- From post-punk to modern electronics with a Berlin maverick, live in conversation at MUTEK.
- Dance music fans evangelise Berlin's '90s techno scene but the city's geniale dilletanten subculture is just as significant. Gudrun Gut was one of its architects from the late '70s but this period only marked the beginning of a career that spanned the city's later musical evolutions. Her Eisengrau shop in Schöneberg was a focal point for key Berlin underground figures, and, besides being an early member of Einstürzende Neubauten, she soon founded Mania D. and Malaria!, two landmark acts in German post-punk history. While she'd always used synthesisers in her music, the emergence of techno in the '90s helped provide the context for her Ocean Club project, a rotating cast of collaborators producing music, events and radio that counted Blixa Bargeld, Danielle de Piciotto and Thomas Fehlmann among its ranks.
Significantly, her Monika label and collective of female artists prefigured the modern-day rise of musicians organising around gender representation. But as we hear in this conversation with RA's Andrew Ryce recorded live at MUTEK festival, this sort of attitude has come naturally to Gut for decades. Despite the changes she's witnessed, authenticity runs through everything she does.
The RA Exchange is also available on Spotify.
TracklistMalaria! - Geld / Money
Mania D. - HERZschlag