Roman Stange
[Auralism]
Roman Stange is the dark horse of the Auralism stable in more ways than one. Experiencing Techno’s birth in late 80’s Detroit, as a teenager, Stange has Soul and Techno music in his blood. In the early 90’s Stange emerged on the other side of the Techno underground with a penchant for immersive soulful sound scapes ringing to a 4/4 beat. After relocating to Boston, Roman quickly began pushing the shaded experimental underbelly of electronic music—minimal, IDM, and industrial—against the city's prevailing indie rock scene, performing leftfield live PAs with the renowned Toneburst & Lollygagger collectives, which also included Keith Whitman Fullerton (Hrvatski), DJ C (EOSS), Mr. In Ter Rupt , Soplerfo, DJ/Rupture (Jace Clayton), and DJ ESP.
Based in San Francisco since 2006, Stange has taken up the West Coast's vibrant dance-floor culture as his personal call to arms, hearkening back to his Detroit roots to create immersive, psychedelic groovers blooming with mechanized soul. 2008 will see several Roman Stange cuts out on Auralism—his first record releases ever in his 15 eccentric years as producer and live performer. A self-described creator of "illgazer/poly-environment sounds," Roman Stange has now compiled hundreds of hours of live shows and a tremendous amount of studio material. "Poly-environment is not a genre," he states. "It's a term I use to describe how I place psycho-electronic sounds based on the emotions I'm feeling at the time. I like to take people to the limit with sounds. My tracks take you to these frequencies where it feels like it's gonna hurt, but it never gets to that point; it just takes you to that peak. Aural S&M, and it's gotta be played loud!"
"The dystopic musical vision of one Roman Stange. His music – a primordially dark, slightly off-kilter take on abstract techno, replete with eerily distant voices and concréte-ish textures – would seem to hint at a teutonic pedigree of some sort. Though raised just north of Detroit (the birthplace of American techno), Stange cut his musical teeth in and around Boston and had become a staple of the city’s computer music underground as a member of both the Lollygagger and Toneburst collectives. Always compelling, but never comforting."
-Suzanna Bolle (Xlr8r, grooves, the weekly dig)
