The group members met in 1992 in Berlin with group member Szary performing live acid house music at illegal underground parties. The group says, "After the Wall came down, everywhere in Germany and especially East Germany there was a lot of chaos, anarchy." Both soon joined forces and began creating music under the moniker Fundamental Knowledge. In 1996 the group renamed themselves Modeselektor, a name taken from a function on the Roland Space Echoanalog delayeffects unit. In 1999 Modeselektor signed its first remix contract and began working with Pfadfinderei, a Berlin-based VJ and design collective. In 2000 Modeselektor met Ellen Allien, making BPitch Control their home label. Modeselektor has also been involved in collaborative efforts; Moderat - a musical collaboration between Modeselektor and Apparat, Pfadselektor - a music/visual collaboration between Modeselektor and Pfadfinderei, and with Rhythm & Sound's Paul St. Hillaire. They have produced sound installations at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and lectured at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart. Modeselektor is a favourite group of Thom Yorke, who has recommended their albums in interviews and included the song "Silikon" in a publicly available iTunesplaylist. Moderat have also supported Radiohead on the band's concerts in Poznań, Poland and Prague, Czech Republic, in August 2009. The follow-up to Hello Mom! was Happy Birthday!, which was released in 2007 with Paul St. Hilaire, TTC, Puppetmastaz, Thom Yorke and Maxïmo Park as guest vocalists. Other collaborators included Otto von Schirach, Siriusmo, and Apparat. In an interview that same year, the group said regarding their sound: "Happy metal, hard rap, country-ambient, Russian crunk. We don’t like it if people tag us as being a certain style or school or scene or whatever. We don’t really care about all that." In March 2009, they released an album with Apparat under the name Moderat. They have collaborated previously on an EP named Auf Kosten der Gesundheit which was released as a limited 12" on BPitch Control in 2002. Modeselektor also appeared as main characters in Amy Grill's 2009 electronic music documentary, Speaking in Code. Modeselektor are said to be good friends with Siriusmo, and regularly remix and promote his material. In September 2011 Modeselektor released their third LP, Monkeytown, in which various artists including Thom Yorke collaborated on. In August 2013, Modeselektor released their second album in collaboration with Apparat under the name Moderat, entitled II
Monkeytown Records
Monkeytown Records is a Berlin-based electronic music record label, owned by Sebastian Szary and Gernot Bronsert of Modeselektor. The label has released music by Moderat, Modeselektor, WK7, Mouse on Mars, Otto von Schirach, Siriusmo, and Funkstörung, among others.
