Award-winning artist, producer, and composer Robot Koch returns with the deeply brooding ‘Numb’ – the first single taken from the upcoming solo album ‘Sphere’. For his new album, Koch created a full dome live show experience with 3D surround sound, which he developed in cooperation with visual artist Mickael Le Goff and the Planetarium in Berlin. The sonic world Koch creates on ‘Sphere’ is cinematic, dark, visceral and melodic, taking the listener on a trip deep into outer space. In contrast to his previous albums, Koch did not collaborate with vocalists, deciding instead to create a mainly instrumental record, with the exception of ‘Numb’ and ‘All In Your Mind’ which both feature Robot Koch`s own voice. ‘Sphere’ will be released on his own imprint, Trees and Cyborgs, in October 2018.
Berliner Robot Koch currently resides in Los Angeles since 2013. His unique sound of organic electronic music has been called “Wonderful and Strange – pop music from the future” (by John Peel of the BBC already in 2003). Since then, Koch has appeared on the lineups of major festivals like Coachella, Sonar, Mutek and played Boiler Room several times. He has been steadily crafting a remarkably mature and original sound that expertly combines a deep and cinematic atmosphere, emotional reflection and space-age beats.
The album ‘Sphere’ was written and recorded in Koch’s Echo Park Studio in LA over the course of a year, making use of his analogue synths, guitar pedals, and a regular fix of matcha tea. ‘Sphere’ is also the soundtrack to Robot Koch`s ambitious new live show, which he has been developing in cooperation with the Zeiss Planetarium in Berlin. Together with visual artist Mickael Le Goff, he created a show for an immersive full dome experience with surround sound.
The live show will contain custom made dome projection visuals and music written and produced for a 3D / AV environment. Almost a year in the making, the visuals and music will take the audience on an excursion into the universe, visiting places that could be both the veins of an organism or the inside of a spaceship. Like the album, the live show oscillates between the dark synth-driven science-fiction moments of songs like Lyra One and the beautifully melodic and haunted soundscapes which Koch crafted on songs like Movement III.
It was a new experience for me to mix the album not only for 2D speakers this time, but to create a 3rd order ambisonic surround mix for the show as well, so I had to mix the album twice.
The visuals, created in 8K resolution were equally challenging, with a single minute of visual content rendering for more than a week. The result is an immersive experience that will premiere at the Zeiss Planetarium in Berlin for the Red Bull Music Academy Festival in October 2018, kicking off a tour in 2019 performing the show in planetariums worldwide as well as at music festivals capable of full-dome shows.
The theme for the live show and the album is the exploration of inner and outer space, the balance between nature and technology, and the quest for the unknown which is ultimately a search for oneself.
‘Sphere’ will be released in October 2018 via Trees and Cyborgs
robotkoch.lnk.to/Sphere
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