Monolake

Two German musicians with backgrounds in engineering, Robert Henke and Gerhard Behles made a major impact on electronic music in more ways than one. Starting with 1995’s “Cyan”, their mesmerising debut single as Monolake, the two helped define the austere yet deeply dub-influenced sound that became the specialty of Berlin’s Chain Reaction label. Yet Henke and Behles truly changed the game with the 1999 founding of Ableton, a software company whose technological innovations hugely expanded the possibilities for bedroom composers and live performers alike. After running Ableton became Behles’ primary concern, Henke continued Monolake with Torsten Pröfrock, a former Chain Reaction labelmate who joined in 2004 and helped expand the project’s stylistic range to include dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass. Releases like 2012’s Ghosts and 2020’s Archaeopteryx proved Monolake’s continuing mastery of sleek, carefully engineered rhythms and textures.