Chris Liebing has announced details of his first album release for Mute, Burn Slow, out on 7 September 2018 and shared ‘Polished Chrome (The Friend Pt. 1)’ featuring vocals from Gary Numan This, and ‘Novembergrey’ are the first taste of what to expect from Burn Slow, a 10-track album with vocal contributions from a diverse range of artists: Miles Cooper Seaton (Akron / Family), Mute labelmate Polly Scattergood (onDeadWaves), Cold Cave, Aleen and, of course Gary Numan. Burn Slow is a minimalist electronic epic and start of a new chapter for one of techno’s leading authorities. It might not be what you expect for a DJ synonymous with fast, hard, and heavy techno, but according to Chris Liebing, he’s always been something of a slow starter. “I’ve wanted to do something like Burn Slow all my life,” he says. While retaining the framework of the techno beats that Chris Liebing has dedicated his life to for the past 25 years, here he also seeks out new harmonic territories, taking aim at the heart rather than the feet, in order to tackle some deep themes. The key concept of presence - the idea that everything is happening in this moment, and that everything in the past is mere memory - form the thematic backbone of the record. It’s something Liebing got in touch with via the philosopher Alan Watts, not to mention decades of getting entire dancefloors lost in the present. “If people would stay in the now, everything in the world would just have a bit more harmony,” explains Liebing. Liebing has teamed up with Ralf Hildenbeutel for Burn Slow (a key part of the long since defunct Eye Q family), and at his Hildenbeutel’s Frankfurt studio Liebing began drifting into new territory with his new musical ‘enabler’. The Burn Slow project began its evolution with two remixes, for Depeche Mode’s Going Backwards and Goldfrapp’s Everything Is Never Enough – both artists associated with his new label, which has been an inspiration for Chris Liebing since a young age: “Without realising, a lot of the music I was into came from just one label, Mute. I vividly remember dancing around at my neighbour’s house in the early ‘80s to songs by Depeche Mode and Yazoo. Banging my head in dark basements to the likes of DAF, Laibach and Nitzer Ebb to name but a few.” Chris has channeled his passion to the performance, production, distribution and broadcasting of music on a global level. His DJ sets are sonic journeys between darkness and light, always far from the beaten tracks of the musical mainstream.
