Avant in the house

So, just who are Andreas Tilliander and Oliver Hacke?

 Stockholm-based Tilliander released several influential ambient-hip-hop records (dubbed click-hop) in the late 1990s and early 2000s on Germany’s Mille Plateaux and Raster-Noton labels, and makes grooving soundscapes as Mokira and new music under another pseudonym, Lowfour.

Tilliander has never played Detroit, but is excited to play in the “the capital of techno. As a teenager, I got into labels like Underground Resistance. I still like them very much.”

Hacke produced the critically acclaimed Subject Carrier, one of 2004’s best electronic dance LPs. His tracks are favored by the international DJ jet set, and his gorgeous “21:31” is one of the centerpieces on Superpitcher’s mix CD, Today.

Hacke, originally from Dusseldorf, is in grad school in the small town called Indiana, Pa. He says “life is different [here than in Germany] because cultural alternatives are either nonexistent or very far away.”

He’s working on a new EP, called Mid-Atlantic, which explores more recent European variations of house music.

Of current Detroit producers, he says he’s most interested in the avant-house style of Omar S and Kenny Dixon Jr.

“They feature an exciting roughness” in their music, Hacke says, “with such a sincere and precise hand, without ever getting cheesy or brutal. Many European producers do not understand this distinction.”