Bochum Welt - Desktop Robotics & Feelings On A Screen [25th Anniversary Edition] (CPU)

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Bochum Welt’s 2019 LP ‘Seafire’ and its accompanying remix album are two of the Central Processing Unit label’s most beloved releases. However, links between the two parties run far deeper than just those records.

You see, the tracks that Gianluigi Di Costanzo cut as Bochum Welt in the 1990s and 2000s are in the very DNA of the celebrated Sheffield imprint. Bochum Welt’s drops on labels like Rephlex made for some of the most celebrated electronic music releases of the era and went on to influence producers the world over - including many of those who have turned up on CPU since it launched in 2012.

As such, it makes sense that two of the most crucial EPs from Bochum Welt’s first wave are now being given new life by CPU. ‘Desktop Robotics’ and ‘Feelings On A Screen’ initially emerged in 1997 via Aphex Twin’s Rephlex imprint. Now, Di Costanzo has curated this special CPU release to celebrate both of those EPs making it to 25. This is a reissue with a twist, though. While ‘Desktop Robotics / Feelings On A Screen’ features many crucial cuts from the original pressings, the record also serves up other gems gathered from Bochum Welt’s original master tapes - all of which have never previously been released on vinyl.

The ‘Desktop Robotics’ cuts which make for the record’s first half are dreamy, impressionistic things. On this quartet, Bochum Welt plays painterly synth work off of idiosyncratic drum programming to illuminating effect. The opening title-track, for instance, blooms from a clattering, distorted beat into an icily beguiling electronic soundscape, a vibe which carries through to following number ‘HMT (202 Mix)’.

Things become more weightless on ‘Leafs Brought By The Wind’, a potent vignette where you can almost see the leaves falling amidst its reverb-drenched haze. We then get ethereal ‘Marylebone (Demo Version)’. Anyone who’s heard the iteration of ‘Marylebone’ which appeared on Bochum Welt’s 2017 LP ‘April’ will be pleasantly surprised by this alternate mix. Here the track pulls away from pretty post-minimalist piano composition to widescreen ambience - it’s so warm and intimate that it feels like peeking behind a curtain to observe an artist at work.

Things ramp up a notch with the tracks taken from in and around ‘Feelings On A Screen’. The title cut kicks off the record’s second half in limber fashion, its nimble percussion programming dancing around a pulsing bassline. Like A Tim’s mix of ‘Greenwich’ is still as much of a party-starter as it was on the original ‘Feelings On A Screen’ release, with the Djax-Up-Beats veteran setting buoyant rhythm work against a playful, eccentric lead-line.

Between these tunes we are treated to one of the gems of the Bochum Welt discography. In 2007, Di Costanzo split an EP with Heinrich Mueller, an artist best known as Drexciya’s Gerald Donald. That record featured Mueller’s ‘Z Version’ of Bochum Welt’s ‘Saint’, and the track’s appearance here, with machine gun bass burbling alongside strange textures, joins the dots between Di Constanzo’s style and the pulsating machine-funk that Donald helped popularise. Things close out with ‘North’, a frostily beautiful ambience which makes for a fitting bookend to this album when taken alongside ‘Desktop Robotics’.

This 25th anniversary re-release of Bochum Welt’s ‘Desktop Robotics’ and ‘Feelings On A Screen’ EPs reminds us that, while time may have passed, the appeal of Bochum Welt’s electronic music remains as strong as ever.

RIYL: AFX, Mike Paradinas, Boards Of Canada, Mrs Jynx

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love those early records by Bochum Welt  

I’ll definitely be buying this

I still remember listening obsessively to Module 2 when it first came out. This makes me feel extremely old.

It's great he's still going.

Dang! I thought it was like the actual eps being reissued instead of a couple songs and some extras. 

  On 5/30/2022 at 3:16 PM, Upset man said:

Dang! I thought it was like the actual eps being reissued instead of a couple songs and some extras. 

Yeah, I first assumed that as well, so getting a mixed bag with a couple of exclusives was a bit of a letdown.

Feelings on a Screen was the first Bochum Welt I’d heard. I bought it because of the weirdly shaped mini CD, but it’s one of my favorite EPs ever I think. Pretty disappointed that this isn’t a straight reissue.  What a weird choice. 

Those EPs are stone cold classics, but Bochum Welt's catalog is the most baffling of any artist I know.  Over the last decade, has there been a single release with all original tracks?  And all of these reissues or different versions with slightly different versions of tracks and you have to carefully piece through tracklists to figure it out.  

Listening on Soundcloud, it sounds like a remaster of the original tracks?  That wasn't mentioned in the write-up though.

  On 5/30/2022 at 6:18 PM, atypic said:

Bochum Welt's catalog is the most baffling of any artist I know.

I've definitely though the same. I remember when his first "album" came out - R.O.B. - I felt so confused, like wait hasn't there already been one? and I always thought he could've been a bigger name (I suppose if he wanted that), maybe if his catalog was I dunno...more cohesive?

goddamn it please just reprint this track on wax 4 times

OG

  On 5/30/2022 at 7:03 PM, zero said:

I've definitely though the same. I remember when his first "album" came out - R.O.B. - I felt so confused, like wait hasn't there already been one? and I always thought he could've been a bigger name (I suppose if he wanted that), maybe if his catalog was I dunno...more cohesive?

Even today on his own Bandcamp releases, usually it won't be the whole original release, but rather some of the tracks will be replaced by slightly updated or different versions!

The release is out today (digitally).  Upon closer inspection, I realized I already had all but one of the track variations (North).

got my wax in the mail.  It was nice they did a bochum-welt style inner sleeve. Honestly I'm not a big fan of some these alternate versions.

Yeah he's a great musician with a good aesthetic but I haven't bought any of his releases for a few years now cause I assume I've already got the best tracks. Dont wanna accuse the guy of laziness but some of these last few albums are so threadbare they almost seem like posthumous releases. .. or maybe its a meditation on repetition i'm not getting.

Perhaps he's too preoccupied with his job to focus on new music? The only reason anything gets released at all is because the labels can do it for him, using tracks that are already out there and with an occasional 'new' one.

Yeah thats probably the correct explanation. I don't begrudge these releases, I'm sure there are lots of fans who want absolutely everything they can get from him. Im not that guy tho.

As I understand it, he does not have the rights to his entire catalog. This is why we see CPU and Gianluigi himself release portions of his back catalog and not a track for track reissue.

  On 6/27/2022 at 9:55 AM, JS6791MC said:

As I understand it, he does not have the rights to his entire catalog. This is why we see CPU and Gianluigi himself release portions of his back catalog and not a track for track reissue.

But these were released on Rephlex. Weren't all rights returned to the artists when Rephlex shut down?

  On 6/27/2022 at 12:40 PM, t yst r said:

But these were released on Rephlex. Weren't all rights returned to the artists when Rephlex shut down?

Yes

Heinrich Mueller remix is rad.

hmmm. perhaps he was referring to his scharlach eingang ep where he does not have 100% rights to. 

he does a lot of track recycling and that shit hurts my head. as far as his reissue of desktop robotics / feelings on a screen is concerned, i’m ok with a remastered / re-packaged version but leave the tracks alone.

even the packaging (inner sleeve) was more of a nod to feelings on a screen than it was to desktop robotics. this could have been released as two separate eps rather than a combo release.