Monolake is a German

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

project, initially consisting of members Gerhard Behles and

Robert Henke Robert B. Henke (born 1969) is a German computer music artist working in the fields of audiovisual installation, music and performance. He was born in Munich, Germany, and lives in Berlin. Coming from an engineering background, Henke is fascinat ...

, Monolake is now perpetuated by Henke while Behles focuses on running

music software This is a list of software for creating, performing, learning, analyzing, researching, broadcasting and editing music. This article only includes software, not services. For streaming services such as iHeartRadio, Pandora, Prime Music, and Spotify, ...

company

Ableton Ableton AG is a German music software company that produces and distributes the production and performance program Ableton Live and a collection of related instruments and sample libraries, as well as their own hardware controller Ableton Push. ...

, which they founded in 1999 together with Bernd Roggendorf. From 2004, Torsten Pröfrock became a member of Monolake. Monolake's minimal, dub-influenced

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...

helped establish the sound of the

Chain Reaction A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events. Chain reactions are one way that syst ...

label, also located in Berlin, subsequently using their own l/i(''Monolake / Imbalance Computer Music'') label for the group's output. Both current members have solo projects, with Henke releasing under his own name and Pröfrock as "T++" and "Various Artists." In 2008, T++ followed

Ricardo Villalobos Ricardo Villalobos (born 6 August 1970) is a Chilean-born German electronic music producer and DJ. He is well known for his work in the minimal techno and microhouse genres, and is one of the most significant figures in today's minimal techno sc ...

in bridging the gap between

minimal techno Minimal techno is a subgenre of techno music. It is characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition and understated development. Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detro ...

and

dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken be ...

, by

remix A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...

ing

Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of An ...

's ''Death Is Not Final'' for the

Skull Disco Skull Disco was an independent dubstep record label, based in Bristol, England. It was established in 2005 by Sam Shackleton and Laurie "Appleblim" Osborne, and ended in 2008. Releases on the label prominently featured African and post-African ...

label. In 2009, Robert Henke appeared in the electronic music documentary, ''

Speaking In Code ''Speaking in Code'' is a character-based documentary directed by Amy Grill about people's obsessions with the techno electronic music lifestyle and the effects on their lives. It follows Modeselektor, the Wighnomy Brothers, Philip Sherburne, Mono ...

'', which presented the completion of the

Monodeck Monolake is a German electronic music project, initially consisting of members Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke, Monolake is now perpetuated by Henke while Behles focuses on running music software company Ableton, which they founded in 1999 toget ...

. As of 2012, Henke has been designing a new form of live show syncing surround-sound audio stems with visual loops, allowing for improvisation. Monolake is named after

Mono Lake Mono Lake ( ) is a saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake which make its water alk ...

, which is east of the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Monodeck

Henke is a

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

engineer who develops custom software and hardware for live performances. As well as working as an engineer for Ableton, Henke designed the Atlantic Waves software for performing live with other producers in different countries simultaneously. In 2003, Henke designed the Monodeck, a

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

-controller interface for spontaneous editing and effects work during live performances, even without having to look at the computer screen. The Monodeck and its successor, Monodeck II, control Ableton Live through special software designed with

Max/MSP Max, also known as Max/MSP/Jitter, is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. Over its more than thirty-year history, it has been used by composers, per ...

Discography

Monolake albums

* ''Hongkong'' (Chain Reaction, 1997, re-issued remastered and re-edited in 2008) * ''Gobi. The Desert EP'' ( l/i 1999) * ''Interstate'' ( l/i 1999 re-issued in 2007) * ''Cinemascope'' ( l/i 2001) * ''Gravity'' ( l/i 2001) * ''Momentum'' ( l/i 2003) * ''Polygon_Cities'' ( l/i 2005) * ''Plumbicon Versions'' ( l/i 2006) * ''Silence'' ( l/i 2009) * ''

Ghosts A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

'' ( l/i 2012) * ''VLSI'' (2016) * ''Archaeopteryx'' (2020)

Robert Henke albums

* ''Piercing Music'' (Imbalance, 1994, re-released 2003) * ''Floating Point'' (Imbalance, 1997) * ''Signal to Noise'' (Imbalance Computer Music, 2004) * ''Layering Buddha'' (Imbalance Computer Music, 2006) also released as a 5 x 7" box set * ''Atom/Document'' (Imbalance Computer Music, 2008) * ''Indigo_Transform'' (Imbalance Computer Music, 2009)

Torsten Pröfrock albums

* Various Artists ''Decay Product'' (Chain Reaction, 1997) * Various Artists ''8, 8.5, 9 Remixes'' (FatCat, 1999) * Dynamo ''Außen Vor'' (DIN, 2002)

References

External links

monolake.de
- official website *
Monolake / Imbalance Computer Music
at

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

.com *
InterviewInterview (2005)Interview (2005)A Conversation with Robert Henke: Silence, Technology, and Process
on Create Digital Music (2010) {{Authority control German electronic music groups Intelligent dance musicians Ableton Live users Musical groups from Berlin