When starting to work on the 25th issue of our magazine, we were discussing whether there should be some sort of content to celebrate this milestone and the past ten years leading up to it. But, as further reading will indicate, there are no texts praising past issues or reflections on the musical developments we documented over the years. However, the anniversary helps in presenting the underlying theme of this issue. As loyal readers might know, zweikommasieben started out as a fanzine and aspired to keep this character somewhat alive. Therefore, in zweikommasieben #25, we would like to reflect on various aspects of what fandom entails.

As fans, the authors, editors, and photographers of this magazine are dependent on artists ­— niche or mainstream ­— to be willing to have their practice documented. To put it bluntly: if they don’t want to speak to us, there is not much we can do. Likewise, and without overestimating the impact of our small publication, it might have positive consequences for artists to be featured in zweikommasieben, which is not simply a unidirectional channel between fans and artists: over the years some artists highlighted their own fandom, interviewing other artists they admire for this very magazine, while some contributors developed artistic practices which led them to having fans on their own.

Such an ever-changing web of dependencies is highlighted on the following pages. This edition features a text by media theorist and artist DeForrest Brown Jr. dedicated to the multiple talents of singer-songwriter Dawn Richard: an exploration of why fans could be drawn to her practice over the past 15 years. Jasmin Hoek visits a new museum in Amsterdam that is dedicated to techno and club culture to investigate whether such an institution can be true to something we all have been fans of. In Anna Froelicher’s interview with Price, the artist elaborates on how he plays with both institutions’ and fans’ conceptualization of his music. The complexities of being a fan not only relate to other people and institutions but also to oneself and one’s personal development. In a new essay, Friedemann Dupelius uses his ever-evolving fascination with trance to reflect on the genre’s current status quo.

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Frequent readers of zweikommasieben will know that the creative processes we highlight in our magazine are an eclectic gathering of influences that result in varied creative practices. This plurality informs a question we have repeatedly asked ourselves: what might be the common denominator connecting all the dots? For this issue, we would like to make the case for the discursive potential of personal experiences.

Once the personal is taken seriously, anecdotes provide major insights into an artist’s practice. A portrait on producer Malibu taps into memories of popular culture and traces musical experiences from her childhood to highlight the dedication she brings towards composing melodies and using samples. In their essay, the duo Space Afrika assembles recollections of their daily lives in north-west England to frame their artistic output over the years.

Highlighting subjective perspectives allows for the differentiation of what might appear similar at first. Both the collaboration of Andreas Bülhoff and Marc Matter featured in “Soundtexte” and the interview with Tygapaw refer to the use of poetry. The former condense language to its most basic units and present them as rhythmic building blocks for DJs. Taking a different approach, Tygapaw asked a poet to be the narrator of their album, expanding the tracks by embedding an additional layer of meaning.

zweikommasieben #23 also wishes to make visible the full range of its contributors. Annotations in the margins gesture towards the intuitive processes characteristic of this magazine: from an initial interest in an artist and their work, to the experience of exploring it in the context of a conversation, and to collaboratively reflect on text and photography with various people.

Full content:
-interviews with Bass Clef, Crystalmess, Flora Yin-Wong, Grand River, Ikonika, Jabu & Daniela Dyson, Meemo Comma, and Tygapaw
-portrait on Malibu
-essay by Space Afrika
-Contributes by Jessika Khazrik and Sara Berts
-columns: Soundtexte (poetry), “Art Review” (art review), and We are Time (photography)

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In the 17th issue of zweikommasieben something that has been apparent from the beginning of the magazine—whose credo is to study the present—only seems increasingly true: in the supposed present, temporalities overlap and intersect. They burst out, reaching at once backwards and forwards.

The magazine features interviews with John Maus about the six years between the release of his last two albums, with Anna Sagström and Daniel Iinatti of Country Music discussing accelerationist force of globalization or with Alessandro Cortini on the private retrospective of 1970s Italy in Avanti. In those conversations the nature of time shows itself as enigmatic, fragmented and displaced.

On top, this issue features interviews with Anna Homler, Errorsmith, Further Reductions, Gabber Eleganza, Jasss, Ossia, Peter Rehberg and Renick Bell; conversations with Russell Haswell and between Christoph Fringeli, Simon Crab and Nigel Ayers; a portrait on Mmodemm; an essay by DeForrest Brown Jr.; columns on gender in dancehall (“Basslines”), authenticity of field recordings (“Track Down Fiction”), pictures from Georg Gatsas (“We Are Time”) as well as poetry with “Sound Texts”; and contributions by Angoisse, Ipek Gorung & Ceramic TL and Jay Glass Dubs.

In zweikommasieben #17, the nature of time also shows itself in the design—a design initially looking for an aesthetic of speed but ultimately as much a reflection of pausing as of deceleration and acceleration. And in this attempt to give form to time, there’s also the primordial-musical moment.
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Featuring interviews with DJ Stingray, J.G. Biberkopf, Interstellar Funk, Grebenstein, Brain Case, Pan Daijing and Marlene Engel, one of the curators of Wiener Festwochen; portraits on Tolouse Low Trax and Sleaford Mods; an essay called “Entropy as Exit” by DeForrest Brown Jr. on the albums Cellular Automata by Dopplereffekt and I-LP-O in Dub’s Capital Dub Chapter 1; columns featuring the development of dancehall (“Basslines”), the CDJ-2000 (“Track Down Fiction”), pictures from the Johannesburg scene (“We Are Time”), Vinyl-on-Demand (“From Here Till Now”) as well as poems (“Sound Texts”) and thoughts on the Gegenstand (“Gegen:stand”); PLUS contributions by Jackie and Gil, Tomasa Del Real, Pure Mania and mittageisen’s Bruno W.

€12.00

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