Quantec

Sven Schienhammer, a German producer whose electronic work stretches back to the mid-1990s, records dub techno under the Quantec alias among several others. His productions display a profound, effervescent, liquid character that draws explicitly from the foundational Basic Channel aesthetic and have appeared on Echocord, Silent Season, and Bine. Schienhammer first turned to electronic music in 1995, drawn to hardware instruments including the Roland TB-303, before moving into software synthesis paired with vintage analog instruments from the 1970s and 1980s. Basic Channel’s catalog prompted him to begin crafting dub techno material. The project’s debut came with the 2007 Styrax 12-inch “Deep in Mind,” which revealed his submerged, swirling, hypnotic approach. Additional EPs followed on Meanwhile, BVDub’s Quietus imprint, and Echocord, the last of which released the first Quantec album, the super-deep and immersive Unusual Signals, in 2008. Two further albums appeared in 2009—Journey of Mind on Silent Season and Cauldron Subsidence on Echocord, the latter carrying a slight dubstep influence. For the next three years Quantec output consisted solely of EPs issued across Shoreless, Phonobox, Millions of Moments, For Pleasure, and Analog Response. In 2011 Schienhammer introduced the Monoaxial alias with the split album ABX10 alongside Coppice Halifax on Milieu, while also issuing the album Altostratus Translucidus under his given name on Bine Music; neither recording departed markedly from the core Quantec sound. The fourth Quantec album, 1000 Vacuum Tubes, arrived on Elux in 2012. Four years later he formed the duo Base Pilot with Birke TM, whose first release, the 12-inch “Life Is Rhythm” on Neighbour Recordings, introduced a somewhat bouncier, more uptempo character.