has proven himself one of the city's most prominent and influential techno producers and composers.
(a.k.a.
) shaped their individual careers as well. Initially inspired by the pop scene in London, where both
resided in the early '80s, the pair became acid techno converts when they returned to Germany.
By 1988, they were recording electronic music influenced by both pop and acid techno, though
Voigt's music had a minimal, rhythmic bent while
Burger's was warmer and more melodic. Two of
Burger's early tracks appeared on the 1989 compilation Teutonic Beats, which was produced by
Thomas Fehlmann. Two years later,
Burger and
Voigt formed their first label, Trance Atlantic, on which
Burger released Burger Industries: Vol. 1. In 1993, after a move to Frankfurt to work with
Air Liquide's
Jammin' Unit and
Dr. Walker and the creation of two other labels, Structure (which released
Burger's first
Bionaut album, 1992's
Everybody's Kissing Everyone) and Blue,
Voigt and
Burger put their collaboration on a temporary hiatus.
Burger returned to Cologne and, along with recording artists like
Cristian Vogel and
Thomas Heckmann, he put his creative energies into
Bionaut and one-off single projects, a new label, Eat Raw, a dance magazine called House Attack and a record store,
Delirium.
He also contributed to the relaunch of the EMI Harvest label, which released
Bionaut's 1995 longplayer
Lush Life Electronica as well as the 1996
Burger/
Ink album
Las Vegas and
the Modernist's debut, 1997's
Opportunity Knox, which were both received warmly by publications like Spex, Muzik, Jockey Slutand Mixmag. Around this time
Burger also founded Granit, a graphics and illustration studio responsible for the artwork on all of his projects' covers.
By 1999,
Burger moved from EMI/Harvest to Sony, where he created the Popular Organisation, which featured a triumverate of labels: the dancefloor-oriented Popular Tools, the experimentally-based Popular Sound and Popular Music, which released electronically-inclined pop. Popular Tools released
the Modernist's second album
Explosion in Europe in late 1999; the album was released in the US by Matador Records -- who also released the domestic version of
Las Vegas -- in early 2000 with new artwork and extra tracks. [See Also:
Burger/Ink]
–
Heather Phares, Rovi