Kruder & Dorfmeister Biographie

Well, basically two guys mainly known through their successful dj-sets and
a respectable record of vinyl-releases since 1993. A dubplate-melting
factor from Vienna. Two producers/djs/remixers whose distinctive trademark
sound is at most times extremely mellow, has a lot of bass, downbeat tracks
and a sense of epic soundscapes. There might be the occasional double-time
breaks and the heavy and deep typically viennese feeling.

Consider K&D to roam in their own, unique realm of musical beutekunst that
owes and gives a lot to rare funk tunes, electric jazz arrangements, the
feeling of deep soul, hiphop, dub, reggae, ambient, fusion, brazil,
chansons, dope beats and drum+bass and still a lot more influences that
happen to find the interest of the two austrians.

At a time when hip hopbeats started to emancipate themselves from the
rapping and everyone started to pay highest attention to the blooming
breakbeat scene in the UK, K&D broke through out of nowhere with one 4-
track e.p. (G-stoned) that featured a hypnotic track called High Noon and a
cover that showed the dj-duo in true Simon & Garfunkel form, straight out
of Richard Avedon anno 1969.

The impact was massive, especially since the first wave of enthusiasm came
from the UK where musical imports from the continent are seldom
appreciated. Gilles Peterson played the track at first on his famous now
called Worldwide-show.

Gathering momentum with support from people like Wall of Sounds Mark Jones
and tracks for fellow Austrians Count Basic or strange people like William
Orbit, the further story of K&D and Richard's Tosca project is well
documented on various compilations and twelve inch releases. They met
people like the Ninja tune posse, touched base with the leftfield dance,
befriended Munich's Compost crew, remixed artists as diverse as Bomb the
bass, Bones thugs & harmony, Alex Reece, United Future Organisation,
Rockers Hifi (the K&D version was used in the video of "Going under"),
Lamb, Roni Size, Depeche Mode and dj-ed in more clubs than you would care
to count.

Be it their self-produced tracks or the sound of their remixes, the K&D
symptomatic feeling of lush european loungcore-dub pervaded all swift
changes of the triphop hype and survived as a highly personal expression
that found easy access into the world of drum&bass when the breakbeats
became soulful.

Their regular presence in the club circuit, a characteristic side effect of
their consistant travelling as djs, made them well-received guest at the
various crossing of an international beat-set that took them from Vienna to
London, to the American Westcoast, to Germany and back, with a tightly
packed dj-bag full of remixes tracing their steps.

A mix-CD compilation, DJ-kicks, for german label studio K7 marked a
relevant change in the overall concept of K&D or rather in the way the
audience seemed to take them in. From being well-respected underground
heroes they had emerged to be full fledged media-celebrities in the music-
press whose mix-CD was so excellently mixed and selected, that many new
fans were attracted all over the world.

K&D are maybe something like the continental answer to the british
breakbeat or the american illbient scene, but then again their musical
imprint is outernational anyway. They could achieve the special abstract
global reputation that makes them neighbours to RockersHifi, Fila Brazilia,
Howie B., DJ Shadow, the wordsound collective, Coldcut or the Thievery
corporation in a virtual neighbourhood of twekwando-ing beatmeisters.

But, with a number of prolific dj-dates of K&D all around the world and the
production and releases of two Tosca CD's of Tosca, a remix for Gregory
Isaacs for the tribute remix compilation of dub-classics on Island records,
and a remix for Madonna's single Nothing really matters, it seems
unavoidable that there will be a lot of talk about Peter Kruder & Richard
Dorfmeister.