Ellen Allien

All Music Guide:

Like a lot of dance music producers, Berlin's Ellen Allien has had her hands in just about every aspect of her field. Allien's immersion into dance music began during an extended stay in London, at the height of the acid house phenomenon. Shortly after returning home she got into DJing, and by 1993 she had spun at Fischlabor, Tresor, and a number of other significant clubs. Throughout the remainder of the '90s, she hosted programs on Berlin's Kiss FM, worked at the Delirium record shop, operated a label called Braincandy, and threw a number of parties called BPitch Control, which led to her label of the same name. She eventually became a noted producer; along with a slew of 12" releases, she issued a series of full-lengths -- Stadtkind (2001), Berlinette (2003), Thrills (2005), Orchestra of Bubbles (2006, with Apparat), SOOL (2008), and Dust (2010), along with the mix albums Weiss Mix (2002), My Parade (2004), Fabric 34 (2007), Boogybytes, Vol. 4 (2008), and Watergate 05 (2010). Throughout the years, the sound of Allien's productions took on subtle changes, ingested new inspirations, and gravitated toward full-blown songs while remaining pared down all along.

Wikipedia:

Ellen Allien, born Ellen Fraatz, is a German electronic musician, music producer and founder of BPitch Control music label. She lives in Berlin, Germany. She sings in both German and English. She has said that one of the main inspirations for her music is the culture of reunified Berlin; her album Stadtkind was dedicated to the city. Her music is best described as a blend of IDM and electro music, which is dance-floor oriented, yet at the same time has noticeable experimental elements.

History

Ellen was born in Berlin. Her father played guitar and piano. During 1989, she lived in London where she first came into contact with electronic music. When she later returned to Berlin, electronic music had become increasingly popular in Germany. In 1992, she became resident DJ in the Bunker, Tresor and in E-Werk. She started her own show on the Berlin radio station Kiss-FM and created her own record label, calling them both "Braincandy". Due to discrepancies with disk sales, she gave Braincandy up in 1997 and instead, organized parties with the name, "B Pitch". Allien created the label BPitch Control in 1999. The label's releases from Sascha Funke and Tok Tok were particularly successful. Allien released her first album, Stadtkind ("city child"), in 2001, and Berlinette in 2003, After releasing Thrills, Allien created a BPitch sub-label for minimal tech and minimal house, called "Memo Musik", in 2005. Orchestra of Bubbles, in collaboration with Apparat, featurings songs like "Way Out" and "Jet", was released in 2006.

During the same year, Ellen Allien launched her own fashion line, which can be seen as "an extension of her philosophy of life“. Ellen Allien Fashion combines a smart perspective onto fashion, music, art, and traveling to an overarching existence, which is meant to be shared. Exploring the globe, street life, Ellen Allien develops her own intuition for materials, forms and designs. In her most recent collection, Night Flowers (Ellen Allien Fashion spring/summer 2010), she created a complete look made of a mixture of black floral lace, white and black floral stitched cotton and summer wool. Featuring hazy prints of dancing people on loose cut t-shirts, each detail transports the feeling of Night Flowers -- "we are the night flowers, and in those special moments, when the music and the crowd become one, we magically blossom at the turn of dusk…."

After the minimalistic Sool in 2008, she released her fifth solo album Dust (BPC217) in May 2010.

Allien made a brief appearance in the 2009 electronic music documentary, Speaking In Code.