Alex Flatner - Perfect Circles

Alex Flatner has been honing his craft for many years, running very successful underground labels Gedankensport and Circle Music, A&R managing the prolific labels Harthouse and Plastic City as well as a highly regarded DJ and producer. Ellie Hewitt caught up with him about his latest release ‘Our Love EP’ with Lopazz and he dropped Pulse an exclusive track for you to download, a reworking of his 'Perfect Circles' track which you can grab right here!

Your latest EP Our Love is out on Get Physical with LOPAZZ, can you give us a quick run down of the inspiration for the EP? Lopazz and I do all the sounds by ourselves, even the vocals are coming from us, too. Most of the inspiration is coming from the moment we have, as we jam in the studio and trying to do always something special, something new!

What's it like working with LOPAZZ in the studio? It’s fun but also on a high professional level of working like we do. We use guitars (Bass, E-Guitar), drums, jamming on versatile synthesizers and jamming on the microphone, too. On the track “Hapbee”, which was released on Poker Flat, there is a kind of speech rap, which comes from me.

“Our Love”, “Just A Memory” and “2night” are the titles of the tracks, is there a story behind them? In particular, we just wanted to make something different, definitely orientated towards the dancefloor, but showing also a more musical side, from both of us, which you maybe can hear in the track “2Night”? Or even in the track “Our Love”, which is pretty much based on the vocals and the sounds around them. Also, in the track “Just A Memory”, which has a special moment with the synth-line and the vocals.

What are your three biggest loves in life? My mother, my nephews and music.

You A&R labels like Harthouse and Plastic City as well as running your own imprints Circle Music and Gendankensport, as well as DJing and producing, how do you have time for it all? I don’t have time at all - I just try to manage all those things. But I do have a very strict and busy schedule from the early morning till the night. I am in the office every day and in the late evening almost every day in the studio, also almost every weekend pretty much traveling around. It’s sometimes really kinda stressful, but I love it.

Labels like Harthouse have a cult following as an imprint with a lot of heritage, do you think many labels today have the potential to have the same longevity? Sure it’s possible, it’s just about the way you select artists, music, and last but not least, how you represent your label today!!

What does 'Gedankensport' mean in German? I typed it into google translate and it said it means 'thoughtless sport'... is that correct? Can you explain further? It means brain sport. Actually, I dedicated this label name to an old friend of mine, Stereo (aka Noname) and to the people who think too much and maybe overthink about things. If you see the logo’s from the releases, then you will find on each new release a new sports figure, but the figures don’t have a head!



What would you say the Circle Music style is? Circle Music doesn’t have a particular style, I release what I do because I really like it and its what I would also personally play. This was actually also very important for me as I do really like all styles from techno through to nu-disco. As a label, we would like also to surprise our fans.

What would you say your aims for Circle Music are? Is the use of circles as a symbol and a name significant? Continual progression or...? Yes, indeed, a continual progression, that’s what Circle Music and the logo are standing for, always to continue and to be around. Circle Music also stands for a label family thinking each other and supporting each other.

Do you think music goes round in circles? Are there any particular sounds you'd like to be revived? If you see a circle as a continual progression, then I would say yes, music goes round in circles, a kind of perfect circle! At the moment I do really like the nu-disco style.

Listen to Alex Flatner on Pulse Radio