Search - Ellen Allien :: Other Side: Berlin (W/Dvd) (Dig)

Loads of content and music for your money.

Doctor Trance | MA, United States | 04/06/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The previous Time Out releases featured continuous mixes by the listed DJ (including a great techno mix by Black Strobe on Time Out Paris) with a double sided, dual disc and the DVD features on the flipside. The latest installment, Berlin, sadly only features a tracklisting compiled by Ellen, as I was very disappointed to realize the tracks were not DJ mixed. It's also quite odd, as some tracks continuously play into the next (kind of a soft mix into one another), but others stop prior to the next one starting. Most tracks play out for their entire durations. We will still get two DJ mixes from Ellen this year: the 4th installment in her BoogyBytes mix series (as Modeselektor is about to release the 3rd), and a mix for Fabric.



Aside from my disappointment of it not being a full DJ mix, Allien has compiled a list of some very good techno goodies, including two of the most popular tech house/minimal tracks of 2006, Âme's Rej and Booka Shade's In White Rooms. There is also a stunning Carl Craig remix of Rhythm & Sound's Poor People Must Work. Ellen has ecclectic taste in music, and this one is no different, as she adds a punk track, and one classic rock song that is actually sung in German by David Bowie.



The DVD portion really impressed me, as it surpasses the others in this series (Time Out Paris was only 24 minutes total), and they have gone to a separate disc and added much more content. It is also chock full of more techno and IDM tracks that are not on the CD portion. It starts off with a very well produced 48 minute documentary hosted by the übercute Ellen, who takes us shopping for clothes and records, and hangs out with other electronic artists like Modeselektor, Seth Hodder, and even Richie Hawtin, who all chat briefly on camera. She mostly speaks English, but some portions are subtitled when she speaks German. On top of that, the background music is full of tracks from Ellen's own current and back catalog, which makes this a well rounded 48 minute tour full of great sights and sounds.



The DVD still has more to come, with segments ranging from 8 to 27 minutes, concetrating on shopping, food, clubs, accomodations, and other miscellaneous sites in and around Berlin. And all this set to even more juicy techno tracks, that I believe are mostly from Ellen's BPitch Control label. It's just the music playing, with informational text at the bottom as they visit many locations. I wish they provided a tracklisting! There is a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes of video footage, between these segments and Ellen's portion, all set to the best musical background one could ever want for a documentary!



This is a great purchase, and could have been a truly overwhelming release, had it just had a full DJ mix by Ellen on the CD, but what we do have is an incredible amount of techno music and one very well produced DVD video on Berlin."