Philipp Otterbach has been around for a while, publishing records at Grokenberger and Tour Messier Records. Although he is now based in Berlin, Philipp was one of the first residents of the famous Salon des Amateurs in Düsseldorf. Together with his friend Vladimir Ivkovic he has organized the Substance parties for many years.
His productions sound like floating in the unruly waves of life, reflecting its flow and resistance. Otherworldly beauty is conveyed through cinematic, pulsating soundscapes, where contextually sampled and poly-rhythmically designed, electronic percussion generates impulsive rhythms.
The Rest is Bliss conjures up the stillness of dawn, where fog shrouds a pristine forest far away from civilization. The damp confines of a sauna come to mind as well. The heat slowly overtaking the senses, leaving you with nothing more than the urge to breathe and a feeling of being alive.
Artwork by – Sleeve To The Rhythm
Mastered by – Wouter Brandenburg
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Review
Impeccably slunky, slow and sexy ambient dance turns from Philipp Otterbach, an OG Salon Des Amateurs resident and co-organizer of the Substance club nights with Vladimir Ivkovic
Drawing upon decades of experience DJing between Düsseldorf and Berlin, Otterbach paints a singular worldview of dance music in ‘The Rest Is Bliss’ for Amsterdam’s Knekelhuis. Teasing the senses with fragrant traces of exotica in his opening ‘Interlude’, the trip soon becomes more ambiguously seductive/menacing with the hard-to-resist, insectoid syncopation and sci-fi sound design of ‘Dark Side of the Møn’ – those subs are proper! – before ‘The Weak Song’ turns another sharp corner into a strange ambient acidic dramaturgy pairing an enigmatic, lamenting female vocal with yearning 303 plongs and offworld electronics to totally beguiling degrees. Following this slow, mazy logic, the two parts of ‘The Roamer’ see us out in low key, shadowy style with thicc subs and stealthy, noirish gestures worthy of Bohren Und Der Club of Gore or Portishead in the first part precipitating a deliciously glassy, sparse closer recalling moments of Diego Herera’s ace SK U Kno LP.
Warmest recommendations!
Boomkat