Glaskin are Ferdinand and Jonathan Bockelmann, two brothers from Munich, Germany. Jonathan and Ferdinand, when they were 12 and 13 years old, performed for the first time in public with their Metal Rock band Obsessed. This was not unusual, considering that, at home, music has always been in the air because their mother is a pianist. Jonathan first played the violin, then the electric guitar, Ferdinand the drums, and later, they went their separate ways. Jonas became a classical guitarist, Ferdinand took up the turntables, and the reason they are finally playing together is because they still share living space in their parents’ house, although they have stated more than once that “it was always clear to us that we wanted to make music together”.
In 2016, they recorded their first EP and became Glaskin. Also around that time, they became residents of the Kong Club in their hometown, and the following year, when it closed, they moved on to inhabit the booth of the legendary Blitz, where they continued to showcase their mastery.
In 2019, the brothers launched their own label, YAEL Trip, a label aimed at their own material as well as the performances of like-minded figures: the label’s first two EPs have featured two EPs on the label have featured remixes by Ryan James Ford and Marcel Fengler.
They are also part of the promotion team for the two Munich festivals Back to the Woods and Schall im Schilf, where they play regularly. Each festival attracts around 10,000 attendees. With a constantly evolving sound and a hectic release schedule, Glaskin will continue to develop as one of the hottest new acts on the German Techno and, of course, the Munich underground scene.
After a series of interesting releases in the form of EP´s on Hotflush Recordings and later on YAEL Trip, the time has come to bring his first full-length sound artefact to the public.
With Klaftertief, Ferdinand and Jonathan explore a broad sonic horizon that goes far beyond that of their previous work. The title refers to an old German word for a deep hole in the earth that is believed to be infinite, which is perfectly fitting for this debut album.
To label this work would be an almost impossible task… avant-garde techno, intelligent techno, IDM, with drops of electro and jungle… one could say that it is a portrait of the musical journey they have been on for the last few years, a still of influences and ideas, which has distilled a work absolutely free of artistic ties and conventions.
You can start with the quiet beauty of the title track, Klaftertief, or the sonic serenity of Hydrogroove II and move on to a Jungle landscape in the closing track, Forms. But if we want to enter into a sonic trance in the middle of a dancefloor in any club or festival, Galan or one of the tracks that came out as a preview of the album, the resounding Stalactite Cave (which received its deserved remix by Matrixxman in that preview EP), take us there perfectly.
“One day we’d be jamming on a synthesizer looking for an interesting, catchy line, and the next day we’d be cutting recorded samplers until they started making us dance in the studio. Most of the recording period was spent in front of our modular system. It gave us a lot of inspiration, a certain kind of randomness we were looking for and an overall effortless, joyful music making.”
“We always dreamed of composing our first full LP. It came naturally to us with the state we were in at the beginning of last year. The process was full of joy, as we didn’t set any kind of limits for ourselves. In terms of production, genre or time. It was the sheer joy of making music with a different musical configuration every day”.
Klaftertief will be released on November 12th, it can be pre-order now here
