{"id":112315,"date":"2026-06-19T18:10:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T18:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/112315\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T18:10:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T18:10:24","slug":"answer-code-request-halo-%c2%b7-album-review-%e2%9f%8b-ra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/112315\/","title":{"rendered":"Answer Code Request – Halo \u00b7 Album Review \u27cb RA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Answer Code Request – Halo \u00b7 Album Review \u27cb RAThe Berlin producer picks up where his 2018 LP Gens left off, wringing extreme feeling from techno’s austere templates.Patrick Gr\u00e4ser, AKA Answer Code Request, was one of the defining producers of Berghain’s second generation. First emerging<\/a> in the early ’10s, Gr\u00e4ser was producing industrial-strength techno influenced by the hardcore continuum, serving Berlin techno with a twist of UK rave and ’90s IDM. <\/p>\n

As a resident of the Berlin club, he was an heir apparent to mentor Marcel Dettmann\u2014only instead of Dettmann’s penchant for EBM and new wave, it sounded like Gr\u00e4ser had spent formative years clubbing on Fridays during the Sub:stance heydays. The pair of records he released during that period\u20142014’s Code<\/a> and 2018’s Gens<\/a>\u2014remain high watermarks of the Ostgut Ton catalogue. <\/p>\n

New LP Halo picks up where Gens left off. The synth work alternates between chillout tent comedown and Japanese-school psychedelia, where the melodies seem to twist and turn in on themselves. The sweeping chords on “Shine Deep” are borderline too celestial, but just when we’re about to drift off into the ether, Gr\u00e4ser spices up the break with a kick drum that sounds lifted out of a Shed record. <\/p>\n

The title track, on the other hand, hews closer to something DJ Nobu might play. “Halo” starts with what sounds like an army of buzzing cybernetic mosquitos trapped in a closet seeking out blood, before unleashing a closed hi-hat and freewheeling bassline halfway through. It transforms the track into a proper barnstormer, as well as being a callback to an era-specific Berlin techno sound. <\/p>\n

Gr\u00e4ser remains able to infuse a wide range of emotional depth into the austere templates of techno. There’s plenty of that across Halo (see also the Autechre synth squiggles and syncopated groove on “Bliphar”). But he also pushes himself out of his comfort zone: “D-Fracture” is like listening to a techno remake of Ed Rush and Optical’s dark drum & bass classic, Wormhole, as the creeping feedback consumes the stereo field like a horror movie garbage disposal. <\/p>\n

The opener, “Fading Shadows”, also lets Gr\u00e4ser write the Selected Ambient Works song he’s always wanted (in fact, the track might be even better without the kick drum that eventually does come in). These aren’t necessarily new tricks, but a sign that Gr\u00e4ser isn’t resting on his laurels just yet. <\/p>\n

Times have changed since Gr\u00e4ser first released music, when Berghain and Ostgut Ton represented a sonic vanguard. The club is no longer the musical weathervane it once was, even as it remains a cultural flashpoint. But it’s also true that the Berghain sound was never monolithic. <\/p>\n

Nostalgia might have us all imagine it was cold, steely minimalism from Saturday to Monday afternoon, but things were always weirder. Hell, just listen to Dettmann’s jump cut to Kevin Saunderson’s “Just Want Another Chance” on Berghain 002<\/a>, or go to a recent REEF party for that matter. Gr\u00e4ser, in this sense, embodies the club’s more wide-ranging ethos. While Halo may not represent the future of techno, it still showcases one of the best producers of the past 20 years. Tracklist01. Fading Shadows
\n02. Shine Deep
\n03. Refraction
\n04. Halo
\n05. Dissolution
\n06. Instate Air
\n07. D-Fracture
\n08. Bliphar
\n09. Sublith
\n10. Silent Currents<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Answer Code Request – Halo \u00b7 Album Review \u27cb RAThe Berlin producer picks up where his 2018 LP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[7445,112,56454,4531,190,56455,51540],"class_list":["post-112315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-album","tag-berlin","tag-delsin","tag-english","tag-germany","tag-idm","tag-techno"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116778121770648050","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}