Panacea

Panacea's Mathis Mootz is one of the first German drum'n'bass producers to make a significant dent among the somewhat insular London jungle crowd, creating a bridge of sorts between the U.K. jungle scene and its Berlin-based antagonist in the "digital hardcore" of <a href="spotify:artist:3YGigudQiWDb5NdJOC5StS">Alec Empire</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:2mx5jUXuSFUX5KNN8ikgLk">Shizuo</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1EMlPfrse4I1I1hA3iwhk9">Atari Teenage Riot</a>, etc. Although Mootz's work is reported to be only marginally accepted in his home country (and despite high praise by <a href="spotify:artist:3YGigudQiWDb5NdJOC5StS">Empire</a>), the brutalizing, overdriving, near industrial breakbeats and buzzing, hoover-esque basslines of tracks such as "Stormbringer" and "Torture" share much with Berlin hardcore artists. Mootz's most obvious influence is the first he's apt to namecheck -- <a href="spotify:artist:6gj4aZLxVGCdFPMThH6q6q">Ed Rush</a> -- but the appearance of unlikely samples (<a href="spotify:artist:6WH1V41LwGDGmlPUhSZLHO">Autechre</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3G3Gdm0ZRAOxLrbyjfhii5">My Bloody Valentine</a>) and IDM-ish electro breaks on his less-rinsed tracks make him not nearly the one-trick pony he at first appears to be. Hailing from the countryside town of Summerhausen, Mootz's musical roots lie in the early hardcore breakbeat of industrial dance artists such as <a href="spotify:artist:2tyMOS8xKREgpEwHnLc6EX">Front 242</a>, early <a href="spotify:artist:4k1ELeJKT1ISyDv8JivPpB">Prodigy</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:7EnAgffrVyerTWH628TJ6f">Nitzer Ebb</a>. One of the first new artists to record for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Force+Inc%22">Force Inc</a>.'s experimental beat music offshoot Chrome, Mootz released no less than three singles his first three weeks out the gate, immediately capturing the attention of the ever-darkening drum'n'bass scene by taking the harsh, dusty darkcore of <a href="spotify:artist:2Hkut4rAAyrQxRdof7FVJq">Rush</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6g2ys0ODFeBpxoWksZiZtS">Trace</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:05H1pstZ1Lu9ucH1Xg49aZ">Dom & Roland</a>, and Elementz of Noise a step or five forward, fusing dozens of sharp, red-lining breaks and swampy bass rolls (often two or three at once) with dense, gaseous electronics, vocoder samples, and doom-bleating synths into a malicious, chaotic soup. Following "Stormbringer," "Tron," and "Day After," Chrome issued the LP Low-Profile Darkness, with the vinyl a sort of extended double 12" and the CD adding tracks from the earlier 12"s. Additionally, Mootz remixed a track by related labelmate <a href="spotify:artist:1GlO6fbTFkwP6CyQgsjSoe">Mike Ink</a> (his Panacea track the odd man out in a double-pack of minimal house and techno takes on <a href="spotify:artist:1GlO6fbTFkwP6CyQgsjSoe">Ink's</a> "Respect"). Twisted Designz followed in 1998 with an American release to boot, while Mootz also issued an EP and full-length under his hardcore acid alias, Bad Street Boy. The third Panacea LP, released in 1999, was a collaboration with Japanese vocalist <a href="spotify:artist:3vlHafv2NilOdR9geTgKU2">Hanayo</a>. One year later, he released a volume in <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Caipirinha%22">Caipirinha</a>'s Brasilia Architettura series focused on the city of Brazilia. German Engineering followed in early 2001. ~ Sean Cooper, Rovi