Gradually, I started playing there more regularly and released on their sublabel unterton and also put out my debut album on Hospital Productions, which is run by Vatican Shadow, who’s another Berghain resident. That led to collaborations and releases on Jealous God and also helped peak interest in Berghain to book me for my first Klubnacht set there in 2015. Juan (Silent Servant) and I had known each other for a while already from the weird scene in New York, and we linked up again when he was coming through Berlin. I saw techno as a genre still to be explored with many boundaries to be pushed. When I moved to Berlin nearly six years ago, the Phase Fatale project came to the forefront. I’ve been playing and putting out records in bands for nearly a decade, mostly coldwave, minimal synth, and post-punk, while Phase Fatale had just been a personal side-project of mine. In the lead up to his 24 January album release, Fatale walked me through his motivations for creating Scanning Backwards.īefore we into your new album, please provide some context around your journey to where we are now, with your first full-length Ostgut Ton release. Fatale has chosen to show us the coercive force sound can play in structuring our memory and identity. His upcoming album, Scanning Backwards, succeeds in going even further. Reverse Fall, Fatale’s first release on the Berghain-label, Ostgut Ton, explored how technology has entered even the most intimate of human affairs. Half an hour into my walk and some distance from where I started, I felt calm and restored, comfortable enough to re-enter the world with silence. The browning leaves and shattered bottles lost their relevance as I entered a private conversation with Fatale’s moody electronic body music, with his dark, lustful melodies talking sense into my emotions. I saw my feet taking steps through the park, over broken-brick footpaths and rain-soaked cigarette butts, but the world itself had become unreal. I took to the streets, walking quickly, aimlessly. Phase Fatale, the pseudonym of Berghain-resident, Hayden Payne, is one of those unique artists whose music nestles into your mind and becomes inseparable from a particular emotional state.įrom the first listen, the sheer depth and immense character of Fatale’s most recent album, Scanning Backwards, demanded my complete attention.

Phase Fatale âŽ Issue NÂ° Ten 2016