Pole Shares New Track "Stechmück"; New Album Out November 18

POLE   SHARES NEW SINGLE “STECHMÜCK”   NEW ALBUM TEMPUS OUT NOVEMBER 18

credit: Ben de Biel

“German electronica maestro relocates the liminal dub territory of his classic early albums, with a dying Minimoog adding chance and friction to the architecturally rigorous sound design.” – MOJO   “The German grandmaster of minimal ambience goes back to dub…” – The Observer (UK)   POLE – aka innovative German electronic artist Stefan Betke – today shares “Stechmück,” a new track head of his forthcoming album. Tempus is due out November 18 via Mute on vinyl, CD and digital platforms. Additionally, Pole will perform at Krakow’s Unsound Festival in October and Paris’s Festival BBMIX in November.   The new album explores the connections between the past, present, and future (Tempus meaning “tense” in German). For “Stechmück,” Betke explicitly references his past when he embraces the sound of a failing instrument. Pole was originally named after a broken Waldorf 4-Pole filter, one that gave him his distinct sound. On “Stechmück” you’ll hear a strange, eerie, almost unsettling wailing sound that rings out above the bass-heavy beats. “That is the sound of my dying Minimoog,” Betke says. But instead of re-recording it, he incorporated the sound of a failing piece of electronic equipment into the heart of the song, thus giving it an entirely new tonal dimension.    Listen to “Stechmück” here. Pre-order Tempus here.   MORE ABOUT TEMPUS This connection between the past, present, and future is a natural one for Betke to explore, not only because of the connection to 2020’s Fading – an album about coping with dementia and the loss of memory over time – but because all of Pole’s work has an interconnectedness that spans past, present, and future. While every Pole album is distinctly unique – his catalog glides across ambient, dub, jazz, glitch, and electronica – each is part of an ongoing evolution that links as much to history as it does to the future.   Dub is a constant presence within Betke’s idiosyncratic framework of electronic music, but on Tempus even more so. The pace, tone, and echo of the dub effects Pole uses traverse the essence of past, present, and future by delaying sounds a beat behind the present, then fading away again into foggy reverb. Interestingly, this album is one of Betke's most overtly jazz-leaning records, though in his singular fashion has deconstructed, mutated, and manipulated the genre.    The painting on the cover, by Wolfgang Betke titled Großstadtwanderer, links into the themes explored on the album. Betke explains, “I found the whole atmosphere in this totally weird, confused head with these little shimmery eyes leaking through the colours to totally fit the idea of Tempus.”   Pole’s ongoing musical evolution, while retaining a relationship to previous work, means that he is already naturally building an ever-stronger bridge between the present and the past. However, the deeply innovative sounds that he continues to carve and explore, and always breaking new ground with each record, means that bridge is also being extended far into the future.    Tempus exists in a unique space. The production is rich and enveloping, exuding dense yet crisp atmospherics with a striking balance between complexity and compactness throughout.   credit: Wolfgang Betke    Tempus Tracklisting 1. Cenote 2. Grauer Sand 3. Alp 4. Stechmück 5. Firmament 6. Tempus 7. Allermannsharnisch Pre-order Tempus Watch the video for “Grauer Sand” Listen to “Stechmück”   POLE: WEBSITE | SOUNDCLOUD | FACEBOOK | SPOTIFY | APPLE MUSIC | BANDCAMP   MUTE: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | TUMBLR | SOUNDCLOUD | TIKTOK