The Bionaut Lubricate Your Living-Room June 26, 2001

Jörg Burger, one of the most influential voices in techno, returns with a collection of the essential and long-out-of-print European-only tracks he released under the name The Bionaut from 1993 to 1997. A leading exponent of Cologne (Germany) minimalism, Burger is also well-known for the groundbreaking work he did under the names burger/ink, The Modernist, Trinkwasser and, most recently, Geometric Farms. In addition, he has run the Popular and Eat Raw labels.

Tracks 1, 4, 6, 7, 12, 14, 16 from Lush Life Electronica CD (Harvest)
Tracks 2, 9 from Please Teenage CD (Harvest)
Tracks 3, 11 from Wild Horse Annie as Herself EP and Friends CD (Harvest)
Tracks 15, 18 from Wild Horse Annie as Herself EP(Harvest)
Tracks 5, 13 from Frugivore CD (Eat Raw Records)
Tracks 8, 17 from Ethik: Music for Stock Exchange CD (Eat Raw Records)
Track 10 from Friends CD (Harvest)

The Modernist Explosion April 18, 2000

Explosion is the first full-length album from Jörg Burger, one of the leading lights of the influential Cologne minimalist techno school. Jörg was officially introduced to the US market by Matador a couple years back with his collaboration with Wolfgang Voigt a.k.a. Mike Ink, entitled Las Vegas, under the moniker burger/ink. That collaborative effort is rumored to be preparing new material by the end of 2000 as well. In the meantime, we’re glad to welcome "The Modernist" to the mix.

Explosion explores Burger’s drift towards the melodic minimalism and fractal arrangements of some of his Cologne cohorts. Compositions like "Victor Ludorum" and "Global Entertainment’s" building/shifting haus progressions carry their own inertia as they hypnotically build to their throbbing conclusions, both delightful and disorienting. Burger doesn’t completely abandon his acoustic/electro experiments, as displayed with the plaintive "Manson Soup." Elegant guitar lines mingle with pulsing sequencers for a melancholic groove reminiscent of his work with burger/ink.

Released in Germany in December 1999, the US version of Explosion has new artwork and, more importantly, three new tracks especially prepared for this release. The original versions of last year’s excellent singles, "Architainment" and "Mrs. New Deal," are contained herein as well. Plans are in the works to have Jörg play his first US dates around the release of Explosion.

burger/ink [las vegas] September 8, 1998

Jörg Burger and Mike Ink first met and started working together in the early eighties. In the beginning they were highly influenced by british pop music but the really incision came in ’88 when it was acid all over the place. Coming back from London, where they inhaled the high octane hybrid explosion, they started to change their attitude and music.

"In early ’88 we began to record this really weird electronic music," says Wolfgang aka Mike Ink. "It wasn’t like acid house but it also wasn’t song structured and it wasn’t like anything we’d done before.

By the early 90s, the pair founded their first label, Trans Atlantic, in Belgium and released their highly acclaimed "Mike Ink-The Dialogue EP" and "Burger Industries- Vol. 1". Later the two moved to Frankfurt to work with Ingmar Koch (a.k.a. Dr. Walker) and Cem Oral aka Jammin’ Unit of Air Liquide to form "The Brotherhood of Structure", a band and label which released records all over Europe.

In late ’93, after years of successful collaboration they decided to concentrate on their solo projects and labels. As Wolfgang Voigt was establishing ultra-minimal rhythms on his own "Profan" and "Studio Eins" labels, Jörg Burger worked as "The Bionaut" and on his own label, Eat Raw, got heavily involved in the re-launch of legendary EMI Harvest label, which quickly became a melting pot for artists spearheading the new electronic sound of Cologne. His latest alter ego, The Modernist, is his most successful project to date and his ‘Opportunity Knox’ LP was not only album of the month in influential Spex magazine, but in a variety of other monthlies as well.

Getting it together was naturally just around the corner for Wolfgang and Jörg. Working together on several recordings, they unveiled a new project, ‘[Las Vegas],’ on Harvest, carrying the torch from the days of Pink Floyd and Wire. Shrouded in Roxy Music references, the music’s guitar glided linear rhyhms have presented "...some of the most beautiful and subtle arrangements to have emerged from the electronic field this year. The three 12" releases have crystallised as sonic gems within a dance music mine brimming with fools gold." (Melody Maker Nov’ 97)

"Jörg is the king of harmonies and I’m the king of insane rhythms and we combine that somehow," explains Wolfgang Voigt. Adds Jörg, "I play guitars on the records but Mike [Wolfgang] hates guitars so we treated them in a way that he could stand it. When we started to think about the concept of the new project we were arguing for 3 month before we actually started to record a single note. And in the end I said ok, let’s imagine you’re Siegfried and I’m Roy. That’s how we came to ‘[Las Vegas].’