Here Comes A Fucking Startup Campus

Text from back sleeve: PostOst was a DIY artist and musician’s co-op established in 2003 in a former East Berlin Post Office in the district of Friedrichshain. It was a home to some 100 artists making techno, house, acid, avant-garde, R & B, trancerock, wave and rock and roll, as well as painting, sculpture, graphic design, illustration and video. The co-op’s basement also hosted the Ruf Mich Nie Wieder An (“Don’t ever call me again”) techno and drum and bass parties. Last year, PostOst and the neighboring Deutsche Telekom building were purchased by real estate mogul Udo Schlömer, CEO of what is Berlin’s largest tech incubator and co-working space, Factory Berlin. Factory is financially backed by Google and houses SoundCloud, Twitter and Uber, as well as a host of emerging start-ups. Soon after the purchase of the former post office, all of the artists were evicted. Only after being confronted in public did Factory realize that the move had the potential of making them the Berlin tech-world boo-man – especially considering the current discourse on how art, music, club- and subculture are what made the city attractive to investors and techies in the first place. Since then, Factory and PostOst have taken part in a series of discussions for building a 3-floor addition on top of the post office for the artists that are currently studio-less. Ultimately, Factory do not want to come across as destroyers of Berlin subculture. While a core group of PostOst co-op members have worked intensely to push forward the plans for the addition, Factory and Udo Schlömer have yet to agree to the proposal. Most of the sounds on this disc were recorded in a PostOst studio and at a community get-together and exhibition on-site celebrating the artists within the building. They represent a lost space and an ongoing battle between art and tech in a city in the middle of an identity crisis. Mark is not a member of PostOst. But he is a friend, and we support this release and its championing of what is becoming a disappearing artistic and musical subculture, Berlin’s Freie Szene. Credits: Most sounds recorded at PostOst on June 25th and July 16th, 2016. Sample of "Part I" from Hylic permitted by John Wall on side B. Track titles taken from Factory Berlin mission statement.