Sascha Funke - Halle Weissensee [Running Back]

Halle Weissensee (or Weißensee if you like) starts where Sascha Funke’s last EP for Running Back left off. Hypnotic house and techno music that intertwines classic forms with modern means and looks through the lenses of nostalgia with an open mind.

The Halle was a former engine plant in Berlin that became a rave area for the now legendary Mayday raves and one of the birth places and leading spots of the nineties. Coincidentally and unknowingly, the winter edition of 1993 was attended by both Funke and Gerd Janson, and a conversation about it gave birth to this record. Make no mistake: this is no retro rave party, but an homage to the spirit of the age, the possibilities of an imagined future and perhaps most of all, a residual glow. Whereas Reality (sounding like a Relief record if the label had been a subject at Bauhaus university) and the warped bleepiness of Halle Weissensee itself come closest to the actual sonic aesthetic of that very night, Fantasy conjures up the lingo of vintage New York deep house that is contemplative, while Puzzle evokes a notion of the same with the progressive prefix in place. Oftentimes, reality falls short behind fantasy, but every now and then, both complement each other very well.