Sandwell District

Sandwell District was a record label and multinational collective of techno DJs and producers that operated between 2002 and 2011. Their sound has been highly influential across the following generation of techno musicians, and has informed a major shift in world techno. By the time the collective announced its "glorious death" in 2012 the American Billboard magazine could write that "Sandwell District's influence on underground techno can hardly be overstated."

Sandwell District was established as a record label in 2002 by Regis (Karl O'Connor) and Female (Peter Sutton) as an extension of their Downwards Records label, which had been instrumental in shaping techno's Birmingham sound in the early 1990s. The label was revived in 2004 and from 2005 increasingly incorporated the artistic input of the New York City-based Function (David Sumner) and the Los Angeles-based Silent Servant (Juan Mendez). Initially releasing records under their own identities, as the label's success grew, it came to be seen increasingly as a collective entity, releasing tracks and albums anonymously partly in revolt against the increasingly celebrity-oriented DJ culture of the time, culminating in its 2010 collective album Feed Forward.

Sandwell

Sandwell is a metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. The borough is named after the Sandwell Priory, and spans a densely populated part of both the Black Country and the West Midlands conurbation. According to Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, the borough comprises the six towns of Oldbury, Rowley Regis, Smethwick, Tipton, Wednesbury, and West Bromwich, although these places consist of numerous smaller settlements and localities. Though West Bromwich is the largest town in the borough and its designated Strategic Town Centre, Sandwell Council House (the headquarters of the local authority) is situated in Oldbury.

Bordering Sandwell is the City of Birmingham to the east, the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley to the south and west, the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall to the north, and the City of Wolverhampton to the north-west. Spanning the borough are the parliamentary constituencies of West Bromwich West, West Bromwich East, Warley, and part of Halesowen and Rowley Regis, which crosses into the Dudley borough.

Silent Servant

John Juan Mendez, who records as Silent Servant, is an American techno DJ and producer.

Born in Central America, he was brought up in Los Angeles, where he grew up listening to The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth; and started DJing at the age of 16.

In 1999 he made contact with Regis, the founder of the Birmingham-based Downwards Records label, becoming a member of Regis's Sandwell District collective, with whom he released a series of singles throughout the 2000s. Mendez acted as Sandwell District's art director.

References

Ostgut Ton

Ostgut Ton (also known as Ostgut Tonträger) is the label owned by the club Berghain in Berlin. Jenus Baumecker-Kahmke is the label manager.

The label's first releases were by Berghain/Panorama Bar residents such as André Galluzzi, Cassy, and Ben Klock.

Amongst the producers that have released for the label are André Galluzzi, Ben Klock, Cassy, Edit-Select, Len Faki, Luke Slater, Marcel Dettmann, Marcel Fengler, Murat Tepeli, My My, Nick Höppner, Paul Brtschitsch, Prosumer, Samuli Kemppi, Shed, Tama Sumo, Tobias Freund and Tim Paris.

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References

External links

District

A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning entire regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions of municipalities, school district, or political district.

By country

 Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, a district (Persian / Pashto: ولسوالۍ‎ Wuleswali) is a subdivision of a province. There are almost 400 districts in the country.

 Australia

Electoral districts are used in state elections. Districts were also used in several states as cadastral units for land titles. Some were used as squatting districts. New South Wales had several different types of districts used in the 21st century.

Austria

In Austria, a district (Bezirk) is an administrative division normally encompassing several municipalities, roughly equivalent to the Landkreis in Germany. The administrative office of a district, the Bezirkshauptmannschaft, is headed by a Bezirkshauptmann. It is in charge of the administration of all matters of federal and state administrative law and subject to orders from the higher instances, usually the Landeshauptmann (governor) in matters of federal law and the Landesregierung (state government) in state law. While there are matters of administrative law the municipalities themselves are in charge of, or where there are special bodies, the district is the basic unit of general administration in Austria. Officials on the district level are not elected, but appointed by the state government. There are also independent cities in Austria. They are called Statutarstadt in Austrian administrative law. These urban districts do have the same tasks as a normal district.