Das Spezial
This is Das Spezial. An esoteric endeavour caught somewhere between clandestine, circuit-melting, brain-frying experiments with control voltage and the sensory overload of a pupil-dilating main stage spectacle. Across a network of studios, this amorphous hive mind collective are obsessively pursuing sounds unseen and art unheard.
The roots of the project lie on the South Coast of the UK and a pre-ordained path into production for electronic music lifers and kofte obsessives Shahab Notghi and Lloyd Miles. With the winds of fate behind them and sporting an unhealthy fixation on the psychoactive potential of West Coast synthesis, high-end signal chains and Max MSP, Notghi and Miles are world-building on a molecular and macro level. Each track contains an ecosystem in itself, teeming with chaotic communities of signals, and every track feeds into a broader picture which sounds as complex as a four-hour re-generating patch on a 200e getting refracted through a stick of nabat chuby.
Growing beyond the nucleus of Notghi and Miles’ creative vision, Das Spezial continually evolves as a collaborative endeavour which has thus far introduced the likes of Stew Jackson (Massive Attack, Phantom Limb) and mix engineers Ewan Pearson and Bruno Ellingham into the fold. Their work takes in studios in Bournemouth, London and Bristol – tooled-up labs with the necessary girth to realise the scope of the vision-Spezial.
The sound evolves in kind, with Das Spezial heading in the direction of cinematic set pieces with enough presence to fill any main stage or auditorium you fling it at. Miles’ experimental Dot. alias follows up on 2021 LP The Doctor Oedipus Complex, running in tandem with a new more dancefloor oriented project. The club dimension of the project sees connections forged with leading lights on the experimental side of beat-propelled music, as remixers such as Bruce, Low Jack, Etch, Lakker, Tim Reaper and Matrixxman all inject their own maverick serum