Brainwave Technology, by Michael Mayer

Brainwave Technology

by Michael Mayer

supported by

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

€5 EUR or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Brainwave Technology via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 3 days

3 remaining

Purchasable with gift card

€12.90 EUR or more

1.	Brainwave Technology 06:47	buy track
2.	Gamma 05:31	buy track
3.	Alpha 07:02	buy track
4.	Device For The Young At Heart 05:15	buy track

about

Michael Mayer’s latest EP, Brainwave Technology, comes at you purposeful, stealthy and sly. It’s a glorious left turn for the redoubtable producer, one that sees his typically lean and lithe productions buffed to a metallic, futurist sheen. There’s a gleam in the eyes of tracks like “Brainwave Technology” and “Alpha” that speaks of serious fun, of the intersection of the pleasure zone and the frontal lobe.

“Brainwave Technology” itself is informed by Mayer’s deep dive into the thorny terrain of artificial intelligence, transhumanism and posthumanism. Inspired by reading German philosopher Richard David Precht, Mayer found himself heading down the “proverbial rabbit hole,” as he describes it, “watching hours of YouTube material by self-proclaimed prophets of these ‘inevitable’ changes to come.” Never one to be taken in by the egotist’s dance, Mayer’s cynicism about the whole endeavour is tempered, a little, by the deeper questions that these figures gesture towards: “Is it really an evolutionary step that man and machine become one? Or is it rather a marketing plot by Silicon Valley billionaires?”

On “Brainwave Technology”, Mayer plays the charlatans at their own game, turning their logic against them by exposing the fruitiness of their ‘visions’. “I chose irony as my sword with which I chopped off some quotes from some of those batshit crazy prophets and self-promoters,” he explains of the drooling psychobabble he drops in the track’s lacuna. There’s a sense of humour here – how could you not laugh at these hungover egotists? – but there’s levity too, a sense that Mayer’s using sound to expose the contradictions and double-speak at the heart of these half-formed ideas. It’s a Burroughsian tactic, to slice into the heart of the voice to see what hidden truths surface.

It was Burroughs, too, who once said that “when you cut into the past, the future leaks out”; Brainwave Technology cuts into the logic of the futurologist to leak out the messiness of modern reality. On “Alpha” and “Gamma”, Mayer seems to conjure up the stark, ominous music that’d soundtrack a science fiction reinterpretation – or preinterpretation – of our modern malaise, all funereal wreaths of electronic noise and clatterboxing beats. As the EP resolves with “Device For The Young At Heart”, Mayer’s questions are piling up: “Do we want to become immortal and live on as a download? Do we really give up on Earth and put all our effort into colonising Mars?” There are no answers, of course, but plenty of imaginings-to-be. Brainwave Technology soundtracks both dystopian and utopian possibilities of what could come next.

credits

released August 27, 2021

license

about

Michael Mayer Cologne, Germany

Michael Mayer is one of the leading German tastemakers in dance music and his DJ sets have influenced a
generation (or two) of musicians and fans. Mayer remains tirelessly dedicated to his work as a DJ, in the studio or
behind his desk at KOMPAKT, the label he co-owns. His recording career spans four albums, 23 EP’s, nearly 170
remixes and the legendary DJ mixes for fabric and Immer. ... more

Recommendations

shows

May 10

Parc D'atraccions Tibidabo

Barcelona, Spain
May 17

E1 London

London, UK
Jun 6

Secret Forest

Niedergorsdorf, Germany

contact / help

Contact Michael Mayer

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Michael Mayer recommends:

Alpha
by Audion

Audion 'Alpha' Michael Mayer
go to album
Mixed By... Volume 1
by Tricky

Tricky 'Mixed By... Vol.1' Michael Mayer
go to album

If you like Michael Mayer, you may also like:

Total 21
by Various Artists

supported by 20 fans who also own “Brainwave Technology”

NOTE: SPECIAL EDITION COMES IN TRANSPARENT COLOURED (RED AND BRIGHT GREEN) VINYL. Tonkopf
go to album
Total 23
by Various Artists

supported by 16 fans who also own “Brainwave Technology”

Some absolute bangers on this one! A Strangely Isolated Place
go to album
Airdrop
by Low End Activist

A triumphant rave record you can feel in your bones. Bandcamp Album of the Day Apr 16, 2024
go to album
Down and Up
by Domu

featured on Bandcamp Radio Apr 16, 2024
go to album