How are you supposed to go to work after such a breakfast?!!!?

Phew, it’s been so long since the last post, it almost feels like a resurrection!

As always folks, I’m the one to blame: maybe it’s a renewed love affair with music that keeps me inhouse with my beloved instrument? or maybe it was a relaxing stay in Australia that infused a delicious-but-dangerous slackness in my work ethic, long after I rotated back to Berlin? Anyway, I haven’t visited WordPress in a while and now there’s a lot to say!

Concerning Australia, the Session Victim boys and myself had a wonderful stay at the other end of the world a few weeks ago: great gigs, great food, great friends and all in all just a bloody great time! Special thanks to Mad Racket, Christian Vance, Future Classic and all the aussie crew for setting up Retreat’s first international tour, we’ll be back soon!

It’s a bit late for this one, but we still wish to express our gratitude to everyone that has supported our label in 2010: it’s been our best year so far so we thank you all for helping us promoting the vinyl cause! Despite the fact that more and more labels are doing only digital releases and that Technics has (apparently) finally stopped producing the world’s best turntable, a certain “vinyl-niche” (with vinyl-only labels and vinyl-friendly DJ’s) has definitely settled in the music underground and we’re proud to be part of this movement…

So what’s in store for Retreat this year? Well, since we’re sometimes eager to continue with our traditions, we’ll start the 2011 catalogue with another edition of the “Treats” series…which brings us now to volume 3! Iron Curtis, Session Victim and Quarion have all submitted an exclusive track for this record and while we can’t divulge more info at the moment, we promise you that “Treats Vol.3″ will be the best episode so far! You can also expect some hot new music from Session Victim and Quarion on Retreat later this year as well as exclusive podcasts and a few surprises…

And don’t forget that if you’re looking for previous releases from Retreat’s two main artists and their affiliated projects, our webshop has got all the goodies! From Session Victim’s first bangers on Real Soon to Quarion’s classics on Drumpoet Community via Matthias Reiling’s recent masterpieces on Giegling, you’ll be able to complete your collection at a very fair price.

Before signing off, we’d also like to mention that our super designer Gesine Todt has just finished crafting an open font for Google’s Web Fonts API! A very classy typeface that you can download here.

Thanks for your ongoing support, we promise to hit you up with more news very soon!

ps: our special heartfelt thoughts go out to our followers in Japan, as they are facing a terrible crisis. We wish you a lot of courage and hope during these tough times…

Mad Racket/  Chris Duckenfield/  Session Victim

As you might have noticed, I generally leave the writing to Yanneck and take care of the administrative stuff at Retreat HQ . But  I just returned to Berlin after spending three weeks in the sunshine in Sydney and felt the need to thank all my friends and music lovers down-under for looking after me.  Special thanks to:
Jimmi, Ken, Richie and Adam for the excellent Mad Shuffle Party. Chad, Nathan and Jay from Future Classic for hospitality, great times at the beach house (and forcing me on the surf board) and hooking me up with some gigs.  Sinclair and Simon Caldwell for inviting me to your radio shows.

at La Campana with Mad Racket and Late Night Shuffle!!!
with Ken Cloud, Jimmi James and Motech!!!