Tobias Freund

Tobias.—an unassuming enough name (and note the spelling, please: that's Tobias., period!). But his productions are anything but understated: Street Knowledge, Dial, Balance, I Can't Fight The Feeling and of course his latest release on Perlon, She - these are the recordings that have animated dance floors and enthralled critics over the past several years. Not to mention remixes for the likes of Efdemin, Los Updates, Two Armadillos, Russ Gabriel, D'Julz and more, all cumulating in a slew of releases for era-defining imprints like Perlon, Cadenza, Bpitch, Wagon Repair, OstGut Ton, Liebe Detail, Circus Company, Simple and Buzzin' Fly.

As minimal techno has risen and fallen, as deep house has gone from guilty pleasure to crate staple, Tobias. has worked steadily away, synthesizing elements from decades of electronic experimentaion into one of the most distinctive styles in contemporary electronic dance music.

How do you even begin to sum that up? One phrase: "Non Standard Is the Standard." If you had to articulate Tobias Freund's musical philosophy in a single phrase, that would almost certainly be it. It's right there in the names: in his record label Non Standard Productions and also Non Standard Institute, his collaborative project with Max Loderbauer.

Of course, everyone wants to be non-standard nowadays. What makes Freund different—what earns him the right to the Non Standard tag—is that he doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Standards are all about fealty to an ideal, and no one is more faithful to certain musical ideals—the defamiliarizing power of electronic sound, the libidinal spirit of house music—than Freund.

With a life's work (that sounds so much nicer than "career") reaching back to include more than 20 years of composition, experimentation, performance and professional engineering work, Tobias has learned what makes a standard work. It's those lessons that allow him to step beyond the known, to create something radically new, in every one of his records.