Dekmantel Mix Series Archive 1-500

From cult local beginnings on the Berlin circuit, Rødhåd is now very much part of the global DJ highway. What initially turned heads was his ability to hold down long and hypnotic sets of loopy, moody house and techno all masterfully mixed in immersive ways. His productions, too, mixed sparse ambient designs with rolling techno grooves on labels like Dystopian and Token, and just this month he put...

The Hacker has long been turning out essential electro sounds that show off his mastery of his synths. But November will see him reveal another side when he releases analog album Le Théâtre des Opérations on Dark Entries. It finds the Frenchman indulge his love of EBM, techno and wave music and cook up a rugged, gritty and raw selection of tracks that joins the dots between Jeff Mills and Front 24...

Canadians Pender Street Steppers appeared as if from nowhere in 2014 and quickly became one of the most visible acts in house music. Their loved-up sound was frayed and roughhewn, sprinkled with lovestruck vibes and built on ramshackle drums that sounded immediately aged yet thoroughly new and fresh at the same time. Their penchant for new age romance and earthy aesthetics are mirrored in the buy-...

Stellar OM Source is a producer who never sits still. Always growing with each new release, the French woman arrived on a wave of dreamy and evocative synth pieces then went on to make Drexcyian techno and acid laced sci-fi soundtracks. She’s done so over the course of eight albums and a handful of EPs mostly on Rvng Intl. and though quiet on the release front for the last couple of years, she sti...

There is no one quite like San Proper. The Dutchman is a rare and real character in a scene that is all too often devoid of genuine personality. It shows in the wild music he makes, the wonderful Red Light Radio shows he hosts and the often weird sets he serves up at clubs and festivals round the world. Releasing most often on Rush Hour but also on Dopeness Galore and Perlon, he can do dark minima...

Paul Woolford’s Special Request alias has developed into so much more than the jungle and breakbeat project it started as. Proof of that comes this month with his Belief System LP, a magnum opus spread across four slabs of vinyl. The first half is a techno trip full of visceral twists and turns scattered with references to his love of pirate radio. The second half is the soundtrack to a fatalist m...

In 2017, Glasgow based label Huntleys + Palmers celebrates ten years in action. In that time, Andrew Thomson has ensured it became a fertile musical breeding ground and an impossible to pin down outlet that offers up anything from afro to techno to bass music. Auntie Flo, SOPHIE and Alejandro Paz have all emerged from the Glasgow based stable and have put out music that plays with off kilter rhyth...

The music Dane MacDonald plays and releases on his Common Edit label is as warm as his North Canadian roots are not. Always serving up sets with love, he is a big bearded, long haired dancer at heart, and someone who has a close relationship with west coast disco dons Eddie C and Koosh. Now based in Berlin and still pressing up records that will always fire up a more friendly, cosy party, his repu...

After only three EPs since 2016, Borusiade aka Miruna Boruzescu has proved herself to have a very specific and focussed musical aesthetic. It is a dark, shadowy style of synth laden and stripped back disco that is tinged with echoes of industrial, acid and EBM. Correspondant, Cómeme and Cititrax have put out her music, and her perfectly gloomy sound translates to her DJ mixes. She first started pl...

In just a couple of years, Glenn Astro has emerged at the centre of an exciting new micro-scene. The German producer is a student of hip hop, funk, soul and jazz who uses that knowledge to imbue his own sounds with a looseness and roughness that makes them immediately appealing. Words like dusty, deep and woody always come to mind when listening to his music, and so far it has landed on Tartelet,...

Virginia wears many different musical hats and always has. The Berlin based woman is a DJ, vocalist, song writer and producer who saw chart success early on in her career, as well as receiving underground acclaim for her album Fierce For The Night back in May 2016. She has written music with the likes of Steve Bug, has played a hybrid live and DJ set all over the world and has ties to labels like...

Lil Tony is a big part of the Finnish scene and revered name on the international circuit. Back home he runs some of the city’s key venues, such as Kaiku, and while on the road he spins well informed sets of house and techno influenced by the American Mid West, but that also expend to take in disco, soul, electro and more. In the studio he turns out slick tracks for Innervisions, HPTY and Mood Mus...

The dance scene in Istanbul might not be one of the most talked about in the world, but whenever it is mentioned it’s impossible not to talk about Zozo. She is a left of centre DJ who was previously in charge of the musical direction of Hush, a gallery and bar on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, and nowadays she plays cult clubs like De School and Salon des Amateurs. She has also put out key casset...

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, American DJ Richard went on to set up White Material. It’s a label and artistic collective including the likes of Young Male that became synonymous with roughed up, frayed house and techno. In 2015, Richard served up a debut album on Dial that was a deep meditation on foggy, ambient coated house drones. Since then, aside from D...

Byron the Aquarius is on a roll. As well as being a key proponent in the American house scene, and after a time spent as a producer for others, he is now making very much part of the conversation over in Europe. His music has landed on Theo Parrish’s Sound Signature, Kyle Hall’s Wild Oats and is forthcoming on Eglo. It is warm and deep, with the organic edge and smartly sampled soul that makes US...

Resom is part of the beating heart of Berlin. As a resident at the city’s ://about blank she creates resonant musical soundtracks and very real dance floor experiences from whatever is needed - be it electro, techno, house or ambient. Rather than focussing on genres, Resom focusses on a range of moods and does the same on her travels whether playing our festival in Amsterdam or an intimate club in...

Dekmantel Records label member Central is part of the Regelbau crew, which is one of the most exciting collectives in dance music at the moment. As well as putting out many records under his own name and as part of Hi Mount, Arhus based Natals Zaks is a record digger and and DJ that defies expectation. Besides that, he also runs Help Recordings alongside his brother, DJ Sports, and makes everythin...

John Gómez is a new school tastemaker. The London based, Madrid born DJ has ties to essential collectives like Rush Hour—who he represents on a regular NTS show—as well as Invisible City and Music From Memory, for whom he recently compiled the critically acclaimed Outro Tempo: Electronic and Contemporary Music from Brazil, 1978-1992. A deep digging, versatile selector, he covers everything from ho...

Umfang aka Emma Olson is one of the most influential figures in today’s techno scene. As co-founder of the Discwoman collective the American is doing essential work promoting female DJs. Of course, her own productions and DJ sets also further the cause as they lead by example and mix raw tension with experimental eeriness. So far coming on labels like 1080p and Allergy Season, videogamemusic, and...

Marina "Dr" Rubinstein comes at her DJing from the perspective of the dancer. She grew up loving to get down to techno back home in Israeli (though she is Russian born and Berlin based) and will always be a hardcore raver at heart. It means her sets are defined by a certain energetic dynamism that finds her calling on acid, 90s rave and pumping techno to get the floor sweating. She does so at key...

Brooklyn’s Jacques Renault is a dance music polyglot. In his long career he has undertaken, and succeeded with, many different projects. Whether working solo or collaboratively, turning out original productions or cultured edits, DJing around the world or running his labels On The Prowl and Let’s Play House, he always comes correct. His sound is impossible to pin down as evidenced by his broad and...

The Russia based Inga Mauer will proudly line up at our Dekmantel Festival this summer. And it is easy to see why: she has a high impact, strobe lit dark techno sound that is impossible to escape. This is true of her DJ-sets as well as her productions, which have been released on labels like Hivern Discs and shtum. Imbued with elements of EBM, hellish synth craft and psychedelic tendencies, she br...

We don’t use the world genius lightly, but young Belgian based artist Roman Hiele might be just that. In only four years, he participated the Red Bull Music Academy and has put out five albums that have proved him to be an one of a kind producer with his own inventive sound. It is informed by a wide world of musical influence from classical to ambient, juke to acid via breaks and techno. Distillin...

Any of you synth freaks out there will know all about London Modular Alliance. It is the alias of a live electronic act made up of Koova, Yes Effect and Pip Williams, but is also a much loved and cult synth shop of the same name in Hackney, London. In the club, London Modular Alliance do things properly: they cook up brain frying soundtracks, on the fly, with modular synths, no laptops, and many p...

This week we turn to another close Dekmantel family member in Matrixxman. In just a couple of years the American has emerged as one of the foremost producers in the house and techno world. His rugged analogue sounds have come thick and fast over nearly 20 EPs and are famous for their balance of quality, invention and diversity. Never sticking to the same sound for long, his Sector series on our la...