Tobias' "The Scheme Of Things" is an Ode to Simplicity (And David Bowie)

Everything you need to know about Tobias is folded into the name of his latest album and its sixth track. The highly-praised A Series of Shocks was released on Ostgut Ton—the label owned by Berghain, Berlin's fortress-like monument to no-nonsense techno and unadulterated pleasure—and it delivers on its title's promise. Tobias' long procession of elegantly undulating rhythms snakes into your nerves, while weird hisses and sharp pops fill them with electrifying jolts. This is the kind of techno made for lovers of minimalism and concrete dance floors. This is the kind of techno that has you in its grip before you even know what's happening. This is the kind of techno that gives people heart attacks.

The sixth track on the album, "The Scheme Of Things," is another insight into the mind of this techno master. Tobias is a believer in precision, and every element down to the timbre of his snare drum click is engineered. This obsessive audiophilism comes down to his background: as a longtime studio engineer, he's collaborated with everyone from Ricardo Villalobos to Ellen Allien, and produced tracks for many more. He's even done work for Mili Vanilli. About the lip-synching sensation, Tobias says he "always had a strange feeling about working on a production that was cheating on their fans." Regardless, their songs—his songs—retain an undeniable appeal, and he "still loves listening to them."

The title for "The Scheme of Things" actually comes from the David Bowie song "Word on a Wing," where Bowie sings:

"In this age of grand illusion

You walked into my life

out of my dreams

I don't need another change

Still you forced a way

into my scheme of things"

So who is this destroyer-of-schemas in Tobias' track? It could be his wife, audiovisual artist Valentina Berthelon, who filmed the music video in Berlin's Botanical Garden. The pair had been sitting on the idea to make a music video about journeying through a forest, and this "mysterious song, full of textures, a bit tribal and very organic," as Tobias puts it, seemed like the perfect fit—"it was already making us visualize this trip."

So the camera's searching, never-ending foray into a tangle of greenery is, in some ways, the natural visual counterpart to this techno track—both engender a trance-like, contemplative state that rewards attentive viewers with continuous themes and subtle variations. Asked if they were worried that such low-drama minimalism might instead instill boredom, Tobias said, "What we find appealing (about simple things is) how they work—with just a few elements, they achieve a lot." Spoken like a true techno head.

@MichelleLhooq