shifting gears towards electronic soundscapes, this month’s colectivo digs features the works of german electronic music producer Jan Jelinek. born in darmstad, germany in 1971, jan moved to berlin in 1995 where he studied sociology and philosophy, both of which became ever-present themes in his music. beginning his production career circa 1998, jelinek started constructing intricate compositions based around a mixture of found sounds and loops built with the use of samplers, tape recorders, media players and other recording implements.

jan’s latest release came in the form of a collaboration with japanese percussionist and vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita on his own faitiche label; the album is a fusion of fujita’s interpretation of jazz with jelinek’s known mastery for layers of sound. you can listen to this fine piece of music via spotify or you can sample and purchase it on boomkat. jelinek, who doesn’t consider himself a musician rather a sound manipulator, has shifted between different aliases during his career, including the more techno orientated Farben and Gramm projects.

if we’d have to pick a favorite album though, we would have to go with jan’s collaboration with the now disbanded experimental jazz outfit, Triosk. the album, titled 1+3+1 on the wonderful ~scape label, followed a peculiar production method with jelinek mailing selected samples and textures to australia, triosk using them as a basis for composition and recording, and the enhanced material would then return to berlin for jelinek to finalize the cuts. the result is a timeless piece of lush abstract music that can be heard on repeat, time and time again.

check out jan’s entire discography on his discogs artist page or listen to some of his various productions on spotify