Various Artists - Monika Werkstatt [Monika Enterprise]

Released via Gudrun Gut's very own label Monika Enterprise in mid-June, 2k17 is "Monika Werkstatt", a seventeen track showcase compilation which sprung from a collective gathering and workshop throughout which all the featured artists and musicians like Gudrun Gut herself, Pilocka Krack, AGF, Sonae, Lucrecia Dalt, Barbara Morgenstern and many more met somewhere in the German nowhere of the Uckermark to collaboratively record sounds and soundscapes, voices and musical foundations which were later polished, finished and re-arranged by other members of the group to give them their final form and structure. The results are - as one might have guessed from the array of artists involved - as diverse as homogenic at the same time, incorporating Electronica as well as more of a SloMotion House approach and pure sonic experimentation beyond genre borders, all covered in a thick portion of blurred, autumnal melancholia and mostly touching the more or less vocal sporting edge of the genre often referred to as Indietronica at one point or the other. Highlights to be found here are Lucrecia Dalt's 4/4-focused slomo effort "Blindholes",  the tripping, captivating, robotic yet ethereal Electronica Hop of Gudrun Gut's "Repetition" and the deep Acid Phonk of  Pilocka Krach's "Who's Afraid Of Justin Bieber", obviously paying homage to one of Michael Jackson's biggest hits in a clever, tongue-in-cheek manner whereas AGF's "Ninjaness" (ab)uses a take on dry, mechanical UltraPhonk inspired by both Clicks'n'Cuts as well as Rhythm Industrial to drive advanced dancefloors crazy for a reason and Sonae's "Witchcraft" combines Clicks'n'Cuts with a haunting Deep Listening approach. Varied, yet interesting.

Album artwork on Instagram!