In the late 80s, home computers, sampling and MIDI technology made music production possible in your bedroom. this development led to the invention of house and techno in detroit and chicago. at the time justus köhncke had just moved to düsseldorf, city of kraftwerk, working at ata tak studios. home of german electronic pioneers der plan and pyrolator, he devoped his skills and purchased his first pieces of gear. he also was thown out of a 1988 producion of german legend andreas dorau, who could not stand his young-nerd-talkyness, finding himself to befriend and produce dorau in the late 90s.
with his mate jan schüler, studying painting at the düsseldorf art academy and diehard amanda lear fan, he started his first project: “blood and honey”. they did electronic cover versions of amanda lear songs, jan singing (but not impersonating) and justus programming the playbacks. they had a few hysterical gigs in düsseldorf, at the art school and gay sqat parties, but never released anything. the tape material is unfortunately lost forever.
after moving to cologne in 1990, jk got in touch with hans nieswandt, then editor of spex magazine, then opinion-leader of the german music press, and eric d. clark, who just switched from san francisco to paris to cologne. them being house djs and throwing parties under the brand of “whirlpool”, sporting paradise-garageesque deep stuff rather than the then emerging german tekkkkkno, the three of them soon enough also got into production together. this led to a now sought-after 12″ in 1992, jk’s first release then: ”fly high” on the fictional new york underground disco imprint “fifth & madison” – a corner that does not exist in manhattan. it was warmly welcome by house heroes from the usa like george morel who did a remix, too. later on “whirlpool productions” produced four albums and scored a classic and #1 pop chart success in several countries, most of all italy, in 1997 with ”from:disco to:disco”. funny enough, kids today that peed their pants when this was released still know it. after their last album release, “lifechange” in 2000, life changed, literally. wpp called it a day so far.
before that, in 1999, justus had already released his first self-named solo lp, ”spiralen der erinnerung” on his own “iCi records” imprint, run by him and cologne artist cosima von bonin. the strictly limited gatefold vinyl lp, consisting of electronic cover versions sung by justus’s rather shy voice by the likes of john cale, neil young, carly simon or hildegard knef became a cult classic to this day. there is still no digital release, not even a cd. try discogs or ebay…
in 2001, after doing theater scores and reconfiguring, jk signed to kompakt, the uprising cologne electronic label run by his mates he has been partying with anyway all through the 90s. this led to the release of “was ist musik” in 2002, a record combining instrumental club bangers with melancholic, german-language pop kitsch. it was received open-armed by critics and public. “2 after 909″, the pre-released 12″, is still a club classic in great britain. justus was thrilled and surprised when he had to sign copies of that record in nottingham two years later, being told that’s “disco nouveau”. ok, that genre is fine then…
2004 saw the release of “timecode”, his so far best-selling club smash. the following album “doppelleben” again combined club sounds and downtempo emotion. loads of touring and dj gigs all over europe and the world (brazil, australia, russia, usa) were to follow. the touring experience, in the world of disco clubs, led to “safe and sound”, the 2008 album release that left the downtempo kitsch out and went for rough instrumental dance tracks. “parage” and “$26″ rocked the clubs worldwide accordingly. if not touring, jk was also enjoying work on film scores in south france with composer irmin schmidt, of CAN fame, inbetween. and for sure he he crafted tons of remixes from the 1990s on, so finally you’ll now find that compiled in a handy nice package. coming in dj-friendly unmixed vinyl and a smooth mixed version by supreme dj jennifer cardini (justus was to close to the material to mix it efficiently, so he asked his big girl to do the job, and she did it more than well). having moved to berlin and having set up his new studio, justus is up and running. the brand-new tracks “fussmaschine” and “renewal” beef the package up and go to prove.