"Beyond The Path" is Eastenders long awaited second album. At the same time it is something like an Eastenders manifest - a symbiosis of modern club music and global beats. Eastenders had always wanted to go beyond the limits to create a fresh and contemporary club sound influenced by world music, and in order to achieve this they have to move beyond the usual paths.
Eastenders are the music journalist and DJ Stefan Mueller (aka DJ Eastenders) and Cem Buldak (aka Afrit) a highly talented producer and musician with turkish roots. DJ Eastenders socialised with friends' projects during his gigs in clubs like Vienna's hot spot "OstKlub", Paris' "Divan du monde" or at Sziget festival in Budapest. He accompanied the band !DelaDap (Vienna) on the "Gypsy-Groove-Tour" accross Europe organised by the famous worldmusic label "Putumayo". And now all those friends and colleagues from all over Europe are having their well deserved feature as remixers and vocalists. If you take a look at a map of Europe, it is plein to see that it is all about the cities Eastenders made friends in within the last years: Vienna, Budapest, London, Brussels, Berlin...
Apart from some well-known remixes that have only been published on rare vinyl (including top-remixers like Kabuki, Franksen & Bassface Sascha, !DelaDap and The Underwolves) so far, you will also find some new mix contributions on "Beyond The Path": The involved friends are Viennaīs Cay Taylan, "Electric Gypsyland"-DJ Gaetan Fabri, Poets Club labelmates Kieser.Velten and Budapest's matadors Vono Box. Furthermore there are some exclusive Eastenders edits on "Beyond The Path", rare pearls like "Sex and Cookies" and a brandnew Eastenders track: "Capitalism" feat. Bajka!
For the "Dissidenten" remix-project a while ago, Eastenders already arranged Bajka's voice. At that time they also chose one of cult formation's tracks performed by Bajka. For that reason she has been picked for the latest Eastenders track as DJ Eastenders himself is a great fan of Bajka's features for projects like Bonobo, Beanfield or Radio Citizen. Bajka loved the idea and wrote lyrics criticising globalisation - during G8 summit in Rostock. The outcome "Capitalism" is a statement that stands for itself, emphasised by Bajka's distinctive voice.
Even though there were some beautiful downtempo tracks on their debut album "Along The Path" - Eastenders' trademark has always been the dancefloor. This especially shows "Vino Vino": A perfect song for those hours of "letting go". The sort of drunk drum'n' bass smash hit is ready to knock out any dancing crowd like that famous "uh-oh, one too many" glass of strong red wine during an extensive night of celebration and party. Long before many present globalbeat and Balkan-pop-protagonists experienced fusion sound DJ Eastenders has been infected by Nu-Asian Sound, promoted by dons like Talvin Singh, Badmarsh&Shri and Nitin Sawhney - and so he presented his "Indian Vibes" parties from 1997 on in Frankfurt. For the tenth anniversary of this influential event they pay tribute to past club nights with the track "Sex and Cookies" and only the best sitar breakbeats....
