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12"
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COLDR 011EP
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Across three tracks, Berlin based producer Phon.O demonstrates his ability to combine UK bass influences with techno sensibilities. "CLU5T3R" opens with a swinging 132bpm rhythm that sits somewhere in between classic UK-funky and a cracking Shed/Heads High techno anthem. "V3R5U5" progresses the mood into a more ethereal space, building layers of pads and texture as the track develops. "H4NDCUFF3D" takes the mood into a more dramatic backdrop. Chilling pads swell up from the ground like mist in a graveyard, while the broken rhythm sets pace, creating a moody ambiance.
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12"
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BPC 326EP
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Berlin-based producer Phon.o presents Fractions EP. The hypnotic drive of "Run" has a dramatic arrangement of the partly frisky, partly menacing Detroit strings evoking nostalgic memories. "Brooklyn Shuffle", with its swinging flow at 128 BPM, builds another bridge between London, New York, and Berlin by unfolding his UK garage sound, including 2-step drums, melodic synths, and the well-known vocal bits. The subsonic bass lines and reduced percussion of the emotional title track "Fractions" creates a dark and gloomy atmosphere that is counteracted with contemplative melancholy thanks to those manipulated voices.
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12"
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TEC 092EP
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Established Berlin-based producer Carsten Aermes aka Phon.o kick-starts the Afterglow EP at 137bpm with "Mercurial," melting the boundaries between techno, dubstep, and footwork with effortless grace. A strange, cosmic journey with polyrhythmic layers of percussive interplay; kick drums bounce, snares crack, and the melody builds with mysterious intent. Recalling echoes of jungle music alongside techno sensibilities, "U8 Phunk" follows on again at 137bpm with a series of hyperactive drum hits and twisting percussive man oeuvres. The spacious "Bell Blender" further develops themes of broken breakbeats and grimy sci-fi atmospherics, this time at a tempo more accessible to techno dancefloors.
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12"
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50 037EP
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Here comes Cracking Space Pt. 2. The second half of Phon.o's journey into the deeper end of dance music is slightly darker than its counterpart. The working title for this record was Pri5m, as it is dedicated to whistleblower Edward Snowden, and doing this title justice, the three tracks are full of suspense and captivating sounds. Phon.o's signature stacked percussions are met by playful UK garage-esque bass lines, driving 4x4 kickdrums, and slowly-evolving melodies that are coated in delicate layers of beautifully haunting atmospheres. The outcome is a subtle dancefloor killer that will work its way into ears and legs without big gestures.
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12"
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50 035EP
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Phon.o's new EP continues his quest into the deeper zones of club music. Combining influences from UK house, garage and Berlin techno, he manages to further define his very own sound. Featuring guest appearances from Malaysian duo Bass Sekolah and additional keyboards from San Franciscan mastermind Joshua Kit Clayton, this record has a strong narrative that manages to work on the dancefloor as well as on the home stereo. This EP is intimately tied to the forthcoming #037, Phon.o's next EP. Together, they make a killer couple and you won't be able to decide which one to take home with you.
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12"
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50 027EP
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Genre-bender Phon.o finds new perfection in merging UK bass music with techno, garage and even house music. Not in a wild mash-up kind of way, but very organic and natural-sounding. "Schn33" is a guaranteed floor-filler for all kinds of dance music DJs. No matter where, no matter when, no matter what it's mixed with, this is an anthem. Perfectly supplemented with a strong B-side, this might be the strongest Phon.o single yet.
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2LP
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50 007LP
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CD
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50 007CD
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Phon.o, the boy with the dubby background, started to play records with his buddy Apparat in the early '90s, far in the darkest reaches of the ruff'n'tuff Harz mountains, in former East Germany. In 1997, seeking new and bright horizons, he moves to beautiful Berlin and is given the keys to his first apartment. During the wet autumn of 1998, he started to create his own music and emerged in the spring of 2000 with his first release on Cytrax (Kit Clayton and DJ Jasper's itchy, noisy, dubby California techno label). Phon.o then found himself "misled, used and abused" by the notorious big rock'n roll swindler, T.Raumschmiere, who connives him into joining his gang, Shitkatapult. Chris De Luca and Phon.o joined forces in spring 2006. This unconventional combination of intergalactic hip-hop, ghetto beats, sexy booty IDM and dirty techno goes beyond typical contemporary genre boundaries. In 2008, the results of CLP's dirty collaboration got released as the EP Ready Or Not on Boysnoize Rec., including remixes by Diplo and Mixhell and as an eclectic, genre-blending hip-hop album called Supercontinental on Shitkatapult. In 2009, Phon.o did remixes for the likes of Modeselektor, Boys Noize, Schlachthofbronx and Robot Koch. In 2011, Phon.o started to release on Modeselektor's 50 Weapons label with a new sound somewhere between the grooves of UK-Funky and dubstep and the classic Berlin dub-techno school of Basic Channel/Hardwax. For many, Phon.o has been producing some of his dopest material of late. His two singles in 2011 have been compared to the best moments of Burial and expectations for Black Boulder are high. The album delivers exactly what the two pre-singles Slavemode/Abbey Road and ABAW723/Sad Happiness hinted at. A fresh blend of bleepin' technoid garage, the usual dub elements and even two ear-catching vocal tunes featuring Pantasz of Bodi Bill fame and Tunde Olaniran. While the first four artist albums on 50 Weapons have all been debut albums, this one isn't. On the other hand it feels like one, since this is the successful reinvention of an artist who has been active in various styles for over a decade.
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2LP
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STRIKE 064LP
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Featuring Kevin Blechdom, Gold Chains and more. "The fact that Carsten Aermes aka Phon.O still has pole-position locked in with us should be no mystery to whoever heard his Mokkastübchen-EP, now three years old, but it smelled so good for so long. We're thankful that Burn Down the Town has properly become, in itself, no masturbatory self-experimentation. Phon.O aims nicely and bold into the open body of booty karaoke, in fact, with the help of his versatile taste inventory and speed. This is his own trademark and solidifies his role as a musical heavyweight and sexually confident Eastern German. If the hectic rammer-beats of ghetto-tech are more something for followers of ejaculatio praecox, then the rough stop 'n go patterns of Phon.O are more fit for pleasure-seekers of perverted lags."
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12"
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STRIKE 063EP
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... including remixes by Funkstörung and Kit Clayton. "The forthcoming Phon.o album Burn Down the Town is gonna be like a mixtape a la booty karaoke and promises a permissive mess on record. Yet still before that the 12" Trick or Treat will be released which features well-known artists along with Carsten Aermes aka. Phon.O. Never was groove'n'bass so plumped up, rarely was hip-hop so ankletish. Trick or Treat is Phon.O and Kevin 'just don't bust my bladder' Blechdom's answer to 50 Cent in the candy shop. This may already be a hit for Halloween, and this song should be mentioned in one breath with the foot stank of Usher, Timbaland and the Neptunes, whereas Kevin Blechdom smells more like Missy Elliott and Destiny's Child. Four years ago an American named Kevin Blechdom moved to Berlin in order to study 'German genitalia.'The funk comes from Funkstörung: their remix of 'Trick or Treat' bears traceable elements of this tolerant music style around the groundwork of Kevin Blechdom. Here the famous Italo-Bavarian combo shows a brilliant finger technique and seems a little shy to force the lust of the singer shamelessly and slaphappy to go all haywire. 'Hoes ova Bros' -- such rhymes make ghetto-tech drop its underpants, and that's what 'Busted in da D.' is supposed to do. Phon.O twists the words of a white thrash dude from Detroit named Sadik006 who remains unpunished. Big surprise that the beast from San Francisco Kit Clayton himself puts his hands on a remix even though he vowed to never make music again. Apart from having a rarity bonus, this piece is as superior as you can expect it from the most intelligent person in the never ever dying- out world of rave music.To sum things up one should say, that with such good music, Phon.o ought to be granted great success, which is indisputably required if the horny young man from East Germany wants to sell records. True Dat."
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12"
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STRIKE 035EP
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"Phon.o comes out of his playpen with a crushing package and supplies Shitkatapult with four monstrous turds as lethal munitions -- the shit is hot. This Berlin man has the digestion of a power plant and a rectum like pliers; one with which you could tweak the Eiffel tower. With that he serves up crude raw materials consisting of Hiphop and Breakbeats, Techno and Dub which become raucous monsters of an intimidating size. In 'The Weird Soap' beats the size of a bat bang away in precise cut-up scratch scenes of a looped television. 'The Garagedude V2' is a plowing, intelligent beast of a track even if it's on the tragic side: it's about a folk singer with an acoustic guitar who wants to cross himself via teleporter with a laptop in a self-made experiment; however he fails to achieve the materialization out of this digital make up. 'What is kleingehacktes?' is in no need of an explanation as phon.o skips in zigzag mode across the dance floor while slapping his open hand. Like a thunder-gnarz, the gadget takes apart the helium-suffocated last words of an MC who just asked the wrong man the wrong question. For dessert Phon.o gives out a piece of 'Sachertorte Am Morgen' tasting best when consumed in a techno-armchair. You can smell it all the way to America when Phon.o releases his digital-pop flatulence. It's no wonder that Kit Clayton demanded a stool sample for his label Cytrax, from which three tracks have already been completed. 'Mokkastübchen' is Phon.o's second EP on Shitkatapult and it really just has this title as camouflage. Were it ever to come to a celebrity death match in the states, a battle against Prefuse 73 would be promising for this 25 year-old German -- the element of surprise being on his side."
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12"
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STRIKE 025EP
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"Berlin-based artist Phon.o -- with previous releases (2 EPs + 1 album) on Kit Clayton's label Cytrax -- wildly shoots around on SK 25 and he truly hits the goat (->bock). The prey are 4 really funky and groovy tracks: 'Parlersam The Cat' is like a hunted puma running around on dubby, off-beat, shuffle paws. 'Back And Fore' reloads the shotgun with heavy, deep chords and paves the way for 'Samstag Slicker', a damned nasty dance floor rocker battering brutely around with weird, rough chords and a sneaky synth. With 'Francesca Boogie', phon.o shows us how to use the goats shotgun (-> bockflinte) in a different way and comes up with an extremely groovy, hip-swinging experimental dub slammer."
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12"
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CYTRAX 19
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"This is the first full length album on Cytrax Records, the label of DJ Jasper. It is written and produced Phono.o (an artist from Berlin who has already released some 12"s on Cytrax). The tracks are mastered by Kit Clayton. Phon.o brings out Partition B -- a very nice and beautiful, crispy, dubby CD with a lot of new fresh experimental, glitchy sounds. All tracks have a deep and mind blowing own feeling."
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