What's your Credo?
There are not many DJ's of this type - DJ's who believed in Techno from the first minute, DJ's who have experienced Techno from the very beginning, DJ's who have made Techno their own thing, DJ's who have created their own unique styles or even more - who have developed one over the years and who's name's are synonymous with that specific sound. Alex Bau is one of those DJ's. At the same time, however, there are some slight differences with this guy. Why focus on just one style of music? Why only minimal sounds? Why only Techno? Why, if you could have a well orchestrated combination of both?
Is it related to the fact that for Alex Bau, there was once a time before Techno? With thousands of records in a collection that spans through many different types, styles and genres of music, certainly there have been many individual records which have left their own, indelible marks. There's no doubt about that! For instance, Alex still does Depeche Mode nights from time to time, just for fun. But his activities with Techno don't suffer at all from that, not in the least! With his 5+ hour sets at his first resident club in his Southeast Bavarian home area, the "Libella", where DJ Hell also started his career back in the 80's, he achieved the reputation as someone who was totally aware of what he was doing, totally dedicated to it, but also someone who was totally infatuated with it. He hosted his own radio show for over 2 years on a local radio station, still the only techno show in the area. However, after countless gigs at the local clubs the time was deemed to be right to prove that he was also able to play at other venues around the globe. While collaborating with his friend Sven Dedek, whose productions were mainly released under the moniker's "Basic Implant" or "Electric Envoy" on labels lsuch as "Fine Audio Recordings" from Chris Liebing, their tracks hit the Technofloors in a very impressive way. During that time he was also able to collect international experiences behind the decks as Sven played live. Releases like the "Phase Edit EP", a highly acclaimed and well sold rework of some Nitzer Ebb EBM Classics, or their work for Dave Angel's "Rotation", Justin Berkovi's "Predicaments" or Pascal FEOS' "PV-Records" enabled them to reach a much larger audience. Finally, after numerous releases for different labels beside his own "Toneman", Alex released his debut-album "Connected" in late 2004. "Connected" immediately drew the attention of many high class DJ's such as Chris Liebing, Pascal FEOS and Good Groove, just to name a few. The fact that these artists, all of whom were working with different styles, grabbed the tracks from "Connected", shows that the name of the album couldn't have been chosen any better.
After starting his own label (Toneman) back in 2000, Alex also started to work on his solo productions for labels such as Chris Liebing's "CLR" or the Montreal based label, "Default Recordings". Montreal can be seen as kind of a gauge of Alex's DJ activities! Within 3 years he was booked in Montreal four times and his set from the legendary night at Aria from January 2006 was even released as a mix-cd, "Live at Aria / Montreal" so that Alex came back months later to perform for the release party, once again a night to remember for the Montreal Techno movement. At this point in time Alex was already booked as the headliner and it was reported by numerous emails and guest book entries that it was hardly a mistake to do so
But it's not only Montreal where Alex is being booked again and again; there are many other places, which is a good indicator that he seems to be a guy who understands what to do when standing in front of a crowd, someone who is always trying to bring the party to the max. Clubs like Frankfurt's "U60311", Munich's "Electric Delicate", Würzburg's "Airport", or the legendary "Tresor" in Berlin are not only the trademarks of German Techno club-culture, they can also be found on Alex's gig list. Brazil, USA, Canada, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Holland or the closer Austria and Switzerland are some of the tour stops on Alex's calender, and no matter where, all over the places people can hear and feel how interesting, versatile and powerful Techno can be if you understand how to combine minimal and straight techno as a constant up and down. Everything is completely under control while the party is going wild, and that is what Alex always goes for.
The fact that Alex has become an official artist on the highly acclaimed label "Zenit", that he has been the platform for acts like Marco Carola, Adam Beyer, The Advent, Gaetano Parisio and many more, is the logical consequence of years of dedicated, hard work in good, high quality Techno. Techno in its purest form, just as described above, is the goal for Alex - whether or not it involves playing or producing. On his current album "Credo", minimal tunes go together with peaktime slammers in a way that appears obvious and logical. Techno can do a lot, if you let it do so. That's the credo - HIS credo!
