Monosurround is a Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

-based electronic music

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...

 and live-act duo, formed in 1999. It is made up of Erik Schaeffer and Ramtin Asadolahzadeh. They have released successful EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

s and albums in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 on Vitalic

Vitalic

Vitalic is an electronic music artist. He was born in France and is of Spanish and Italian descent.-History:His first singles were released in 1996 and 1997, but were confined to the underground electronic music scene...

's record label Citizen Records since 2006. In 2010 they started their own record label called "MS Records" as a plattform for their music and the concept behind their "Maximalism

Maximalism

The term maximalism is sometimes associated with post-modern novels, such as by David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon, where digression, reference, and elaboration of detail occupy a great fraction of the text....

".

History

Ramtin Asadolahzadeh and Erik Schaeffer were introduced in Berlin in 1999. They started to work together in the same month. Their first joint project was the composition and co-production of music for the German cinema-releases Harte Jungs (2000) and Liebesluder (2000).

Combining their respective music influences, in the summer of 2001 Monossurround moved towards composing electronic music. Their first release in the same year “I warned you baby” was an immediate success, becoming the official festival anthem SonneMondSterne Festival 2002 in Saalburg

Saalburg

The Saalburg is a Roman fort located on the Taunus ridge northwest of Bad Homburg, Hesse, Germany. It is a Cohort Fort belonging to the Limes Germanicus, the Roman linear border fortification of the German provinces. The Saalburg, located just off the main road roughly halfway between Bad Homburg...

, Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

. The track samples the American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 singer Spanky Wilson

Spanky Wilson

Spanky Wilson is an American soul, funk and jazz vocalist, born in Philadelphia. She lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA until 1967 and then moved to Los Angeles, California, USA...

.

Through the success of “I warned you baby” connections arose between Monosurround and their peers. They remixed many artists including Sono, Phil Fuldner, Da Hool, TISM Northern Lite and Glamour to Kill. They were simulataneously remixed by artists including The Gigler, Shir Khan, The Raccoon Brothers, DJ SPUD and Malente.

At that time, parallel to regular live performances, Monosurround started working on their first studio album, Hello World. In 2004 the duo stopped performing live in order to concentrate their energies on the development and production of the album.

The EP Borschtchick was released in Germany in 2005 through Moonbootique Records owned by Moonbootica. In January 2006 the Cocked, Locked EP was released on techno DJ Vitalic’s record label Citizen Records in France. This EP includes the tracks “Borschtchick” and “Cocked, Locked and Ready to Rock”.

Having successfully released these EPs into the French market in 2006 and 2007, Monosurround played live again alongside acts such as Vitalic

Vitalic

Vitalic is an electronic music artist. He was born in France and is of Spanish and Italian descent.-History:His first singles were released in 1996 and 1997, but were confined to the underground electronic music scene...

 and The Hacker

The Hacker

Michel Amato, better known by the stage name The Hacker, is a French electroclash and techno producer who has worked extensively with Miss Kittin. His work has been influenced by Electro artists like Kraftwerk, New Wave artists such as The Cure and Depeche Mode, as well as the French rave scene of...

.

The album Hello World was released across different countries at the end of 2008: France in September, Germany in November, and Japan in December.

Style

The Monosurround sound has changed greatly since its formation in 1999. Azadolahzadeh and Schaeffer come from different musical backgrounds: 1960s and 1970s soul funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, and techno

Techno

Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...

 and classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 respectively. Their first two years together saw performances including up to nine instrumentalists on stage playing 1960s crossover big beat

Big beat

Big beat is a term employed since the mid-1990s by the British music press to describe much of the music by artists such as The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, and Propellerheads typically driven by heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns in...

.

In 2001 a notable change in their sound occurred. Azadolahzadeh and Schaeffer moved towards electronic music in their composition, bringing their sound closer to electronic dance music

Electronic dance music

Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...

 and techno

Techno

Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...

.

The major stylistic turning point came in 2003 with the creation of their track “We”. The signature sound from this point onwards combined epic vocal/choral textures with hard industrial noises. These features of the music bear comparison to the Justice (French band)

Justice (French band)

Justice is a French electronic music duo consisting of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay . The duo is one of the most successful groups on Ed Banger Records and is managed by the label's head, Pedro Winter...

 sound which arose at the same time.

From this point onwards Azadolahzadeh and Schaeffer worked under the self-imposed description “maximalism

Maximalism

The term maximalism is sometimes associated with post-modern novels, such as by David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon, where digression, reference, and elaboration of detail occupy a great fraction of the text....

”. This theme motivates their music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, artwork

Work of art

A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...

, and philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 behind their work.

Festival appearances

Through their relationship with Citizen Records, Monosurround have played alongside Vitalic and The Hacker at Les Plagess festival in France, 2006 and 2007. This tour with Vitalic continued on to Barcelona to play the Razzmatazz complex in 2007. Their last big festival appearance was Sónar

Sónar

Sónar is an annual three-day music festival held in Barcelona, Spain. It is described officially as a festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art. Music is by far the main aspect of the festival....

 festival 2008, playing alongside The Hacker.

Trivia

Early in 2008, the bottled mineral water

Mineral water

Mineral water is water containing minerals or other dissolved substances that alter its taste or give it therapeutic value, generally obtained from a naturally occurring mineral spring or source. Dissolved substances in the water may include various salts and sulfur compounds...

 brand Perrier

Perrier

Perrier is a brand of bottled mineral water made from a spring in Vergèze in the Gard département of France. The spring is naturally carbonated...

used the track “Cocked, Locked, and Ready to Rock” in a TV advertising campaign in Germany. Since early 2010 Monosurround release their music on their own label MS Records. MS Records dedicated it's work to release and spread maximalistic music.

Discography

Albums

2007 Early Days (Layb - Berlin Artists)

2008 Hello World (Citizen Records)

2010 Hello World (MS Records)

Maxis and EPs

2002 I Warned You Baby (1st Decade Records)

2002 I Warned You Baby - Remixes (Superstar Records)

2002 I Warned You Baby (Superstar Records)

2003 Creepy Guys EP (1st Decade Records)

2003 Bo Bullet mini EP (1st Decade Records)

2003 Bo Bullet EP (1st Decade Records)

2004 We EP (1st Decade Records)

2005 Borschtchick (Moonboutique Records)

2006 Cocked Locked EP (Citizens Records)

2006 Cocked, Locked, Reading to Rock (Hammarskjöld)

2008 Cocked, Locked Ready to Rock – Summarized (Citizen Records)

2010 Hello World [Remixed] (MS Records)
2010 "All Night Long" (MS Records)
2011 "REworks" (MS Records)

Remixes

2002 TISM - Defecate On My Face (TISM)

2002 Neonman - Future Is Pussy (1st Decade Records)

2003 Northern Lite - MyPain (1st Decade Records)

2003 Sono - Heading For (Island Zeitgeist Records)

2003 Phil Fuldner - Never Too Late (Kosmo Records)

2004 Glamour To Kill - Shake Your Body, Baby (Pale Records)

2005 Da Hool feat. Jackie Bredie - Bow Down (Kosmo Records)

2006 Electrixx - SecondLesson (Hadshot Haheizar)

2007 ProCon - Delia (Cochon Records)

2008 Mokkasin - Elazerhead (LeGrain Records)

2009 Depeche Mode - Peace

2010 Music To Drive Tanks To - Granite Eyes

2010 Mujik - Arma Mortal

2011 Nixu Zsun - Exploring Bulgaria