Kassem Mosse ”Workshop 32“ (Workshop) – frohfroh – we like electronic music from leipzig

In February, one of the most exciting and internationally well-known Leipzig producers released his new album – Kassem Mosse is back.

Anyone who has been following happily for a while should know: I’ve been a Kassem-Mosse fanboy from the start. This very unique, patina-covered and lofi-esque sound aesthetic, these house, techno and electronica tracks that are often refreshingly out of tune – all of this fascinated me early on. Unforgotten the driving, deeply noisy “578” or Mosse’s debut album “Workshop 19” almost ten years ago.

Recently, however, a few signs of fatigue have spread. My feeling was: the musical radius of Kassem Mosse is endlessly fascinating, but also largely defined. Although that was only partly true. Because with his last album “Disclosure” on the traditional British label Honest Jon’s in 2016, Kassem Mosse breathed his trademark sound into the individual components and put them together into a loosely oscillating mixture. After the hype years around 2012, the club was definitely not as much in focus here, which was also a good thing.

But some of his last releases also passed me by – the great ambient album “Scortched Erden” by his second alias Rare Erden, for example. Or the recording of an experimental MM/KM performance in 2019, when Kassem Mosse operated the off-space cardamom with Mix Mup and remixed the catalog of the Travel by Goods label live.

The news of the new album was all the more pleasing. Plus a comeback at Lowtec’s Label Workshop. Ten tracks, one hour running time – so there is a lot to discover. At first glance, Workshop 32 is a classic Kassem Mosse album. But in many places it is much more reduced, more direct, tidier and more harmonious. At the same time, it spans a kind of arc over the past 15 years of Kassem Mosse – with all its edgy-pushing, warm-ambient and transverse sounds. With unique dance floor tracks and breaky-down interludes.

But if you listen more closely, there are definitely new impulses: For example on “C1” and the surprisingly concrete title “Provide Those Ends”. Soul and rap tracks appear here, which go surprisingly well with the well-known Kassem-Mosse sound. Certainly also because they are integrated very seamlessly and casually. In other tracks – “D1” and “D2” – just as naturally briefly played soul samples are mixed in. And here, too, they ensure a certain nonchalance and a somewhat less sophisticated atmosphere.

And my moment of fatigue? Has given way to a comfortable feeling of familiarity. Because of course: Kassem Mosse has accompanied me musically since 2006. And so unique that it is always immediately recognizable and takes me emotionally into certain spheres. It also creates a deeply relaxing feeling of irrefutable stability and sweet nostalgia. Something that is anything but bad in dynamic times like these. Thanks a lot for this!