The One and Only Superpitcher Thread

* vast generalization that may not be true abroad

Here's an amusing bio:

Superpitcher grew up in the south of Germany, alone and lonely. He started to collect music at sixteen, seduced by the soft sounds of Prefab Sprout, Scritti Politti, and Roxy Music. Despite never having his interest encouraged, he learned to play both piano and guitar, and vowed to make tracks as soon as he could. He began to daydream. Pop would be his escape. Here was a parallel universe of sweet release, where being awkward and curious was rewarded and cherished. In his mind, he’d fallen to earth, without personal past or communal history. His arteries ran from his heart to the stars.

A decade later he moved to Cologne. He got a job working in the distribution department of a record label, Kompakt, and found new heroes, men that linked his sonic youth and adult aspirations. Wolfgang Voigt, Chain Reaction, Jorg Burger, and Air Liquide can each find their seed in the Superpitcher sound. In 2002, he decided to give up work, and forge a new nocturnal lifestyle. He increased his DJing, steadied his socialising, and perfected his producing. In his own words, ‘everything fitted together, and clicked into place’.

The Kompakt audience met Superpitcher on two superlative EPs. ‘Heroin’ contains freaky bleeps and frantic basslines, expansive electro vistas, heavenly acoustics, and sugar-sweet vocals. ‘Yesterday’ followed with waves of engulfing electronics, surging strings, and shimmering, glimmering techno. He continued to contort other people’s work into his own shapes - memorably drenching Carsten Jost’s ‘You Don’t Need a Weatherman’ in sweet birdsong - contributed tougher tracks to Kompakt’s ‘Speicher’ series, and adorned the Kompakt Extra imprint with six minutes of genre-defining brilliance: the glam-rocking, shaffel remix of Quarks’ ‘I Walk’.

‘Pitcher is a poster boy, an artist whose natural habitat is looking out at us from glossy pages. Dressed to kill but built to care, he is fearless and fragile, strong and shy, both confident and coy. His music is emotive; like setting your diary to a tender, melodic, and driving soundtrack. It has peaks and troughs, ups and downs, highs and lows. It equally evokes the feelings of surfing on endorphins, of never being more content, and crying alone on a bedroom floor, as low as you’ve ever been in your life. In a nightclub it sounds torrid and passionate, a mainline injection of soul and sex; the perfect backdrop to meeting a stranger, or devouring your lover.

In 2004, Superpitcher released his debut artist album. It begins with a haunting three-note chime, and ends in a yearning, angelic vocal. In between, it speaks of sadness, longing, craving, and infatuation: lazy, luststruck afternoons; rainy, unrequited nights; tragic vulnerability; and sickness-inducing desire. An aural spectrum of the deepest emotion. In tone, terms, and texture, it captures the sharpest edges of existence: feeling hopeless, helpless, and hapless; or excited, ecstatic, incited. It’s the stuff of dreams and nightmares, hopes and fears, symphonies and cacophonies. It’s about being human, needing someone, seeking completion. It’s called ‘Here Comes Love’.

Australian folk - this is good news:

Glitch presents Superpitcher (Kompakt, Germany)

Date: Sat 3rd Sep, 2005
Time: 10:00 pm
Venue: Bohem, 467 - 477 Pitt St, Sydney
City: Sydney
Cost: TBA

http://www.glitch.net.au

I'll actually be in Sydney that weekend, ostensibly for the Birchville Cat Motel/Sandoz Lab Technicians etc. gig that's on the same night, just down the road. I imagine I'll be hovering between the two. Any Sydney people going?

Is there going to be a show in Melbourne?

There fucking better be!!!

just talked to the publicist - apparently reinhard voigt's gonna head down under & mayer's returning!

are there any good superpitcher live sets floating around slsk & the like? haven't been listening to today too much - "lovefood" keeps sticking in my throat :(

(hmmn, if there's a melbourne show, maybe I could get some cheap trans-tasman tickets . . . oh, & birchville cat motel + sandoz lab technicians should play a show in AUCKLAND, geez)

tim! would you fly to sydney for this show if there's no melbourne?

Depends on what day of the week it was on and whether I can work my way out of Europe-related debt in time (or, as is more likely, I become comfortable with maintaining and expanding this debt).

I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't come to Melbourne though - I get the impression that the "scene" for this stuff is bigger here, and Spitcher at Honkeytonks is just too good a fit, ya get me.

Tim, care to enlighten someone whose newly moved from London to Melbourne re: what the clubs, and the 'scene', is like here? Was chatting to some friendly fellas in a record shop the other day - rhythm & soul? - and they suggested that Honky Tonks and Revolver would probably be my best bet. Apparently Michael Mayer played a killer set there recently(ish)? I take it their advice is spot on?

Yeah Tim, I must admit I'd be very surprised if Superpitcher didn't go to Melbourne as well - maybe it just hasn't been announced/ confirmed yet. Fingers crossed, I know many people in Melbourne who would be well keen.

Anyway, Superpitcher Sydney is on a Saturday night.

Is Deep Chord still going? I remember hearing that was a good place to go to in Melbourne. Adelaide has *nothing* of this ilk, from what I can tell (Electric Circus maybe, at a push.) Though if there are any Adelaideans out there who wish to correct me...

Superpitcher live @ Switch is the best live set I've found.

MAYER VOIGT SPITCHER NZ YAY. YAY. YAY. YAY.

----oh, & birchville cat motel + sandoz lab technicians should play a show in AUCKLAND, geez)

I disagree

"Tim, care to enlighten someone whose newly moved from London to Melbourne re: what the clubs, and the 'scene', is like here? Was chatting to some friendly fellas in a record shop the other day - rhythm & soul? - and they suggested that Honky Tonks and Revolver would probably be my best bet. Apparently Michael Mayer played a killer set there recently(ish)? I take it their advice is spot on? "

Ha ha Rhythm & Soul are evil: they put so much effort into servicing you and chatting you up that if you don't walk out with at least one record you feel immensely guilty (also a couple of the guys are quite cute which makes it worse).

Honkytonks is great yes, a weird intersection club actually insofar as on the one hand it's got the best music policy of any dance music club/bar I've been to in Melbourne, and on the other it still attracts more than its fair share of coked up young professionals and younger uni students or service indusry workers who want to be coked up young professionals. But then a lot of the time such people have decent taste in dance music... Anyway unlike many clubs afflicted with this, the combination of the music and the great layout and etc. makes it easy to ignore.

Some of the regular DJs at Honkytonks are part of Little Beasties who are a Music For Freaks act, and MFF is pretty indicative of the basic Honkytonks sound - disco/electro/microhouse with the emphasis on HOUSE. But the international acts they get playing there are more diverse, and basically all the big German artists and DJs play there - I missed the Mayer show cos I was on my way to Europe, but I've seen DJ T, Martini Bros, Captain Comatose, Hakan Lidbo etc. etc.

I think there are still Deep Chord and Liquid parties, which cater more for the post-prog crowd into deeper techier stuff (they're where you're most likely to hear e.g. Kompakt records in the DJ sets). And then there's a lot of interconnected parties playing more electro stuff - BPitchControl etc. Meccanoid's a big monthly one, and then there's another one at Revolver on Tuesdays and quite a few in North Melbourne it appears.

For the more crowd-pleasing electro-house sound Boogs is probably the most high-profile DJ in Melbourne - he plays a big night at the Lounge on.. Fridays I think? It's quite beery compared to the others which are all much more fashionista/trainspotter/freak-friendly, but it works really well - great to see drunken jocks sloshing their beer to Black Strobe etc.

I'm far from being an expert though as I don't go out nearly as much as I'd like to.

ha Tim whenever I visit Rhythm & Soul i feel like i have a personal assistant grafted to my hip. and i do always leave with a few records.

ANY word at all about superpitcher in melbourne?

Cheers for the comprehensive reply Tim. Yeah.. Rhythm and Soul are indeed friendly as fuck. One bloke even gave me his phone number and told me to give him a call if i ever fancy a pint. How's that for service? I'm used to being crucified by record shop staff for not being able to name the first 50 Strictly Rhythm cuts.. so makes a nice change.

2nd September at Honkytonks, bitches!

Who's with me?

You're either with me or against me.

So you're all against me then...

Australia is a little outside of my budget Tim!

seriously contemplating dropping into melbourne on 2nd sept on the way to sydney... maybe see you there tim?

Definitely! Drop me an e-mail (or call if you still have my number) if you can make it.

Michael I'll forgive you just this once.

Will do Tim. Can I give yr email to my friend Lou, she'll definitely be checking the 'pitcher and is well worth meeting up with...

ha, if I didn't have to pay an outrageous bond at the flat I'm moving to, I'd jump the ditch to see him again.

OMG Superpitcher is the most useless e-mail interviewee I've ever come across!

elaborate boy, or are you just mocking his lack of elaboration?

"elaborate boy, or are you just mocking his lack of elaboration? "

Well, exactly. He answered half my questions with e.g. "I don't really think about it much. I try not think too much. Don't think too much!" The self-referencing doesn't really make up for the total lack of elucidation. Ah well, I always resent having to include the actual interview in my articles anyway so it'll probably just make it easier.

tim! report! did he really join the dancefloor near the end?
(+ link to yr article if you've a chance!)

Yeah Tim what did you make of it? The Sydney set was brilliant. Was very impressed by his scarf-wearing capabilities (it musta been HOT up there.) Not so impressed with low attendance though.

my mum's knitting me a total 3 scarf!

also: um, anyone want to throw out sad trainspottery what-he-played stuff out there? i've been k-piecemeal w/my microhouse &c listening lately & any chance to get myself up to date at the last minute'd be fabulous.

i wasn't doing so much of the trainspotting but the mayer/aguayo "slow", mayer mix of "happiness"... umm... (it's all a blur... i flew into sydney earlier that day after a morning of marking essays, and had already gone to see birchville cat motel et al...) highlight for me was nathan fake's "dinamo" - shivers down the spine.

Let's Get Blown

His set in Melbourne was surprisingly straight-down-the-line tech-house (neither Speicher banging nor soft fluffiness and melancholy). The only tune I can remember recognising right now is the Dominik Eulberg remix of "Cosmic Sandwich".

I find it near impossible to remain energetic for sets that begin at 2am after working all week 8:30 - 6:30, so it meant that my enthusiasm was lower than it would otherwise have been - I ended up leaving at 3:30 rather than hang around depressed with my own inability to dance. It sounded good though!

I wish it was on NOW I was just dancing like a live Jesus!

PS Tim I read somewhere that the same ppl that brought Superpitcher down are also bringing Matthew Dear and Mathew Jonson out to Oz. Good news, but no-one in Adelaide is game so it looks like I will be doing a lot of travelling in the next while.

Yeah Mathew Jonson is playing Earthcore I think! But is doing side shows in Melb and Sydney. Sign ov the times.

More evidence: The local dance music boards were bursting with people saying "OMG Superpitcher!!" And when I was last in Mighty Music Machine they were playing Alcachofa and talking about those Villalobos pill overdose pics, then the guy behind the counter tried to upsell me the last Lawrence album, and then we started talking about Steve Barnes and My Best Friend.

"irre"! "knartz iv"! v.astute w/nz's general election next week "mandate my ass"! wb's "baby's on fire" (w/dance routine!)! finished w/the m83 remix! &c! I was an emotional wreck by the end . . . almost a religious experience, &c.

So other than Today and "Tell Me About It" on Total 6 and the M83 remix, what else has Superpitcher been involved with this year? Other than "Tell Me About It" he hasn't released anything that's not a mix or remix has he?

If you haven't heard it already, his remix of Hell's "Je Regrette Everything" is awesome.

Also the Tocotronic remix (with Wasserman) for Kompakt Pop, and the SuperMayer mix of Losoul on Playhouse.

Tim, did you check him at Sunny's on Saturday.. Brown Alley i think. Only heard he was playing about 30mins before set was due to start, rushed there just in time, but tequila wasn't conducive to the music, or my head, and i left v.soon after i got there... gutted. Any good?

I didn't know!!!

What are these villalobos pill overdose pictures?

They're just pictures of Villalobos looking particularly wasted and unwashed at some gig, is all.

I was in a record store the other day and one of the guys behind the counter was playing Alcachofa over the loudspeaker. He turned to the other guy working there and said, "Hey, this album is by the guy in those pictures." The other guy looked totally shocked, and I can't say I blame him!

These ones?

http://www.joy.gr/files/2005/7/29/146734/villalobos_des_monats.jpg

: (

he looks like a camel

: (

Hah, he just looks like me when I worked as a kitchenhand (or at least looks like I felt). Not helped by the backdrop which also looks like where I used to work.

This is how I choose to view him as:

http://www.discogs.com/release/6602

I'm pretty sure there is a better picture of that floating around ILM.

hahahaha he looks great

Superpitcher live set at Beats in Space, August 4, 2005 can be found here

http://www.beatsinspace.net/audio/2005/aug4/bis080405part1.mp3

Does anyone know who that fourth track is by? it's amazing.

Aaliyah :'(

(sorry, that wasn't an answer. must. leave. internetland.)

Superpitcher live set at Beats in Space, August 4, 2005 can be found here

http://www.beatsinspace.net/audio/2005/aug4/bis080405part1.mp3

Does anyone know who that fourth track is by? I've been playing it on repeat and I need to know who it is!