Barricade

Aleko Barricade

Produced in 2004, this EP marks an essential shift in the production of Stefan Goldmann to his modus operandi as a dedicated innovator. He had adapted the “Barricade” guise to induce some serious deviations into the techno realm. Yet, heads weren’t ready and he simply continued under his real name with his major breakthrough works: Perlon’s “Blood EP” and the legendary “Sleepy Hollow” tune. Hidden from the public, Aleko and Frantic had built a prototypic aesthetic of rough, concrete-space sounds - reduced dark, metallic percussion grooves, spring reverbs and degraded post-acidic synths. You name it where you heard this sound years later. It’s revealing how far ahead these tunes were at the time of their creation. They sound more “now” than many current tracks. “Aleko” is the 4/4 techno version of this soundset, locked-in clonk patterns built around a nitrous bassline. “Frantic” could be a future development to today’s dubstep, if it wasn’t it’s actual historic predecessor. Add the schizophrenic bass excursion “Heliotrope” and you have a package of painstaking relevance. Back then the A&Rs simply didn’t get it - that’s why it took 6 years and the formation of Victoriaville to finally bring these gems to light.