About

If you’ve placed a finger on the pulse of electronic music at any point over the last five years, it’s safe to say you’ll have encountered Apparat in one form or another. Sascha Ring, the Berlin artist who records under that name, has been a restless force in contemporary electronic music for a decade. In that time he’s released three acclaimed Apparat albums – the fourth, The Devil’s Walk, arrives in the autumn of 2011 – and performed his intense live show in front of thousands at clubs and festivals around the world. Apparat inspires a passionate following, to say the least: in just a few weeks, Sascha’s new track “Ash/Black Veil” has notched up 90,000 plays on Soundcloud.

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Broadly speaking, Sascha, a tousle-haired, slightly dandyish figure and an expert programmer, produces richly textured, emotional electronica and heavy sci-fi soul. The missing link between Steve Reich and Radiohead, Apparat brings the kind of euphoric melancholy that impels you to punch the air with joy while tears stream down your cheeks. “The only thing you can do with the records I make is to try to somehow move people, to make them feel something,” says Sascha.

The Devil’s Walk, its title a nod to Shelley’s 1812 satirical poem of the same name, is the album on which Sascha grows up and raises his game. Having released his earlier records on cult electronics label Shitkatapult, where he worked for a number of years, this album is his first for Mute. And if his last one, 2007’s Walls, hinted at a move away from the heat of the dancefloor, The Devil’s Walk, with its cool, contemplative dream-pop and bruise-tender Sigur Rós texture, makes that explicit.

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To some, Sascha will be better known as a member of Moderat, the gonzo electro supergroup consisting of him and his maverick pals Modeselektor. Their longheld Berlin bromance produced an acclaimed album in 2009, and in March this year Moderat played the last show of a riotous world tour at the Bloc Weekend festival. Thom Yorke adored that record and invited Moderat to support Radiohead. Others might recall, back in 2006, the dizzy synths of Orchestra of Bubbles, Sascha’s tuneful collaboration with fellow Berlin producer Ellen Allien. – Mute