Bio taken from
the G-Stone Recordings official website.
So who are Kruder & Dorfmeister?
Well, basically two guys mainly known through their successful dj-sets and a
respectable record of vinyl-releases since 1993. A dubplate-melting factor from
Vienna. Two producers/djs/remixers whose distinctive trademark sound is at most
times extremely mellow, has a lot of bass, downbeat tracks and a sense of epic
soundscapes. There might be the occasional double-time breaks and the heavy
and deep typically viennese feeling.
Consider K&D to roam in their own, unique realm of musical beutekunst that owes
and gives a lot to rare funk tunes, electric jazz arrangements, the feeling
of deep soul, hiphop, dub, reggae, ambient, fusion, brazil, chansons, dope beats
and drum+bass and still a lot more influences that happen to find the interest
of the two austrians.
At a time when hip hopbeats started to emancipate themselves from the rapping
and everyone started to pay highest attention to the blooming breakbeat scene
in the UK, K&D broke through out of nowhere with one 4-track e.p. (G-stoned)
that featured a hypnotic track called High Noon and a cover that showed the
dj-duo in true Simon & Garfunkel form, straight out of Richard Avedon anno 1969.
The impact was massive, especially since the first wave of enthusiasm came from
the UK where musical imports from the continent are seldom appreciated. Gilles
Peterson played the track at first on his famous now called Worldwide-show.
Gathering momentum with support from people like Wall of Sounds Mark Jones and
tracks for fellow Austrians Count Basic or strange people like William Orbit,
the further story of K&D and Richard's Tosca project is well documented on various
compilations and twelve inch releases. They met people like the Ninja tune posse,
touched base with the leftfield dance, befriended Munich's Compost crew, remixed
artists as diverse as Bomb the bass, Bones thugs & harmony, Alex Reece, United
Future Organisation, Rockers Hifi (the K&D version was used in the video of
"Going under"), Lamb, Roni Size, Depeche Mode and dj-ed in more clubs than you
would care to count.
Be it their self-produced tracks or the sound of their remixes, the K&D symptomatic
feeling of lush european loungcore-dub pervaded all swift changes of the triphop
hype and survived as a highly personal expression that found easy access into
the world of drum&bass when the breakbeats became soulful.
Their regular presence in the club circuit, a characteristic side effect of
their consistant travelling as djs, made them well-received guest at the various
crossing of an international beat-set that took them from Vienna to London,
to the American Westcoast, to Germany and back, with a tightly packed dj-bag
full of remixes tracing their steps.
A mix-CD compilation, DJ-kicks, for german label studio K7 marked a relevant
change in the overall concept of K&D or rather in the way the audience seemed
to take them in. From being well-respected underground heroes they had emerged
to be full fledged media-celebrities in the music-press whose mix-CD was so
excellently mixed and selected, that many new fans were attracted all over the
world.
K&D are maybe something like the continental answer to the british breakbeat
or the american illbient scene, but then again their musical imprint is outernational
anyway. They could achieve the special abstract global reputation that makes
them neighbours to RockersHifi, Fila Brazilia, Howie B., DJ Shadow, the wordsound
collective, Coldcut or the Thievery corporation in a virtual neighbourhood of
twekwando-ing beatmeisters.
But, with a number of prolific dj-dates of K&D all around the world and the
production and releases of two Tosca CD's of Tosca, a remix for Gregory Isaacs
for the tribute remix compilation of dub-classics on Island records, and a remix
for Madonna's single Nothing really matters, it seems unavoidable that there
will be a lot of talk about Peter Kruder & Richard Dorfmeister.