I found some time to do a bit of shopping during the past week, which has done well to break up the daily grind of working as well as the monotony of hearing the same damned CD's during the daily grind of working. Finally, some new sounds! Last weekend, I visited Boteca, a small shop specializing in avant-rock, bip-hop, and techno. The bright white walls and impeccable organization make the single room seem emptier than it really is. But there's quite a lot of stuff in there. I was surprised at the the number of Canadian (particularly Montreal) artists in attendence. I was suddenly overcome with the urge to support Canuck interests abroad, so I picked up a disc by Christof Migone, who opened this year's MUTEK festival with lots of crackling and a disturbing video featuring a frozen tomato. So last Wednesday, I returned home from work at noon and gave it a listen -- for about five minutes. I remember hearing a lot of crackling, and then I woke up about four hours later.

Take two, then. This was really for the best, since the darkness provided a better atmosphere for hearing the record. More crackling, scraping, and strange rumblings.

Thirty-three hours later, I left work. What's in my discman again? Oh yeah, Christof Migone. The final track began it's sixteen minute low volume hum as I was walking into my darkened apartment. The mood was ruined by the wierd farting noises which nearly poison the track, before it returns to the humming and fades gently away. Hmmm.

Twelve hours later, following the soundest sleep I can remember, I headed into work for a severely truncated day. It was so truncated that I was shopping only five hours later. I journeyed to Neurotitan in the heart of Mitte. I could find no trace of the store as I walked along the street, but I soon remembered which city I was in so I went to the spot where I'd expected to find the store (based on it's adress) and found the nearest alleyway. At the end of the dingy alley was an entranceway and on a nearby window, there was a nondescript white poster bearing the store's name. Oh yeah, I thought, now there's just no way this place can suck.

A few flights of stairs later, and I was in a place which felt more like a studio apartment than a store. The middle of the room was mainly open spaces, save for a square wooden table and chairs where people were chowing down on fast food. The walls were lined with tall bookshelves and bright colours splashed all over the room thanks to the art and comic books they displayed. The CD racks were small, which caused me some dismay, but that went away once I began flipping though them. Almost everything this store carries is experimental and noise music. Big names like Merzbow rubbed plastic with local artists and countless hard-to-find gems. For vinyl, they carry little more than wierd ambient and techno of the minimal variety (so said the words written with black marker on shards of cardboard above the boxes). Respect.

Behind the store, I discovered the reason for the unusual business hours (open until 10 M-F, until midnight on Saturday, and also open on Sundays, which is extremely rare in Berlin). The store doubles as an art gallery/lounge. It took a few weeks, but I finally had found something cool and different in Berlin.