Anthony Rother – ROME – DETROIT – GERMANY

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As an electro producer, visionary, and chronicler of a technologized future, Anthony Rother has secured a permanent place in electronic music history since the late ’90s. With „Redlight District/Destroy Him My Robots – Hybrid Edition“, he is now re-releasing two of his most iconic tracks – as an elaborately produced 8-track double vinyl. The idea for the project emerged during a remix, with hardware and great attention to detail. Rother personally wrote the story behind the two pieces for us and offers insights into his artistic development—between electro roots, social stances, and technological progress.

This period marks the beginning of my life as a somewhat professional music producer and the start of my creative journey in discovering my artistic voice and exploring my inner world.

In 1997, „Destroy Him My Robots“ was my first published electro track, released on Andrea Benedetti’s and Marco Passarani’s label Plasmek. It was part of a vinyl compilation with the outstanding electro artists I-F, Max Durante, Frame (6), and Passarani 2099. At the time, I worked in the shipping warehouse of the Neuton record distribution company in Offenbach, where I picked and packed vinyl records. Among my colleagues were Johannes Heil, Ricardo Villalobos, and Zip, the founder of Perlon Records. In the offices were people like record salesman Sammy D. and Heiko Laux – the latter got me the job at the warehouse. Also located in the building were the offices of Atas and Heiko MSO’s label Ongaku, with its sub-labels Klang and Playhouse. If I recall correctly, there were some recording studios in the basement and the record-listening room run by Sigi, one of Neuton’s bosses. After work, I would go home and produce music late into the night on headphones in my small home studio, dreaming of a life as a freelance artist.

In 1998, I produced the track „Redlight District“ after being contacted by the Detroit label Direct Beat via fax. That was incredible – like a dream come true. I finished the track the same night and sent the DAT cassette to America via Deutsche Post the next day. After a while, Direct Beat got back to me. They liked the track, but the vocals were unfortunately too explicit. The lyrics of „Redlight District“ are overtly explicit on the surface, but they’re a metaphor. The subtext is a critique of capitalism and commercialism. At the time, in the late ’90s, these themes were relevant in my circles—the Kanzleramt crew, Neuton, and other musicians. It was an agenda shaped by the Detroit UR code (Underground Resistance) and Berlin underground influences. Back then, we affectionately called this mentality the “Techno Police.” Around that time, I was also in touch with Pascal Feos and Alex Azary. I had contributed vocoder vocals for their Auro-Float project, which led to the idea of releasing a record on Elektrolux. I offered them Redlight District and Destroy Him My Robots, and produced two additional tracks. Those four songs were released later that same year as a 12″ vinyl on Elektrolux.