B I O G R A P H Y

 

The vigorous, freshly polished generator has found a new home; its batteries are full of juice: Air Liquide, the electronic institution with heart, soul and a boundless joy of playing let their freshly gained energy flow into a new extension of their border-crossing concept. Their current (and twelfth) album "Let Your Ears Be the Receiver" is closer to the audience, as well as to the real club philosophy, than each release before, because Cem Oral (Jammin' Unit, Berlin) and Ingmar Koch (Dr. Walker, Cologne) installed their recording equipment in the centre of the dancefloor of their own club!

For both masterminds musical limitations never have existed, just as little as the live performer's distance to the crowd. For Air Liquide the stage has always been where the exchange of energy takes place. The project has been founded in Frankfurt, Germany in 1991 as a platform within the so-called "New Frankfurt Electronic School" (to which Khan and Joerg Burger alias Bionaut, Burger/Ink, The Modernist, Trinkwasser belonged as well, among others) to check out the limits between sound design, experiment and public reaction. Shortly after, they surprisingly realized that the supposed boundary is rather representing an energetic connecting line between performer and consumer – therefore a perfect base for the ultimate collective freak-out.

Air Liquide's powerful, multi-dimensional sound mix reflects the enormous sum total of both musicians' experience. Continuously they have opened to a great variety of styles and to new electronic trends to become a stylistic trademark and trend setters themselves at the same time, who mark their claim on the international music stages. Not in vain the British 'New Musical Express' bestowed the unbeatable and unapplicable title of nobility "first electronic supergroup since Kraftwerk" upon them in 1995. Rightfully indeed, because in the same year, after Dr. Walker had a look at the EMI catalogue, he succeeded in convincing the shut down cult label Harvest to initiate its re-re-relaunch by signing Air Liquide. Already since the Sixties Harvest had helped supergroups like Deep Purple, E.L.O., Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, and since the late Seventies New Wave celebrities like BeBop Deluxe, Saints and Wire to gain international success.

The activists Jammin' Unit and Dr. Walker constantly re-invest money and energy in the cycle of their dazzling productions. Their live sets work the same way: they absorb the audience's reaction bubbling over with enthusiasm to directly distill it to a musical essence of intensity, which even lets a floor of steel pulsate like an accelerated animal heart. The wonder dance drug out of Air Liquide's laboratory is certified "all club tested 'class A' production": in the course of the past years it has been successfully applied to the finest clubs and the most popular festivals worldwide during several hundred concerts.

Air Liquide's home club and place of production for "Let Your Ears Be the Receiver" is Dr. Walker's own Club Camouflage located in Cologne, which in the meantime he has affiliated the comfortable artist hotel 'Monte Christo' to, that offers a unique, custom-made service to the special demands of travelling DJs and producers. Furthermore he had played a decisive organizational role in the legendary living room club Liquid Sky, as well as in the festivals Battery Park and Electro Bunker Cologne. Since years the live sets within the scope of Air Liquide's party series "Bassphemic Village" attract a constantly growing community of fans and convinced club patrons. Chummy acts are invited to mutually throw the electricity from their machines at each other. Guests have been Autotune, FM Einheit (Einstuerzende Neubauten), Christopher Just, Michael Rother (Cluster, Kraftwerk, NEU!), Arno Steffen (Triumvirat), Tok Tok and Helmut Zerlett (Phantom Band), among others. On various tours further great performers like Craig Anderton, Coldcut, Holger Czukay (Can), Ill Niño, Khan, Kid Congo Powers (Nick Cave Band, The Cramps, Gun Club) and Tolga provided support.

Apart from eleven albums and countless 12"EP releases Air Liquide have produced remixes for the following artists, among others: The Bionaut, Can, Holger Czukay, EMF, FM Einheit, Die Haut, Thomas P. Heckmann, Public Enemy, The Shamen, Vapour Space. A remix order for the Wu Tang Clan could be achieved, after Warner Germany had noticed the Pharma label which has been managed by Jammin' Unit and Kerosene to mainly realize their individual, abstract vision of Hip Hop.

 

Film scores/ music contributions have been commissioned for:

"Wolffs Revier"
(SAT 1 TV crime serial; Germany, 1992)

"Der Verhuellte Reichstag"
(documentary by Wolfram und Joerg-Daniel Hissen about Christo's sensational art performance "The Covered Reichstag"; Berlin, 1995)

"Synthetic Pleasures"
(documentary by Iara Lee about advanced technologies; USA, 1996)

"Modulations"
(documentary by Iara Lee about the history of electronic music; USA, 1998)

"Virtual Vampire"
(TV production by Michael Busch; Germany, 1999)

"Klassenfahrt"
(feature film by Henner Winkler; Germany, 2002)

"Riff Dancer"
(chill-out documentary by Alexander Gorny; Germany, 2002)

"Theme from 'Ecosystem' "
(festival; Brazil, 2002)

"Robot Wars"
(famous international robot wrestling spectacular; San Francisco)

"A Place of No Heart"
(Hybrid Art Project by Rika Ohara, feat. Ingmar Koch as an actor; USA)

Dr. Walker has just sold his first script – a gangster epic set in Cologne in the mid 70es. When producing the film "The Studio!" (Europe, 2005) he will be responsible for idea, script, co-directing, musical direction and as an actor, all in personal union. Air Liquide will produce the soundtrack from December 2003.