Of course, if you want to define a genre with a track, you have to do something. And so Chris Liebing’s mining bombshell “The Real Schranz”, published in 1999, can also be seen as a declaration of intent to depict the so-called Schranz in all its cathartic, shockwave-like nature. Which is his right as a key co-inventor of this music. The onomatopoeic “Schranzen”, which a linguistically innovative acquaintance of Chris Liebings once introduced into the world as a synonym for “shredding”, goes back to the time when Liebing often stood behind the decks in Sven Väth’s Frankfurt club Omen. There he embodied the hardest of all techno styles.
In the mid and late 1990s, Omen regularly invited people to the cheerful “Birthday Schranz” with flyers. However, Liebing only really got his massive techno boards swinging in the rival club U60311, where he was always allowed to blast out all the evil spirits on Fridays.
He has long been able to do things completely differently, and not just as a DJ, but also as a producer. On “Burn Slow”, his 2018 debut for the venerable British record label “Mute” (Depeche Mode, New Order, Nick Cave), he develops a sinister, glowing sound together with film music specialist Ralf Hildentaschen. Here his exuberant powerhouse is contained in an almost ideal way and transferred into new spheres of elegance.
The result is the finest suspense numbers like “Novembergrey”, which, as a symbiosis of energy and grace, doesn’t lose an iota of its dark magic even in winter.
Chris Liebing, Saturday, December 9th, doors open at 11 p.m., Blitz Club, Museum Island 1, www.blitz.club