There are quite a few Raz Ohara stories that have been making the rounds, but the best one is perhaps the one about how he landed his first record deal. When his debut album Realtime Voyeur was released back in 1999, Raz was merely 24 years old and he’d only just arrived in Berlin. Here’s what happened: One day, Raz just walked into Kitty-Yo’s label office and dropped off a CD with some demo tracks.
Since he’d run out of demos, his original plan was to return to the office later that day to pick it up again but when he returned, he found the label bosses totally in awe and struck by his music, and thus a deal was made.
Raz Ohara & The Odd Orchestra | Wondering
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=HIQjr0aC4Cg
It’s the kind of story that only gets better each time it’s retold Ever since, Raz Ohara has continually honed his production skills and refined his organic, dub-infused trademark sound, and yet the album he’s about to drop easily marks a milestone in his career.
It’s a career that has repeatedly seen changes in direction, that has crossed over into techno and pop terrain, and that now sees him revisiting all the different styles, lessons and approaches of the past 15 years and rolling them into one massive oeuvre: Moksha.
Dictaphone | Au Botanique
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=eVeMQYq9DNk
Two years ago, in 2012, Oliver Doerell and Roger Doering revived their much-loved Dictaphone project, last active in the early to mid 2000s on City Centre Offices, for a new album on Sonic Pieces.
Joined this time around by Alexander Stolze on violin, they generated a lavishly cinematic sound, at times distinctly Continental, at others given a decidedly Arabic lilt.
Dictaphone | Poem from a rooftop
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=1Fj8RCDTwLs
There are echoes of the micro-level loop-finding experiments of Jan Jelinek, at others the midnight arthouse blues of Julian Neto, but Dictaphone have got their own thing going, and their new work is an elegantly constructed piece of modern electronic jazz, suavely bohemian without being flip, beautifully detailed without being over-fussy.
This event is highly recommended by Digital in Berlin! We are giving away 2 x 2 tickets. Just send a mail to win@digitalinberlin.de with “Raz Ohara Ensemble & Dictaphone” as the subject.
Palais Wittgenstein Festival w/ Raz Ohara Ensemble & Dictaphone LIVE
Saturday, 08 February 2014 | 21:00 CET
HO | Holzmarktstraße 66 | 10179 Berlin/Mitte
soundcloud.com/razohara | dictaphone-music.de | palaiswittgenstein.com | hoberlin.de
