"Thinner number seventy-six brings you the ever diligent Pheek from Montréal with a collection of tracks that have been produced over the past 2.5 years. Two of those tracks have been produced with Benfay according to JPs stay at his place back in 2002, during his first european tour. The original track "Dub Trail" sees a remix by T-Polar, with whom Pheek played in Belfast early April. Other cooperational tracks with Jason Corder are on their way to end up with a CD release under the project belt "Social System", so Pheek's many project involvements reveal that a major part of his musical life is all about consortium! Speaking about, the latter project with Jason Corder recently saw their live debut on the Mutek Festival.
However, the tracks included on this EP are a bit older of date and gently reflect the time for when Pheek predominantely worked with pads in his minimal environments. Due to his involvement with hardware labels he lately produced more functional, more reduced stuff. But releasing these tracks that have been produced 2002-2004 reflect a time where Pheek has successfully started to get himself establish in the guild of the prolific cutting edge minimal producers, introducing a very own style, constructing variable minimal tracks with punching hi-pass bassdrums and mostly eerie effects. So, Consortium somehow closes the circle.
In March 2005 after finding his own outlet Archipel and numerous releases both on netlabels and hardware labels in the meantime, Pheek returned to play a healthy amount of gigs in the U.K. and Germany but also to find out about how recognition over here is going: "There's two things that were getting very important to me as I was travelling: I wanted to see what was the importance of Netlabels in the club scene and also, I wanted to see what is status of the minimal scene as well. I was pretty happy to realize that both are very well established and very healthy, but still small. I was very impressed how much people came to me because I was on various netlabels. Even though I was released on Minus or Contexterrior, I was thinking people would come to see me for that, but it was actually because I was one of the active netlabel producer at the moment. I also realised that people who are into netlabels are very knowledgeble, know a lot about music and are extremely passionate to get the latest thing available. That's very refreshing to see we're not working for nothing. From what I experienced, the vinyl releases seemed to give me a lot of credibility for DJs as for the netreleases got me a lot of supporters from people who love to browse and search for music online."
Having said that, the tour went pretty well and Pheek used the time for extensive networking, so he brought a lot of impressions back home to Canada: "I think meeting a lot of people in Europe made me feel like moving there as well. This is something that a few american artists did and I'm getting there. Somehow, I feel a bit isolated from a distant scene in which I feel I have a place and where I'm appreciated more than where I come from. We'll see by the end of the summer."
Being active in the music biz since many years now Pheek knows very well that the road to success is a long and windy one. We'll indeed see what happens but one thing for sure - Pheek carefully watches developments taking place and will take the right decision. Whereever he will decide to stay." (From the Thinner's release page)

"Initially the motivation behind our new compilation was to build a sequel to the 2003 'Silent Season Dub' compilation - to blend warm ambient with minimal dub concepts. But during the phasis of collecting tracks we figured that this compilation will turn out more experimental, more rough than than the reference. So we decided to put things into a new context, that would either underline the variety of concepts but also stand for each artists own formular of sound: 'Crossways'.
Herein, electronic music with rather minimal rhythmpatterns are crossed with spheric ambience, in different moods, different slopes and different colours. The listener is able to find warm ambient pieces like 'Warm Night Lullaby' by Transient or more dubbed out ambience with Zen Savauges 'Sunken Streetlights'. You can lose yourself in the organic cycles of Boris Heizmann's 'Azure' or drift along with 'Scrap of Truth' by Selffish. But If you feel like enjoying some darker felt material then you'd like to explore the realms of Sgnl_Fltr's chamber dub in 'All Form' by or listening to the crickets resting in Kenneth Kirschner's 'June 8, 2003 (excerpt)'. Generally said, if you're interested in the contemporary minimal electronics of 2005 you'll definately find the one or other piece within this compilation that will suit you fine.
As the music crosses the flash artwork of this releases does so, too - if you reload the page you'll figure changing background pictures of the cover artwork. The pictures were taken in several countries where Joerg (Digitalverein) has performed in a Thinner context. Note that this compilation is split into 3 parts, each part about 60 minutes of length. If you want to enjoy the compilation mixed then you can download the Crossways Mix by Selffish." (From the Thinner's release page)

"2005 starts with an rather unusual release for Thinner. Consisting of four gems, the 'Lighthouse EP' is a minimal vocal-house EP that might surprise for it's poetic song passages within the minimal house frame. This 3-tracker is the result of the first collaborative effort of the ever versatile Benfay with the irish singer Alice Mackay, currently residing in Scotland. Additionally Niels Jensen, one half of the Morris Audio/Trapez act 'Dialogue' remixes 'Jump' together with the Zurich DJ Eli Verveine.
Being experienced in working with singers before it wouldn't be asked too much of Benfay to work with a singer in the field of minimal house. Having studied the double-bass at the College of Music in Berne, Benfay is a creative composer who utilizes his many different influences of electronic and acoustic music while composing a song. Due to his many projects, ranging from clash poetry with Jürg Halter, where he uses to accompany with electronics, or the Drum n'Bass liveband 'Foxtrott', Benjamin Fay's versatility could never be reduced to one particular style. So, opening 2005 for Thinner it would be a good chance to walk on some new paths.
The three songs of the 'Lighthouse EP' have quite a story. Originally it was during Christmas 1999 when Benfay and Alice spontaneously recorded her songs in Dublin. Back home in Berne the songs got reworked. Alice liked the results but it would take another while until Benfay builds these three tracks upon her voice, cutting the sequences into parts and giving new meaning to them. The project will be continued as Benfay will travel to Scotland in February 2005 to record some new songs with Alice." (From the Thinner's release page)

"After Thinner's summer holidays we welcome the next batch of Thinner releases with a remix compilation for Benfays versatile warm summer breezed ambient/lounge/ dubhouse album "One Touch Button Music". Since Benfay is a long time Thinner artist and had presented a playful and decent album in April, we felt it would become an exciting experience to ask our artists for their point of view on his tracks.
This result "One Touch Button Remixes" is a compilation that features reinterpretations of the most wanted Thinner artists, moving in between the multiple genres of modern relaxed electronic music the original album had provided.
Mikkel Metal, recently showing up with a new 12" on Kompakt, opens up with a sticky chemical interlude of "Elfenblond", that loses the downbeats and creates glueing lava textures out of the sensitive original sounds. Thinner's Joerg Schuster, aka Digitalverein, prepared an exotic melange of the mellow ingredients "Segelflieger" provided, utilizing tricky dub beats instead of the linear programming of the original, while Joerg, being Lufth, did a deeply filtered mix with stargazing dub chords and lush snaredrums.
The easy-listening "Allein Unter Den Arkaden" received a concentrated transition by krill.minima, keeping the mellow emotionality of the original by directing the attention to the fragile riding cymbals and carefully placed fading melody dots.
Paul Keeley felt inspired enough to do two totally different remixes for "The Carribean Bar" - proving the diversity of the original material. His "Wet Coast Mix" is a shallow and soothing downbeat jam, while the "Starlight" mix features the clicky midnight deephouse spheres we use to get seduced by Paul.
The fairytale "Jack And Jill" seemed to be perfect source material for Thinner's latvian lounge specialist Selffish, whose reinterpretation turned out more dashing and windy in relation to Benfays work.
The steamy "Oak" received a Pheek treatment, whose beats are more earthy, with clever shifting beats and rattling percussions, while "Blüten-Konfetti" got reworked by TPolar, whose splatter houze bonus beats are foreground shaking, with the original pads fading over in the background .
Jason Corder, with his recent Thinner album in the backpack, did a stunning microhouse cut of "Flussbett", with californic filter sweeps and easy dubs. And our old friend from Switzerland, Niels Jensen, gave the subtle "Bluestone" his unique uplifting, yet carefully arranged pattern twist that shine through his hardware production skills.
The remixes by Dennis DeSantis and Mateo Murphy turned out floorfilling, concrete and late night essential tools with pounding hit potential. Enjoy!" (From the Thinner's release page)