Thomas Brinkmann is one of the great producers of Techno music and modern dance music, and of late 20th and 21st century experimental art more generally. He studied art at the Düsseldorf Arts Academy, and his music has conceptual and intellectual origins and inspirations that continue from that time. But Thomas Brinkmann is also a Soul Man and a fan boy. Soul is a key aspect of much of his oeuvre, and certainly that represented here. A combination of a love of intellectual art theory and art practice and of Black American Soul music provide the underpinnings of much of his music; certainly that made for the dance floor, which this retrospective focuses on. Yet his music is not imitation or mimicry. Although intellectual in his approach, he draws on experiences of his own and others, often at the physical, topographical and psychological perimeters of life and death to create his own bona fide soul music. From these experiences, both engendered and accidental, he has produced some of the finest, funkiest groove music recorded or played live.
Thomas Brinkmann is fiercely independent, with an integrity and agenda that has occasionally clashed with the more louche or lax Techno and dance music worlds, both with peers and the media circus. Despite these frictions, respect for his work is almost unanimous. Never one to suffer fools or charlatans, he cuts a singular path. Nevertheless, he is often inspired by, and very open to collaboration with like-minded artists; not only musicians but also visual artists, sculptors and photographers; particularly those like himself who like to experiment and challenge perceptions. This chimes with his perception of the dance floor not as a hedonistic space, but as something attractive because it is inherently unstable with unpredictable outcomes. Themes like these motivate much of his work.
He initially gained notoriety in the experimental electronic music and Techno community for his full-length ‘variations’ (his description) of material by Mike Ink and Richie Hawtin. The variations were made by playback of the original artist records on a turntable of Brinkmann's design, which has two tone arms with separate outputs for left and right channels. The turntables were then pitched down from 33rpm to 27rpm and the results recorded and mixed. Both Ink and Hawtin were sufficiently impressed they released the results on their own labels in 1997 and 1998, respectively.
Since then he has produced some all-time classic dance tracks, many of which are collected here, in what is a personal selection by Thomas Brinkmann himself. More recently, he has been eschewing the dance floor as an aspect of his artistic concepts or craft, and states that he is finished with it. However, I am sure that his restless spirit and his interest in the body as a site of action and experience will see him return to producing music conceived for this particular place, which will indeed find its meaning and its motive there or anywhere else where bodies are moved to move.

Guy Mccreery