At the ripe old age of 32, Heinrich Tillack is something of a techno veteran.
I first became familiar with his work as Sysex on Plus 8. I was taken immediately by his willfully off-time sequences; almost an electronic equivalent to the sort of improvisation found in free jazz and be-bop. From his work as Absolute on Force Inc. (Achim, you still owe me money), to his partnership with my other good friend Oliver Bondzio on the Jakpot label, Heinrich's style is unmistakable. Under the name Festival ("Festival will be my alter ego on Disko B for this 'dirty' stuff", says Heinrich), Tillack still innovates. His debut album for Disko B is chock-full of broken beats, dirty samples, missing notes and off-time sequences, completely opposite of the clean, quantized flow of most electronically-based music, and yet still cohesive in its own context. The title track, "Festival Resurrection" reminds me of a cut-and-paste version of an old Weather Report record, further underscoring the relationship between this project and jazz (also note the use of jazz slang in the title "Dig My Mood"). As the album progresses, however, the loops become less broken, merging into a straight 4/4. By the time we get to the ironically-titled "Double Y Chromosome (abstract), it's the closest thing to a linear DJ track so far, a sweeping keyboard line evoking images of classic Derrick May productions. "Festival Resurrection" is a challenging record. Its guerilla use of real-time loops, crashed-together, supercollided samples and twisted beats pushes the envelope of what techno really is, as Tillack forges his own path through the endless repetitive mono tracks and Jeff Mills imitators. "Festival Resurrection" doesn't always come together; but it takes chances. Five years from now, I predict that we'll all be imitating Festival. Alan D. Oldham - 30 March 1998 - Detroit