opossum Recordings).

This was the Basis for a number of very succesful releases, for instance also on Regular, Dumb Unit and EinmalEins Musik. Rico Henschel is known as a specialist for minimal and energy-loaded driving sounds, which also is reflected in his DJ sets. He likes to create and play tracks, which build a complex of many little, scarcely audible individual parts which often only make sense to the acoustic observer as a complete work, just like a puzzle.

http://www.myspace.com/sweetncandy

Fresh Meat - Berlin Mitte Institut - Nov 2008

Biography of Fresh Meat

The Berlin Mitte Institut für Bessere Elektronische Musik is a fusion of a couple of music enthusiasts, who are trying to establish a platform for the experimentation of concepts related to the electronic music culture.

The show is produced by Jan Kühn aka Fresh Meat with friends, a bunch of urban slackers with roots in the Berlin Drum & Bass scene, who have explored and fallen in love with the breadth of the electronic universe beyond planet Drum & Bass.