And it took quite a while before I found the answer to that. I wanted to somehow continue my development, without losing the history. I had to figure out my next step, and figure out where I wanted to end up. It took me quite a while to figure out what I have to throw out of my vocabulary, and what I can bring into it.

I realized that if I just repeat myself, then it’s not really worth doing.

When I finally found time to record new music, I didn’t really like what I was composing it was in the same vein as Steingarten was, and I didn’t feel like it was bringing anything new to my music. Between Steingarten and now, we closed down the ~scape label, which actually was a big amount of work-and also in the few years after Steingarten, I was doing a lot of live shows and traveling a lot. Why did it take so long for Wald to appear? Though you’ve been releasing EPs on an occasional basis, is is your first full album in eight years. It’s also a plain old great sounding set, proof of his years spent toiling in the mastering business. Featuring three reworked in-studio mixes of cuts previously released on his Waldgeschichten series of EP and a sextet of new tracks, Wald‘s a peaceful and warm collection of song-it’s a welcoming, beguiling record, despite that crackle and the occasional shard of distortion. (Elements of that sound design, perhaps, also speak to an ambivalent relationship with modern technology: Famously taking his pseudonym from a busted Waldorf 4-Pole filter, there’s plenty of frazzled-out crackle inherent in his music.) Betke’s just put out Wald, his first full album since 2007’s Steingarten-and it’s perhaps his most intimate and contemplative work yet. His dub-heavy, highly textured music, deliberately paced and full of stretched sinew, hint at ancient, arcane rituals his flair for sound design and penchant for gentle abstraction, however, give his tracks a thoroughly modern edge.

“Sorry about that.” He then holds forth on the virtues of old-fashioned analog phones versus newfangled digital communication-which, in a way, is an apt place to start with Betke, as the aural world he creates has both one foot in the past, and the other in the here-and-now. When we finally do connect, Betke’s in a jovial mode: “Ah, the famous German Telekom!” he says with feigned exasperation, before bursting out in a laugh. The call keeps going straight to the voicemail of his in-demand day-job endeavor, Scape Mastering. Scheduled for an late-afternoon phone interview with Stefan Betke, the veteran creator of rustling, rippling electronic dub better known as Pole, XLR8R is having trouble getting through.

A sextet yearns to be in love dub