Record Label.

"Force Inc. now has been existing for almost 10 years. When the label started, among the first Plus8 releases suddenly an alternative of that Underground Techno Sound emerged from places which seemed neither far away nor particularly exciting. In contrary to the music ... What we know as Techno today or as diverse sub genres of electronic minimalism, got something like a first forming there. Many of the German acts which are quite famous today some time or other had releases on Force Inc. and its various sublabels (Intense, Communism Rec., Virtual Science, Riot Beats, Force Inc. US just to name some of the less known ones; the recent sublabels are Force Lab, Force Tracks, Position Chrome, Ritornell, and, of course, Mille Plateaux). Force Inc. simply is a power, an empire, a fix authority which is not to be doubted.

But instead of being just another label empire just run by a loud and continuous A&R energy, Force Inc. always has been more than just a label as well.

Achim Szepanskis clear attitude towards political issues (in fact, in 1993 there have been antifascist tours named "Destroy Deutschland"), a certain flavour of propagandistic actionism coupled with a fascination for theory, quite early put electronic music in Germany out of the context of hedonistic-dull leisure time weekend nonsense which it often had been reproached with.

Without Force Inc., we probably all would be able to take electronic music less serious. In the Techno context, there would have developed a totally different discourse, and totally different music would have been produced. The reference of Force Inc. to Gilles Deleuze not only became obvious by naming one of the sublabels after the Deleuze-Guattari book of the same name, "Mille Plateaux". It also could be seen in the self-image of Achim Szepanski and the position towards the releases. Although this Deleuze reference isn�t a theoretical basic position of electronic music, it, however, had an effect.

Conceptual Minimalism (I know, this sounds quite general), after the most diverse euphoria for different kinds of styles, is a point where the development of electronic music always has come back to also with the help of Force Inc., on which discursive detours whatever.

For some time already, Force Inc. also is focussing again on this, e.g. by the networking and overlapping of such different labels as Force Tracks and Mille Plateaux. Nevertheless, the tracks may be kicking, but music has to be more demanding. Force Inc. has proved to be always one step ahead of the musical development in styles from Breakbeat to Sägezahn up to Clicks & Cuts. At the moment, looking at the majority of the releases of the various powerbook activists such as Atom Heart or GAS, of new house producers which work on an entirely different level (like many German producers currently do) and at the more experimental digital escapades on Ritornel, Force Inc. faces a point of time which has separated from history, the symbolic and many of our beloved theory and music waves.

One click ahead."

www.force-inc.net/fim/