Today, The Brvtalist is pleased to premiere a new work from Wunderblock trio, which is now being curated as a solo-project by Berlin based musician from Russia and our friend Michael Teploff. Today, we present “Autopoesis IBID.1” - a 9 track album, which music genres vary from atmospheric dub ambient to dark IDM, post-dub and noise.
The release represents the smoky atmosphere at their Moscow studio, where numerous jam sessions were recorded by the band during 2008-2018. The tracks are cinematic and narrative — a kaleidoscope of dreams that journeys from allusions to David Lynch (“U-Turn To Lost Highway”) and Thomas Pinchon (“Schwarzgerät”), through the irony of mythological paradoxes (“Achilles And The Tortoise”) and the sincerity of exotic nature (“Safari Dub”), to the bloody nightmare of the Russian Revolution (“Red Oktober”, remixed by Arcuation).
As the artist explains, the term of Wunderblock is related to the concept by Sigmund Freud from his work “Notiz über den “Wunderblock” [1925]. Freud regarded the Wunderblock as a perfect metaphor for the process of recording memories. According to Freud, the mind records memories continually receiving stimuli and transferring traces of that information to the unconscious to be stored as memories.
“IBID” is an abbreviation for the Latin word ‘ibīdem’, meaning ‘in the same place’, commonly used in an end note, footnote, bibliography citation, or scholarly reference to refer to the source cited in the preceding note or list item, and the term ‘autopoiesis’ (from Greek ‘auto-’ [self], and ‘poiesis’ [creation, production] refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts and eventually further components. Since then the concept has been also applied to the fields of cognition, systems theory, architecture and sociology.
We asked Michael a couple questions about the release.
The Brvtalist: Mike, the creation of the album had a long, 10 years old way. Also, “Wunderblok” refers to Freud's metaphor for the process of recording memories. Which memories do you personally highlight and bound with the time while making this album?
Michael Teploff: The Wunderblok project has been started in 2008, when I built my Moscow studio, called “Principi Di Musica”. And, during that tension, we, as a trio, together with my bandmates, Igor Ivanov and Vladimir Kochenov, recorded a lot of live sessions in dub, ambient, noise and techno as well. We used a lot of instruments - synths, guitars, live and MIDI percussion - all was recorded live, and that was so euphoric, intense and organic, so can’t be forgotten. In 2020-21, during the “pandemic”, I’ve edited and mastered the most interesting tracks, and now we have a “memory album” about those times.
TB: Every track has its own mood. Sometimes, strong vibe switches can be detected between the compositions. Does the order of the tracks affect the perception of the album as a narrative, or does each put its own meaning and moods, regardless of the order?
MT: The basic idea was just to take our non-techno tracks and to set them from the ambience to rhythms and back, but, in the process of compiling, the tracks were lined up in the terms of the tonal composition as well. So, hopefully, the full album sounds like a complex narrative, like a life story, where the different moods of life are just collapsing in one hour soundtrack.
TB: Mike, you are curating Wunderblock on your own as a solo project now. What are your plans and hopes for the nearest future? Which places, events and projects are on your mind?
MT: Yes, last year I finally moved from Moscow to Berlin, my partners stayed in Russia and, unfortunately, the project can’t be called a band anymore. But I'm now working on two different new projects. One of them is a classic techno project, called Urstadt (“Proto-State”, ger.), together with my mate Nikita Melnikov, also known as Relic Radiation. The vinyl with the Developer remix will be released on WR later this year. The second project is still secret, and too early to introduce it).
Also, I hope, life will return to the Berlin and EU club scene soon, and we’ll be able to present our new projects live. Besides Europe, there are some plans for Russian and UK little tours.
TB: What are your personal highlights of the album and why?
MT: All the tracks have their own special taste and advantages, so it’s hard to choose one. The album is better perceived as a complex work.
TB: How does the current world situation impact the release of the album, in your opinion?
MT: In 2013 we launched Wunderblock Records as a techno label, it had a good development during the following years, and seems the label now has its own place on the techno scene. Though during last two “pandemic” years, the techno scene is slowly dying, and it was another reason for us to launch our new experimental sub-label Ibid., for research in the non-techno field. But this doesn’t mean that we will not continue our experiments in techno as well.
TB: What is your opinion on the current trends in modern electronic music, how does it influence the culture, and in which direction will it go?
MT: Well, this escalates quickly, the culture is mutating fast into the state of meta-modernism, and I have to say, that the future sound will be more complicated, hyperintensive, super-hybridical. Now the most promising are modern experiments in post-dub, IDM and hyper pop.
We are also glad to premiere one of the tracks of the album. Today, we present “Kinetika” - an atmospheric dub ambient composition, which will teleport you from wherever you are now to a dreamy summer jungle full of life or to a spaceship, travelling through the bright stars. Listen to the track now on The Brvtalist SoundCloud and YouTube channels, and follow the artist on social media.
Out January 28th in CD and digital formats. Pre-order yours on Bandcamp.