»Cosmic Couriers« | Tim Ra & Jens Strüver
Tim Ra · Jens Strüver: »Cosmic Couriers«
A humanitarian crisis threatens to destroy the foundations of human life on Earth. Tim Ra & Jens Strüver respond with a radically humane vision—a cosmic humanity that overcomes its limitations through empathy and love. In the city of the Wall and the Love Parade, music for a world without borders has emerged—music that expands the human into the cosmic and finds its own humanity again in the cosmic.
Drawing from the depths of 20th-century music history, Ra & Strüver fuse jazz, classical, exotica, and cinematic avant-garde into soundscapes that are both grounded and transcendent—familiar yet distant. Lightly and transparently orchestrated, and carried by casual, often drum-less grooves, the album broadens our perspective to the cosmos—not as an escape, but as an invitation to understand the collapse of previous human systems as a necessary new beginning.
Strüver's encyclopedic knowledge of music and his vast archive meet Raff's skill in handling sequencers, hardware, and artificial intelligence. In months of sessions, with precisely designed text commands, analog outboard hardware, and meticulous sound design on the PC, the two created ethereal acoustic visions for a world that overcomes division and celebrates diversity.
The A-side moves lightheartedly and dancily through the universe: from the shimmering dawn of »Vénus Matinée« with its Mancini-esque touches, through the hypnotic pulse of »Pulsar« — an interstellar bolero that unfolds temperamentally and culminates in galactic ecstasy with mariachi trumpets — into the reeling »Labyrinth der Sterne,« before »Planet außer Kurs« tilts the journey into playful unpredictability. Afterward, the elegant »Saturn Soirée« invites you to cruise among the rings of the gas giant.
The B-side strikes deeper, darker tones. »Darkstar« and »Nebula« breathe with choral voices the foggy nostalgia of grand orchestral sci-fi soundscapes, drawing a line from Gustav Holst through Bernard Herrmann to the present day—before »Water of Life« everything is bundled in a weightless sweetness. Here, Ras and Struve's humane vision condenses: even in darkness, it is the sound of family that heralds a shared future.
Tim Ra & Jens Strüver — The Cosmic Messengers — pour out the sweet nectar of a foreign universe that has always been our home at the same time. This music presents a counter-vision to hatred, division, and destruction: elegant, hypnotic, timeless — and a promise that a world without walls is not only imaginable, but within arm's reach.
Limited vinyl edition — one of seven
By loading the video, you accept YouTube's privacy policy.
Learn more
Short biographies
Jens Strüver
Jens Strüver is a Berlin-based DJ, producer, and founder of the label m=minimal and archivist of experimental music traditions. As part of formations like Borngräber & Strüver and J.R. Plankton, he combines Krautrock heritage, minimal techno, and cinematic sound research, and has, among other things, brought previously out-of-print Conrad Schnitzler recordings back to light. His current projects include a new album with Stephan Mensger and the album »Prismatic,« realized with Marco Baldini and Werner Dafeldecker, released on the renowned label Room40. Strüver is also working on music by Conrad Schnitzler and Ernstalbrecht Stiebler. With his detail-obsessed DJ sets and surprising collaborations, Strüver embodies a curatorial role that merges sound archaeology and avant-garde into a radically humane musical practice.
Tim Ra
Tim Ra is a German-American producer, rapper, and multimedia artist who merges synths, sequencers, and artificial intelligence into futuristic and psychedelic space visions at his Berlin gallery, Lovelab Dreamspace. He also showcases some of today's most significant artists in exhibitions, such as those by Ulli Lust. As a co-founder of the electro-hip-hop formations Splatterdandy and A.M.T., and co-author of several oral history books on subversive music cultures with Max Dax, he has long connected politics, science fiction, and community activism into a multifaceted practice – often under his pseudonym Robert Defcon. He designs transmedial visions of a boundless, empathetic humanity, from psychedelic live shows to AI-generated image and film worlds that break down mental barriers.