Notstandskomitee became a renowned project in the Electronic Underground scene of the 90s. Driven by Malte Steiner Notstandskomitee released several great tape recordings in the early 90s. Characterized by Electro-Minimalism and Experimental music the German project moved on releasing its first CD’s. Malte Steiner -who has been involved with numerous side-projects (Das Kombinat, Elektronengehirn, Akustikkoppler ao) released most of his works on his own label Block 4. The newest album entitled “The Doomsday Layout” is a fine selection of sixteen tracks that were originally composed between 2009 and 2023. The work sounds like Notstandskomitee  at its best; great sound treatments, Minimal-Electronics, Experimental although accessible, sometimes Cinematic and even redefining Techno standards. Enough reasons to ask a few questions to this unique artist.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You set up Notstandskomitee in 1991. What did you keep in mind from the early years and original spirit of the project? And what remains of it thirty years later?

Malte: Lot has changed during the decades but what remains is the playfulness and the will to experiment, to find new means of expression with the technology which was and is accessible to me. But not only using other companies products and their implementation of ideas of how to create music, it is important for me to invent and design my own instruments, software and hardware. It is a constant development.

Music industry is driven by nostalgia, but I rather reinvent myself instead of becoming a pale copy of the past me, repeating old songs and ideas. Important is to keep the excitement. The political aspect in my art always was and is there.

Q: I often experience your sound approach as the work of a ‘sound architect’ instead of a true ‘musician’. How do you perceive yourself and do you feel closer with one or the other?

Malte: I guess I am more on the side of sound architect, being never that much interested in the reproduction of traditional Western music styles. My departure point is the visual arts. When I started with Electronic music in my very young years around 1983, the idea was to paint with sound. Instead of combining chord progressions I started with composing fragments of recorded sounds, basically what Musique Concrète is doing since the 40s.

Q: You recently released the new album “The Doomsday Layout” featuring tracks written in between 2009 and 2023. What is the album all about and tell us a bit more about the selection of tracks?

Malte: After the album “Automatenmusik” in 2001 I became a bit disillusioned about the future of the music industry and concentrated on other projects like Elektronengehirn and my exhibitions. But I kept making tracks which qualified as Industrial / IDM Notstandskomitee music and so I have now a backlog with more than 100 tracks, quite a pool to pick from and compile an album!

The current theme is the rising instability of the world. The world was on the edge already in the 80s, but now it is literally falling apart. Everything is out of balance. I work on ways to express that, also in my visual art, without falling in cliches.

Q: Talking about sound and song writing I would like to get more information about your way of working? What are the different stages you’d to go through in song writing and -production?

Malte: Like many artists I like to start new things and keep the tracks in the editing stage, I guess I need more discipline. Sometimes it is good to come back to a piece after a year and suddenly discover what was missing, the songs ripe over the time. There is no big distinction between the composing and the mixing stage, especially after 2018 when I went totally ‘In-The-Box’ for the mixing. Before it was very time consuming to recall manually an older mix on the mixing desk to continue the work which also caused some frustrations, maybe the reason for the 10 year gap between releases. Now I have the backlog portable with me when I am on the road and can continue to work on them everywhere in the world. Often during mixing it becomes clear if there is enough going on or something missing, or even if there is too much. Equalization and compression can bring out details which I overheard before so that step is important for composition.

Decoupled is the final mastering step, to create a consistent album. That is usually done in one go without big gaps. I know that it is a good idea to let others with fresh ears master the album, but I don’t have the money for it and also don’t trust others to make the right decisions for my weird music.

Q: Several tracks of the album caught my attention but one in particular; so what did you try to express with “Watch People Reacting To Music By Notstandskomitee”? Your music remains instrumental so I was wondering what you try to express by the titles?

Malte: Often they are critical, sometimes humorous or just plain cynical. A while ago, last year I think, there was a -hopefully- short lived trend on video providers like Youtube, TicToc etc, with people filming people reacting to something, a piece of music or a movie. So the artistic product lost focus and it became more important how people react on something. I really think humankind is doomed…

Q: In a recent Akustikkoppler-interview you said about Notstandskomitee that ‘it’s difficult to decide to finish a track and let loose.’ What makes it that difficult and how do you look back at ‘older’ songs and albums today?

Malte: The center of production is the hard disk (or to be more precise, SSD) and an artist can edit and manipulate a song, picture, text or video digitally endlessly, without loss of quality. That is a big thing when you come from other times where that was not possible in that quality, every edit step added artefacts like noise. In those old days, let’s say before and around year 2000, you had you commit your mix to tape or DAT. It felt more done because revising it involved to switch and fade all devices again to the correct programs and settings. Now everything is easy to recall and revise, or to go back to an older version, branch out for a remix etc, it never stops and ideas keep flowing. What happens if I change this or that, is that sound correct, how is the timing? This can go on forever, so some kind of discipline is necessary.

Like many artists I would love to redo old albums, there is always something to correct. But that would take out the charm of that times and kill the vibe. When I find time for a re-release, and the goal is to make and keep  everything available, I gently remaster the recordings, hopefully without changing too much. Especially with compression / limiter less is more, usually remasters of other artists albums in the last years are unlistenable to me, everything is driven against the wall.

Q: Any new plans/releases in the pipeline for Notstandskomitee and your side-projects?

Malte: Last month I finished a collaboration with Kim Holm from Aarhus (DK) and now I work on the Notstandskomitee live-setup. It is a constant development but I hope to create a technical platform for concerts, which I can keep a while and continue to add to it. Notstandskomitee concerts are usually audiovisual and follow my vision of the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’. The music data, sequenced and played, controls the visuals which are generated in real-time with custom software I develop in the moment.

There is a new Elektronengehirn-album in the works which will be a CD, but also an vinyl album will be soon ready from TMS, the noise project I run with the artist Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen. We just released her experimental Noise CD “Compounds”. Our label block 4 is expanding, we found exciting artists for example in Helsinki which we going to release.

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

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“Alles Muß Raus” is the third album by Akustikkoppler, an ongoing collaboration between German artists, Matthias Schuster and Malte Steiner.

The album was completely produced on vintage and modern equipment and all tracks were produced between 2008 and 2012, and were remastered in 2021. The album is available digitally and as limited edition of 300 copies on 12” LP in translucent vinyl with gatefold cover.

Akustikkoppler was formed around 2004 but both members have a rich career behind them.

Matthias Schuster started in the 70s with his band Geisterfahrer which combined a punk rock setup with electronic instruments. In his studio he recorded and mixed most of the bands for the Hamburg label ZickZack at the beginning of the 80s. But later on in the nineties we also find him back as producer for the electro act Fortification 55 (“Heartleader”) for instance. He has been involved in other projects as well like Bal Paré and later on, Das Institut.

Malte Steiner from his side started with electronic music in 1983 in addition to his study of visual arts. First meant to be performed for the openings of his exhibitions, Malte started to distribute his music from 1987 on via his own label block 4 which released for instance the albums from his industrial projects Das Kombinat (with Andrea Pritschow) and Notstandskomitee on cassettes, later also on CD and vinyl.

Here’s the video for the track “Entrümpelung”.

You can order the release as download or on vinyl from Bandcamp.

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Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Akustikkoppler  is the sonic symbiosis between two, legendary, German, Electronic, artists. Matthias Schuster (Das Institut, Bal Paré, Geisterfahrer, Im Namen Des Volkes ao) and Malte Steiner (Notstandskomitee, Das Kombinat ao) once met in Hamburg. Their common passion for electronic gear brought them to set up Akustikkoppler. They this year released the project’s fourth full length album “Alles Muβ Raus” which can be defined as styled, minimal, electronic music. The work has been released by Malte’s own label Block 4. I asked a few questions to both artists.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You guys have been involved with numerous projects so what incited you working together and set up Akustikkoppler? 

Malte: We met when I was living in Hamburg, I think it was in the Hörbar, a place for experimental music which I founded with some others in the early 90s and that still exists. Our common love for synthesizers and experience of studio production alone can result in long conversations but also our shared preference of weird music and art. And then of course the whole history of Matthias and his role in German New-Wave / Post-Punk…

Matthias: Yes we met at Hamburg Hörbar and later on I have heard about Maltes projects and art installations and was amazed about the videos and music from Das Kombinat, Notstandskomitee etc etc

Q: What makes the chemistry and complementarity between the both of you? What did you learn from each other and how do you work together?

Matthias: At that time I was a pure hardware freak, I had so much vintage synthesizers like Moog, ARP, PPG, KORG, ROLAND etc so I was absolute excited about Maltes software instruments like PureData etc. He even programmed his own software synth, and the sound was amazing!

Malte: When I am in Hamburg we meet in Matthias’ Geisterfahrer Studio, switch on everything and start to improvise. There are no rules or conversations about what we want to achieve. It is just experimenting and then hitting the record button at the right moment, usually one of us yells ‘hit record, it can’t get better’. All is recorded mixed on stereo without any overdub, and I take the files with me into the achieve, and compile albums out of the best tracks and remaster them.

Matthias: I always was interested in making ‘realtime’ music I practiced in the past with Jürgen Weiss, my Geisterfahrer drummer so it was obvious to do that together and let surprise by ourselves and the machines who played us and we played them too.

Q: I noticed your new album “Alles Muβ Raus” features songs that were originally written between 2008 and 2012. That was right at the beginning of the project so why didn’t you release the songs earlier and how was it to work on ‘older’ stuff?

Matthias: Yes, there is no hurry. Malte moved to Denmark, so we only meet sometimes in a year to do one or more sessions and our music is timeless and follows no trends etc…

Malte: Since we both are busy with gazillion other projects, it can takes a while to compile and agree upon an album, years sometimes, and I think we’re living the “Theory Of Obscurity” by The Residents, we often forget the tracks and rediscover them. That and the fact that the vinyl required a year in the pressing plant lead to the perceived delays, but we are not in a hurry anyway. Everyone including the big guys are pressing records, in several editions at once, therefore the smaller labels are put on hold when a Major drops an order for 100.000 records. Anyway, “Alles Muß Raus” is our fourth album, plus there was a 7”.

Q: Tell us a bit more about “Alles Muβ Raus”? What is the work all about and what did you try to express & achieve sound-wise?

Matthias: There’s no concept, but it’s like a concept album I think… a concept album by random.

Malte: I still believe in the album as a concept and art piece and when I suggest a selection of tracks to Matthias, they have to form a journey, a development from start to end. I have access in our archives to material from many years, back to around 2004 when we started to work together so the meaning and overall vibe comes late in the process and not when we record the tracks. For instance the tape “Inspektor” which we released on the French label Serendip Lab I discovered that some tracks formed a Soundtrack to a crime movie in my mind, a very cheesy one, probably from 60s Germany.

Q: Akustikkoppler has this typical vintage sound DNA, which brings us back to the magic of analogue equipment. What’s your perception about the evolution of electronic equipment and the way of composing; from analogue to digital to the cheap software synths and -programs of today?

Matthias: When I started in the early 70s there was no Midi etc only CV/gate which I hated because of the different systems like 1V octave, or Hertz volt etc. Bands like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, etc… ruled over Electronic music and of course Stockhausen, Pierre Henry, etc

After years of struggling with equipment it was so great to have the first digital machines like PPG Wave, DX7, Atari Computers… Today is best with the mix with software, computers (Apple now) and vintage analogue.

Malte: One reason might be that we both are vintage. It’s decades of music experience which comes together here, we each started long before Techno and even before Hip-Hop became something. I love the development of equipment, it’s amazing what is possible today, especially for a low price. Personally I don’t have any preference. I equally use analogue and digital synthesizers and all kind of computer software, partly stuff I develop on my own. I usually bring some device or software on my laptop to the sessions which Matthias don’t have -which is difficult- just to add another color.

It’s good to have again available all kinds of analogue, digital and modular synthesizers. One major development for me, apart from ‘Machine Learning’ which I use with projects like Notstandskomitee or Elektronengehirn since years, is the rise of resolution in the control-data and therefore improved expressivity.

Q: How do you see yourself as musicians/producers when it comes to self-criticism, perfectionism and eventually criteria and/or references you’re using? And what are the further plans?

Matthias: Of course we will stay in composing/recording process! But we are our own listeners, so the process of criteria is in our own hands, means we decide what will comes out and what not!

Malte: A speciality of Akustikkoppler is that we don’t allow ourselves to edit the tracks except a bit in the mastering process way later, which is complete decoupled from the composing process. Everything is recorded in one go played manually, only with the help of step sequencers and drum computers here and there. That saves us from the perfectionist loop which can destroy creativity, see for instance the latest remarks of Karl Bartos about the arrival of the computer at Kraftwerk’s studio. A story I heard often since the dawn of Midi composition, it is both a blessing and a curse. Something I struggle a bit with at Notstandskomitee, everything can be edited, rerecorded and processed endlessly, it’s difficult to decide to finish a track and let loose. With Akustikkoppler we don’t have that problem.

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Experimental, Minimal-Electro.

Format: Digital, Vinyl.

Background/Info: This is the fourth full length album released by the duo Matthias Schuster (Das Institut, Bal Paré ao) – Malte Steiner (Notstandskomitee, Das Kombinat, Block 4 owner ao). The songs were originally recorded between 2008 and 2012 and last year mastered to finally be released this year.

Content: If you’re a bit familiar with the works of both musicians you’ll know what to expect. Akustikkoppler brings us back to vintage electronic treatments. The tracks are instrumentals featuring numerous effects, rough sound treatments, melodic passages and a few spoken samplings.

+ + + : This album is for Electro fine-tasters. It’s not really about sophisticated music, but styled minimalism. There’s a true power emerging from the retro sound treatments. The rhythmic and melodic parts makes the sound accessible and even a bit danceable. One of the best cuts “Heimweg” reminds me a bit of a softer version of Suicide. But the best cut is for sure “Glaslappen” which is driven by rough sound treatments.

– – – : Both artists and their respective projects have never been stuff for the masses. The music isn’t always accessible, but you will like it if you’re into Electro-Minimal works.

Conclusion: There are not enough projects like Akustikkoppler and that’s a pity. This is an original and intelligent production.

Best songs: “Glaslappen”, “Heimweg”, “Entrümpelung”, “Mittenmang”.

Rate: 8.

Artist: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064120891094

Label: www.block4.com / www.facebook.com/Block-4-853014674847744

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com