Voneuen's video: Kareem - Porto Ronco

Porto Ronco ( 2013, The Death Of Rave ) - Following on from a vinyl issue of Mark Leckey's "Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore" and an EP by Powell, The Death of Rave presents the first longform, beat-less composition by Patrick Stottrop aka Kareem. Since 1996 the Berlin-based artist has produced nearly 20 singles and albums for both his Zhark Recordings and Ramadan labels, Kanzelramt's K2 0 subprint, and Paris's Fondation Sonore, forging a strong identity split between uncompromising industrial techno and RZA-like instrumental hip hop, all with a blackened streak of gothic finesse. Following a hiatus during the late '00s, in 2012 Kareem was prompted by the death of a relative and the need to retreat, spiritually and mentally, into writing 'Porto Ronco'. Borrowing its title from a village by Lake Maggiore on the Swiss/Italian border where his grandfather bought a house in the '60s as refuge from potential war, and "in case the Soviets would march into Berlin", it manifests marked detachment and evolution from his previous work, abandoning all but traces of rhythm to concentrate and expand upon the downcast atmospheres and brutalist structures which always lurked behind his beat-driven compositions. In doing so, it implies intrinsic psychogeographic and hauntological resonance between the place and the piece, opening a space for stoic sehnsucht, elegiac reflection in classic tradition. The original piece (available here as a bonus MP3 album bundled free with the vinyl) is an unabridged 45 minute composition, but Kareem also made this 30 minute edit split over two sides of this LP. Primed for sequestered solo listens, for us, it captures an elusive Berlin spirit which has been lost with successive tides of weekending dunces in the Easyjet age; a metaphysical feeling or spectral presence that has long lain brooding in the city since Conrad Schnitzler's earliest invocations and since percolated everywhere from Christina Kubisch's radiant electromagnetic recordings to the gothic industrialism of Einstürzende Neubauten, thru the monotone ecstasy of Basic Channel and the etheric romance of Leyland Kirby in his Friedrichshain period. Ultimately it's a deeply personal piece of work bound to capture the imaginations of depleted ravers in the after after-hours and is perhaps best reserved for those times when you've just got to crack the glass and evacuate your world, albeit for only 3/4s of an hour. New upload, higher quality.