Biography
Köln's A-Musik imprint has long issued some of the most intricate reworkings of experimental ambient and post-techno. Although Felix “F.X.” Randomiz places his own name solely on his personal recordings, he has participated in nearly every release from the label in one capacity or another. He supplied material to the electronica constructions of Pluramon, Holosud, Schlammpeitziger, and, above all, Mouse on Mars—appearing on the group’s widely circulated Autoditacker LP and forming the duo Slow alongside Mouse on Mars’ Jan St. Werner. From these associations Randomiz extracts components that he fuses into an intensely artificial, vertically stacked mixture whose stability is matched only by its fragility. His buoyant, unsteady electronica, built on heavy sampler manipulation, most closely recalls the glitch-oriented work of General Magic, Mouse on Mars, and Atom Heart, yet the extreme density of his compositions heightens their challenge for listeners. Randomiz stepped fully into the foreground in 1996 with a standout reinterpretation on Schlammpeitziger’s “Freundlichbaracudaremix” ten-inch, issued by A-Musik in severely restricted numbers. His first full-length album, Goflex, followed on A-Musik in 1998. Like many records that helped establish Köln’s experimental post-techno reputation during 1997-98, the LP favors chiming imprecision; its crowded, lo-fi flutter nevertheless registers as more evasive than most comparable efforts.