G. Behles and R. Henke 1999

Monolake is an open project dedicated to computer generated music, founded in 1995 by Robert Henke and Gerhard Behles. We were impressed and influenced by minimal techno music and drum&bass and at the same discovered the sonic richness and sophistication of academic computer music. These poles became the source and inspiration for our own creations.

Our first releases on the highly acclaimed Berlin techno label Chain Reaction, an offspring of Basic Channel, brought us some public attention. Due to our involvement with the Elektronische Studio der Technischen Universitat Berlin we also had the chance to do comissioned works for occations like "50 years of music concrete" and numerous other projects. The first Album from 1997, titled Hongkong, combined processed environmental sounds captured during the International Computer Music Conferernce 1996 in Hong Kong with synthesized timbres.


It became the blueprint for a specific Monolake style which is often permutating complex rhythmical structures interacting with rich textural elements, providing depth and color.

The second album, Interstate, released 1999 became the first Monolake release on Robert Henkes own label, imbalance computer music . While the music on Hongkong was still very much influenced by minimal techno and dub, Interstate was significantly more complex and more orientated towards micro-editing of sonic particles. This detailed manipulation of sound was possible due to self written software, realised in Max/MSP, which allowed us to create textures and rhythmical gestures impossible to achive elsewise.

[image on the right: Hong Kong 2000]


Gobi. The desert, a 34 minute epic track from 1999 was completly done in our own software, mostly Max/MSP but also with the beta version of Native Instruments Reaktor, since Gerhard Behles wrote the sampling and re-synthesis part of it. A bit later he started his own software company, Ableton, which I joined. The third album, Gravity, released 2000, brought the focus back towards dance music and the dark, noisy and atmospheric pieces exposed there made Monolake an often requested live performer in clubs. Cinemascope, 2002, stood in retrospective for a time of insecurity, both personal and in a general musical context. It contains a variety of great pieces, but lacks the coherence of the earlier works.

After 2000, everyone involved in electronic club music seemed to search for new ways of expression. Techno seemed to be dead and technology had nothing new to offer to compensation for the lack of inspiration. Cinemascope has been realised in a period of significant changes of production technique. A typical Monolake track created by Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke was the result of setting up a system of software and hardware which allowed us to use the studio as a real time instrument and "perform" with it. The results were endless recording sessions, later edited into pieces. This kind of workflow did not fit anymore when working alone. The production process and environment had to be re-thought.

While producing Cinemascope the studio changed every day, and every setup seemed to be inappropriate. At the end I took everything apart, and started to work at home with a laptop. The studio of the future: no studio?!

Momentum came out in 2003 and has been done in my appartment, mostly within the software Ableton Live, to which we added more and more features with in every version. It became the hub and center of my studio. Momentum was the first Monolake album I completely realised alone. The counterpart to Momentum was Signal to Noise [2004], an ambitious, serious work of sound art which included the piece Studies for Thunder, from which I later derived a multi channel performance piece.


At the same time, Monolake became again a more collaborative project, since Torsten 'T++' Proefrock, who also worked with me on some parts of Cinemascope joined the team. We started working on music which feels to us like the most exciting re-invention of the wheel since the beginning of the Monolake project. While providing the expected timeless flow of rhythm and sound, the underlying rhythmical structure and the sound design itself is very different. The result of our collaborative effort is Polygon_Cities, released in summer 2005.

[image left: T++ and R. Henke 2005]


From summer 2005 till the end of 2006, the development of the Monodeck II controller and writing music for future Monolake live performances took most resources. Also the Atlantic Waves performance series saw ongoing refinement of the sofware and remarkable performances at Tate Modern, London and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

[image right: Atlantic Waves performance at Tate Modern 2006]


2007 was dedicated to more art releated projects, like the Cyclone sound installation, the refinement of the Layering Buddha material into a mindblowing multichannel live performance, and more work on the Monolake liveset. Layering Buddha got recoginzed by the Prix Ars Electronica, Depeche Mode got a remix from us, and there were lots of concerts, including two mad improvisation sessions with Austrian composer Wolfgang Mitterer and video artist Lillevan. For the monolake website we came up with the Free Track of the Month and the Atom project started.