#dasoforever – “Every second full of burning passion”

Photo: Roland Kaiser Wilhelm

On April 2nd of last year our friend Daso Franke died much too soon. During the months prior to his death, he continued to produce an album that will be released on Connaisseur Recordings exactly one year after his death.

We took the release of “Daso” as an opportunity to ask some of his friends for their personal favourite Daso-track.

On April 4th there will be a little get-together at the  Latitude Record Store in Berlin which belongs to the Griessmühle. We are looking forward to everyone who drops by at 5 pm so we can listen to Daso’s music together.

Pawas Gupta
Daso & Pawas „Det”
(Spectral Sound)

“I was up all night working on a track – and very happy with the result. The next morning Daso shows up for lunch. I was very excited to play him the sketch. He listens to it, didn’t say much, but sits down on my computer and mutes 90% of the channels on Ableton and says: „This is perfect!“
Basically it was just the melody and the kick drum playing. He started dancing, throwing his palm in the air, his fave move. And we sat down and started working on it, after a few hours , „Det“ was ready.”

Jin Choi
Daso & Jin Choi “Teer”
(Systematic Recordings)

„I met Daso in the summer of 2004 in front of the Six Pack in Cologne. After that night and while we both were in Cologne until 2009, there was probably hardly a day on which we didn’t see each other. He had just arrived in Cologne with nothing but a few plastic bags and travel bags because there was no real music scene for him in Hanover and he had gotten in touch with Traum Schallplatten thanks to Adam Kroll. He only had a very modest Medion computer on which Fruity Loops ran in his luggage.
That night in front of the Six Pack, he entangled me in an enthusiastic conversation about making music in his inimitable and impulsive way. I was amazed by his euphoria, but didn’t know what to think of a guy who talks about great musical visions and produces with fruity loops on an Aldi computer. That night ended with us going to my studio early in the morning after a boring party because he wanted to play me “his track”, the one in which Traum/My best Friend were interested. He played a demo of “Daybreak”, which was already close to the version that got released – and I couldn’t believe what kind of a monster of a song this weird guy had created with fruity loops and a mouse (Daso didn’t have a keyboard back then, he drew the melodies with his mouse).
Whoa. I was quite amazed, but not sure if it was just a lucky shot. But my interest in Daso was sparked. A few days later he came to me with a number of drafts as well as a first version of “T. Anders”, which became the B-side of his first MBF release – and that made it clear: He has got massive talent and musical empathy!
We started making music together shortly afterwards. Daso grew tremendously from track to track, living and feeling music like hardly any other producer I have known. And he also produced like that: Daso was hard to stay seated while in the studio, he kept jumping up and down, dancing, editing, changing programs and plug-ins every other second, bouncing random effects together, hacking functions against their idea of use… He virtually performed the songs into the computer. A frenzy of autonomy and identity – and every second full of burning passion.
Daso gave me a new approach to music. Of all the songs we produced together, I like “Teer” (on Systematic Recordings) the most. I think, this was where we developed a fine common handwriting for dub-like house.
Brother, I miss you. Thanks for the time we had and the inspiration you gave.“

Jennifer Cardini
Daso „Meine”
(Spectral)

“Only a few artist can say they’ve made “an instant classic”, Daso was one of them. There is a lot of honesty in „Meine“, it’s a positive and full of love anthem!”

Jens Friebe
Daso „Cotton David“ feat. Anouk Visée
(Connaisseur Recordings) 

„The last time I visited Daso at the hospital, he was unresponsive. His girlfriend played the record for him, which had been finished only a few weeks earlier. I particularly recall this song. According to Annouk, who sang it and also wrote on it, it was supposed to be a bit of a gagsy Craig David pastiche. For me, the song fit the memories I had of earlier visits. On the one hand this somewhat gloomy-druggy hospital atmosphere, but also this chill, deep serenity, which Daso never lost even in the most brutal phases of his illness, even when he must have known what the chances were for him. And it’s just a very nice song.“

Sam Valenti IV
Daso “Beneath A Steel Sky”
(Connaisseur Recordings)

“While there are more iconic Daso songs, my favorite is “Beneath A Steel Sky”. The track does what Daso did best, great percussion and spellbinding melodies. It has more passion in it than 1000 songs and the dance between it’s baseline and melody will endure. Generations will discover Daso’s music and it’s uniqueness within the electronic world. I’m very honored we were able to work with him and I will miss his spirit and musicianship greatly.”

Irakli Kiziria
Daso „Daybreak“
(MBF)

“It was a hot summer day in Cologne. I was sitting with a friend and having a drink outside at our favorite place at that time, few minutes later Daso joined us. He was a friend of a friend and that was the first time I met him.
What should I say: I was shocked by Daso’s humor, it was way too honest – much more than what I was used to. It was like seeing Larry David for the first time. He was making comments and making us laugh, and you just didn’t know if it was okay to laugh or if it was too much. I remember going home to check his music right after this late-afternoon encounter. There it was, his “Daybreak”, freshly released on Cologne’s My Best Friend Label.
Time passed, we became very good friends and there have been many releases from him, but I think this one is special for me. It will always remind me of that afternoon full of laughter and joy.”

Sebastian Ingenhoff
Daso „Daybreak“
(MBF)

“The first time I listened to “Daybreak” was while we were having pre-drinks at a friend’s place. The artist was present. Daso had just moved to Cologne from Hanover and had spent the last few years producing tracks for the dance floor using the most simple equipment. But they were more like songs. At that time it was already known that “Daybreak” would appear on MBF. And it was obvious to the rest of us that “Daybreak” would be at least a small club hit. The timid vocals, the pulsating distorted bass, the trance-like tapestries of sound and the melody fit perfectly between New Wave, Italo and the sound from Kompakt.
Daso’s roots were actually in pop music, his favorite band was New Order. He didn’t really know much about techno, as he said himself. He quickly acquired the knowledge and just under a year later he played one of his first live sets at the relatively newly opened Panorama Bar. Which was the Daybreak for one of the most talented producers, oddest birds and sweetheartiest humans I was allowed to meet in this circus. You are missed, old friend.“

Roland „Kaiser“ Wilhelm
Daso „Daybreak“
(MBF)

„My story has not directly anything to do with “Daybreak” — Sebastian has already written everything about that. But I remember exactly how Daso once bought a pair of shoes from me that were too big for me, but really much too small for him. But it didn’t help, he had to have those shoes, so he squeezed his feet into them and I’m pretty sure that the seams must have burst open on his way home. That’s how Daso was, a lovable bullhead.“

Arno Raffeiner
Daso „Daybreak“
(MBF)
“I remember a chance meeting with Daso at the Stadtgarten in Cologne, not far from the Kompakt record store and the former office of Intro magazine. It was a clear afternoon, Daso had just come from a kickdrum lesson with Riley Reinhold, whose label My Best Friend had released Daso’s debut “Daybreak”. Riley had taught him a few tricks to give his tracks even more power in the lower register, Daso explained. I already knew some of his tracks and couldn’t imagine how to polish them up technically. I don’t remember if “Daybreak” had already been released at that time. But to me the piece still seems like the essence of Daso’s music and personality. There’s this surprisingly honest way of going like a bull at the gate, there’s this particular party-vulgarity that’s precisely not being dissolved in the harmonious infatuation and longing for the morning light. The one dances playfully around the other – straight and blissfully melodic, straddle-legged and tender and just because of that so stunning and so much Daso, as some of his later tracks couldn’t be for me anymore, but as I still hear it in all his music even today.”

Lee Burridge
Daso „James Fake“

„James Fake“ caused all sorts of confusion initially. Who is this new artist, James Fake, was asked by fans and beatport who got it around the wrong way when released?! I never did get to the bottom of why he decided to name a track after a (fake) person. However, it lit up the faces and hearts of people on dusty desert dance floors as well as in the clubs. Girls loved it (girls always love Daso’s tracks) as well as boys. His ability to make tracks sexy was second to none. There was always so much love in his productions. I’m convinced he continues to make music out there somewhere in the cosmos or other dimentions right now.”

Oliver Koletzki
„Since You Are Gone“ [Daso Remix]

„Daso was a wonderful person. Selfless, honest and very loving. His song “Daybreak” enchanted me back then and had a lasting influence on me. He knew how much I loved this song and that’s probably why he based his remix for me on “Daybreak”. See you on the other side, Daso.“

Alex Flitsch
Daso „La Fée Verte”
(Connaisseur Recordings)

“Daso was a wonderfully diverse producer, who was able to deliver both banging peaktime as well as utterly tender tracks creating instant goosebumps, a style, which we liked to file under our self-invented genre Livingroom Techno. The masterpiece among his softer productions is without doubt “La Fée Verte”, taken from his “Absinthe EP” from 2007. A classic B2 track with everything it takes to be the timeless hidden gem of an EP. Retrospectively, it was Daso’s most licensed track on Connaisseur, conveying a universal energy everybody can agree on. A genuine Ibiza sundowner with an alluring melody so haunting, it can never again be effaced from memory.”

Alex Flitsch
Daso „Numb”
(Supérieur)

“This single release actually had a story. “Numb“ was released one-sided on Connaisseur’s sublabel Supérieur in 2008 and was surely one of the highlights of every one of Daso’s live performances. The tune is a real bomb, with the moment after the break letting every club explode. The problem, however, was that “Numb” actually consists of two tracks: 1/3 of one track and 2/3 of another, to be precise. The first part until the break was originally a remix for Mud Max by the project Maderfotor from Daso and Jin Choi, which was released on Mathias Schaffhäuser’s Ware Records. After the bass drop however, a new, unreleased track, which Daso had until then only played in his live-sets kicks in. I loved this particular live set moment so much, that I wanted to release it exactly like that and in no other way. In the end, we basically licensed 1/3 of the Maderfotor Remix from Ware and released the composite as a new track under the name of “Numb“. As the track really rocked, we wanted to complement it with some really rocking artwork. The result was a super awesome Heavy-Metal-like Daso signet, which was then combined with a Daso press shot. Max from EMPP / Frischvergiftung, who is responsible for far more than half of our artworks, including all Daso artworks, and also our monocle logo, designed this absolute winner. We are still wholeheartedly in love with the result.”

Thomas Venker
Jens Friebe „Gespenster (DASO Remix)“
(Scheinselbständig) 

„Daso once produced a remix of “Gespenster” by Jens Friebe for my and Markus Tomsche’s label Scheinselbständig. I always really liked the mix, because it – even more than in their joint album production for “In Hypnose” – asserted Jens’ wonderful way of handling words and singing in combination with Daso’s intuition for melody and rhythm. To me, the track sounds like it is part of the soundtrack of a film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Somewhere in the back of a bar where happiness has not been present for a long time, two are playing to fend of the end of the world“

Translation by Denise Oemcke