Maurizio

techno

Maurizio is the operating name of Moritz Von Oswald, the Berlin-based musician and entrepreneur who owns a half-share in Basic Channel Records and co-produced the label's various releases, a wildly influential series of fuzzy EPs with purposefully low production values recorded under the aliases Cyrus, Quadrant, Phylyps and Radiance. Von Oswald reserved his solo work for the Basic Channel sub-label M, which issued a half-dozen Maurizio EPs during the mid-'90s. Understandably, the Maurizio sound is quite similar to Basic Channel's, though Von Oswald is often more taken with pounding dub basslines and a somewhat cleaner production style, which gives his EPs a better chance on dancefloors. Von Oswald was originally a Berlin-area percussionist who worked on LPs by The Associates and Holger Hiller during the late '80s, and also played in one of the last incarnations of Palais Schaumburg. By the end of the decade he'd made the leap from drummer to producer, working with fellow Palais Schaumburg member Thomas Fehlmann as 3MB, the in-house production team at Berlin's Tresor Records. While involved with Tresor, he recorded with Detroit techno pioneer Juan Atkins and remodelled one of Atkins' Infiniti tracks, Think Quick into one of the most highly regarded techno productions of its time. It was an intriguing Berlin-Detroit collaboration which signalled the continuing close link between the two cities. In 1995, Von Oswald again worked with Atkins for the debut Model 500 album, Sonic S...