Various

Five musicians were commissioned by the Berghain club in Berlin to create one original piece each to accompany the five original choreographed pieces from five dancers from the Staatsballet Berlin. The premier was held at the Berghain this past June and the score was released by Berlin label Ostgut Ton and distributed by Kompakt. The first tracks of this album carry the aura of M_nus in the mid-’90s but then build to a more contemporary tech-house sound characteristic of Kompakt. The album begins with nsi.’s "Bridge and Tunnel People,” which is murky minimalism at its finest: deconstructed dub tech that sounds like the best off the ~scape label combined with driving minimalist beats. Sleeparchive are featured next with "Perspective”; the ambient techno loops build slowly through repetition and are joined by icy beats and an eventual warm, panning synth. Âme’s "Fiori” sounds like a Philip Glass piece — an Étude for synthesiser. Luciano delivers a more upbeat, clubbier number with his "Drunken Ballet,” a danceable tech-house beat with Villalobos-esque vocal snippets that serves as enjoyable treble percussion. Luke Slater concludes the album with "Symphony for the Surrealists,” produced under his 7th Plain moniker, a predominantly beat-less ambient track that grows to explore glitch-y break beat in the last five minutes. The pieces stretch to a lengthy 15 minutes each, making this a spacious composition beckoning to be filled with movement.