What is Cycles Music, and why now?
Alexander Kowalski has spent more than a quarter century releasing on other people's labels. Kanzleramt Records put out his solo debut, Live, back in 2000, a record built for his own DJ sets that became a foundational entry in his catalogue. In 2026 he's doing something he hadn't done before: running a label himself. Cycles Music launched on July 3 with catalogue number CYC001 and a stated territory built around three ideas: repetition, structural transformation, memory.
That's not vague marketing language. It describes how Kowalski actually builds a track.
How does Live 2 answer Live?
The two tracks on the EP, "Live 2.1" and "Live 2.2," didn't start in a studio. Kowalski built them on his own hardware setup, tested them across festival stages and club sound systems, then went back and finished them in the studio, the same process that produced the original Live 26 years earlier. It's less a sequel than the same method run again with two more decades of mileage behind it.
Live 2 is out on digital, a 12" vinyl pressing, and a five-copy limited test pressing, distributed through Labelworx, Matter Of Fact and Bandcamp, a wide and deliberately unglamorous rollout for a label's first record.
What does "Cycles" mean for the music?
Kowalski isn't branding the label around a nostalgia loop. Cycles Music's stated ground is music that moves through repetition and variation without resolving cleanly into something new, tracks that hold a structure and then quietly warp it. That's the same logic that's kept his DJ sets built around hardware and live improvisation rather than a fixed set list. Starting a label at this point in a career usually means an artist wants control over pacing and catalogue, not just another distribution deal.
