Minimal is often labelled as music that needs extensive listening to really discover and understand the finesse, depth and emotion. With just a few sounds, often nothing more than just snippets and samples, an artist can create an experience in which the listener is taken into a world that revolves around subtle changes and new dimensions. One of the pioneers in this genre is Richie Hawtin, who has been moving mountains over the years with mixing and production techniques that are worldwide reckoned as some of the most brilliant workings in electronic music ever made.

An example of this technique can be found on Hawtin's Concept 1 series from 1996. With two tracks placed on a vinyl, each release was limited to 2000 copies and meant to give an overview of Minus' and Hawtin's musical progression from January 1 until December 31. Now, all these tracks have been collected on a very limited 2CD package and reworked in a very special way by Thomas Brinkmann.

Brinkmann uses a very unorthodox mixing technique to identify previously unheard and hidden sounds in each track on this compilation by using his custom built turntable system (consisting of a 30 kilo plate and two SME 309 tone arms) to slow down the records and separate the left and right channel to discover new layers and sounds... Brinkmann intensifies hidden dynamics and melodic displacements, as well as adding new dimensions to the tracks caused by vinyl imperfections. Audio-surgery, so to say, to discover new sounds, to create new variations, to discover what was yet unknown...

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