Pole

minimal

With plenty of musical history and an unfettered passion for contemporary club tracks Stefan Betke aka Pole is probably best known for his minimal dub sounds between the clicks and cuts of modern electronica. While the origins of Pole hail back to the summer of 1996, when he accidentally dropped his near legendary Waldorf 4-Pole filter (which, in its newly damaged state, began to generate seductively unpredictable crackles), Betke’s musical playing field covers a much broader spectrum. An active remixer, label owner, musician, DJ, mastering engineer, promoter, studio owner and producer, all of Betke’s outlets are governed by his urge to distil the substance of sounds and ideas, irrespective of any scenes. For Betke it’s the content which counts, rarely the environment it was generated in. This is mirrored by both the titles of his previous albums, which were kept deliberately simple (blue/1997, red/1999, yellow/2000) to avoid any distraction from their actual content, and his very personal selection of other projects. Besides ~scape, the label he founded in 1999 together with Barbara Preisinger, he runs a music publishing company (~scape publishing), produces acts like Barbara Morgenstern and remixes tracks from Egoexpress to Depeche Mode. Like many other producers and musicians, the Berlin-based artist also fills clubs, radio shows and festival stages with his DJ sets, but Betke is no DJ in the traditional sense. Until recently, he used to create entirely new produc...