Gesaffelstein (FR)

It takes a certain brand of confidence to name yourself after two towering intellectual concepts. Gesamtkunstwerk is the German ideal of the total or universal artwork, bringing together music, the visual arts, narrative and more into a single intoxicating vision. Albert Einstein is the ultimate example of human intellect – the man who explained the universe. Put them together and you’ve got Gesaffelstein, AKA Mike Levy, the Paris-based DJ-producer who reconnected hard techno to its industrial roots – the primal hammering of Front 242, Nitzer Ebb and DAF – and now expands it into a rich and intriguing universe of its own on his uncompromising debut album ‘Aleph’. “Gesaffelstein is an ambitious name,” he admits, “and it is something that just came to me when I was living in Belgium a few years ago. I want my music to be art, with something to say, but Einstein is about quantum physics too. That means the small things, the tiny things that change everything, the detail. Einstein always kept questioning and refining his ideas. That’s what I strive towards.”