Wolfgang Tillmans is not just a successful photographer and director. He’s also a banging techno producer. The frequent i-D contributor’s music first made waves when he was featured on Frank Ocean’s Endless. Wolfgang sent Frank his techno-pop track “Device Control,” thinking it would simply be sampled. Instead, Frank decided to bookend his abstract visual album with the seven-minute song. The collab made sense. Wolfgang released his own 27-minute visual album back in 2016. The punchy, saturated video featured then up-and-coming Hari Nef, rapper Ash B, and performance artist Karis Hilde. Now the eclectic artist is releasing a five-track EP titled Heute Will Ich Frei Sein (Today I Want to Be Free), coming out Friday.
Artnet reports the EP has an “eighties sensibility” to it. This makes sense, considering Wolfgang spent much of his twenties capturing club kids and hitting up parties in Hamburg, Germany. Always one to march to his own beat (pardon the pun), the EP features tracks that feel more like “sound art” than traditional techno. For example, “Tired Car Alarm” is simply a dying car alarm Wolfgang recorded. And the title track is described as a “catchy dance song,” featuring Wolfgang singing in “robotic German”. We’re here for it. Because as Lady Gaga proved on “Scheiße,” German does lend itself quite well to explosive pop choruses.
Sadly, there is no Frank Ocean feature on the album. But the two have been frequent creative partners. So it’s pretty reasonable to hope Frank sings over a Wolfgang-produced techno track — crooning about a broken heart — sooner rather than later.