Funckarma

Biography
by Sean Cooper
Funckarma is two brothers, Don and Roel Funcken, hailing from the Dutch capital of The Hague. Though they can sound similar to the likes of Autechre and Funkst?rung, with a former DMC mixing champ and a student of "sonology" (a distinctly European blend of scientific principles and electro-acoustic and musique concrète recording and compositional practices) between them, Funckarma is anything but. The brothers' first material appeared in 1999 through Djak-Up-Bitch, a label parodying fellow Dutch label Djax-Up-Beats, a comparatively more dancefloor-apologetic imprint and the subject of scorn among Dutch producers with a desire to push the envelope of experimental post-techno. The group's first EP featured a Funkst?rung remix, which seemed to pitch them as the latest outcropping of the busy-drums-and-minor-key-melodies set, but the EP's collage of textures and sophisticated patchwork harmonics far exceed that association. A second EP, titled simply 2, followed a few months on, but didn't achieve the same level of innovation as the first. The 2000 full-length Parts collected tracks from their early EPs along with some new material and was followed a year later by the entirely new album Solid State. More singles and EPs were issued, then collected on the 2005 release Elaztiq Bourbon 5. That same year the mix CD Refurbished One arrived with another original album, Bion Glent, landing in 2006. By this time the brothers had decided that the name Funckarma should represent a certain sound, so numerous aliases were created for "style exploration." Shadow Huntaz were created for their work with American rappers, Quench made ambient music for chillout rooms, Scone was a project with Kettel, and Automotive featured the brothers' electronics next to live jazz musicians.