Pole

Tanzboden 12″ EP Out Now

“A delicate swell assumes the haunted feel of unexplainable ennui.”- The Wire

Pole (aka Stefan Betke) releases Tanzboden today, a 2-track 12” out on Mute on vinyl and digitally.

Listen to ‘Tanzboden’:

The 12” originates from a series of loops created during the recording sessions for his first new album for Mute in over 15 years, Fading, which was released in November 2020. Fading was about loss of memory and how memory disappears over the years as we grow older, and these loops were discovered when Betke had returned to the original recordings. He explains, “I began working in my Berlin Studio, doing research and listening to the single recording sessions of Fading to remember what I did exactly and to find out what I think about the recording months after finishing it.”

Stefan Betke continues, “Tanzboden is an old fashioned word for a dancefloor constructed during the harvest time, mostly outdoors, and Rost is the German word for rust which is an interesting connection to Tanzboden. If the dancefloor is not really used for a long time anymore it starts to rust, and as the screws and metal plates which are holding the wooden parts together disappear slowly over the years, so does the Tanzboden itself.”

Buy Tanzboden: https://mute.ffm.to/tanzboden

The two tracks both link back to Fading and at the same time mark the beginning of new recordings. “Listening to them with a new album in mind, I liked them even better!”

Listen to ‘Rost’: https://youtu.be/oQrwLigp54Y

Fading followed the reissues of Pole’s groundbreaking trilogy 1 2 3 in spring 2020.

RECENT PRAISE FOR FADING

MOJO 4/5* – “…gorgeous, enveloping music”

THE WIRE – “Little pops and glitches directly reference his earlier work, but Fading has a much fuller sound, with a feel for forward movement.” –

UNCUT 8/10* – “…eight immaculately sculpted soundscapes”

PITCHFORK –  “a masterfully melancholy lament that takes his signature crackle and pop into unsettling new terrain”

RECENT PRAISE FOR 1 2 3

THE OBSERVER Artist of the Week – “calming abstract minimal genius” – 5*

THE WIRE “Some of the most suggestive and poetic electronic music of its time.”

MOJO Reissue of the Month – “There’s no surface, all depth: magic, emphatically, happens”

UNCUT – “Stefan Betke’s totemic dub trilogy still songs as though he conjured these ghostly recordings out of the ether, an act of studio sorcery never to be repeated.”

POLE ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY

1 (1998)

2 (1999)

3 (2000)

R (2001)

Pole (2003)

Steingarten (2007)

Wald (2015)

Fading (2020)

www.pole-music.com

www.mute.com