Dekmantel Podcast

@bjarki is relentless. The Icelandic artist has admitted in the past he is obsessed with making music. And since his debut in 2015 there has been a lot of it - six albums and plenty of EPs, mostly on Nina Kraviz's трип, !K7 and his own bbbbbb label. It is always bold and innovative whether taking the form of a straight up club banger or abstract IDM composition. He has released it under more than...

Sekan (@sekansekan) is, like many of his Dutch peers, known for his eclecticism. He has a particular fondness for exploring the music and artists of the Indonesian archipelago, but also a love for contemporary sounds, both of which are evidenced on his label Jiwa Jiwa. Over the years, it has grown into a multidimensional platform that also deals in photography, articles and films. Whatever he does...

Russian-born Anastasia Vtorova makes music that is autobiographical in style, but also in name. The titles of @machinewoman's tracks reference things like her favourite bouncers ('Camile From OHM Makes Me Feel Loved’) as well as her least favourite genres ('I Want to Fuck Tech House'). The beats themselves bare the hallmarks of the different chapters of her life, from the industrial she was first...

Roniere Santos was born and raised in the favelas of São Paulo, Brazil. The streets on which he grew up were often alive with music from local rap heroes, funky old school dance legends and heralded MCs such as Proibidão, Primo and Barriga. It is those sounds that inform and infuse the music he now makes and plays as RHR (@rhrmusiq), whether it's electro with a self-proclaimed ghetto twist or tech...

@facta & @k-lone93 have been on a roll recently. Their Wisdom Teeth label has seen them put out not only excellent music from Tristan Arp, but also Facta's brilliant downtempo album Blush and K-Lone's recent Zissou EP. Both hail from London but are now Bristol-based and they mix up many of the different styles you'd expect from those two musical hotbeds. Everything from 2-step to Baltimore, post-d...

@sky_h1 dropped her debut album Azure at the start of December. It was a genre-busting statement that built on all the sounds she has been exposed to since the start. Drum & bass, techno, grime and dubstep all informed the rhythms while her own life experiences contributed to the album's rich emotion. Next to making club music for labels like Creamcake and PAN's sub-label Codes, the Brussels artis...

Each year, we ask a few artists from our Dekmantel Selectors line-up to deliver a mix in anticipation of the new edition. First up in this year’s series is Garage Noord resident and LYL radio show host @merelrhizoom. As a proper connoisseur of modular synth tracks and avant-garde compositions, merel rhizoom tends to navigate the musical stratosphere between what one could refer to as “weird psybie...

Glasgow's @fergus_clark has a depth of musical knowledge way beyond his years. He is one-quarter of the 12th Isle label, party and radio collective and digs deep into everything from early techno to musique concrete to obscure exotica. Back in 2017 he released a still essential tape on Tasker's 88T label and a thrilling compilation with JD Twitch, Miracle Steps (Music from the 4th World). Both of...

@zvrra is an avant-garde artist by anyone's standards. Her background as a video game developer has a clear influence on the music she makes. That can be anything from industrial to techno, witch house to hip hop, but most often her sounds exist in the intricate spaces in between all that. Her perfectly entitled November album Bizarroland on Avian was a fine example of that, and one united by an e...

@layla-rutherford has been on our radar for a while and finally played for us on the beach at Dekmantel Selectors in the summer. Her first EP came all the way back in 2014 and was an exemplary and delicate deep house offering co-produced by Floating Points. A year later, she returned the favour by providing vocals for his majestic Elaenia album. Since then she has been a regular on the likes of Wo...

Standing out in the overcrowded DJ world is not easy. To do so when you're just 17 is almost unbelievable. But that is when Belgian-born AliA (@aliamusicc) first started making people take note of her fresh selections and technical skills on the decks. They were way beyond her years and since then she has gone on to become a resident at Belgium’s HORST Festival and a guest at the likes of Worldwid...

@mamasnake is at the heart of Copenhagen's blistering techno scene. She plays with a serious amount of speed and showcased that as far back as 2018 when she played for Boiler Room at our Amsterdam festival. But she is also a qualified surgeon, co-founder of Amniote Editions and curator who oversees the release of music, posters, videos and t-shirts. She prefers to keep a low profile and operate in...

This Friday, @parris_dj releases his long-awaited debut album, Soaked In Indigo Moonlight, on the can you feel the sun label he co-runs with Call Super. The album is rooted in the pop music he loves but characterised by his own inventive rhythms, joyful vocal features and the many different emotions associated with personal relationships. It comes after years of colourful and psychedelic takes on...

Pandora's Jukebox (@pandoras-jukebox) is a perfect name for a DJ who always serves up sonic surprises. By day, Yasmina Dexter works as an art director, but in the evening she deconstructs electronic music before reassembling it in hypnotic fashion. Her dead-of-night soundtracks are both trippy and hypnotic whether she is hosting her NTS show or playing as a resident at Cicciolina Paris. Her abstra...

@gwenans' rise through the ranks has always been driven by a love for the music. She hasn't produced any big breakout hit and never dreamt of headlining on a super-sized main stage. Instead, she has quietly honed her craft playing at intimate London parties like Toi Toi and her own Hi Fi, made a successful move to Berlin where she fomented close ties with cultured crews like The Ghost and impresse...

Mexico-city based @tristanarp blurred the lines between the synthetic and the organic on his second full-length, Sculpturegardening. Released on Wisdom Teeth just last week, the Human Pitch label boss approached the album as a gardener might approach a landscape: using his array of machines and modular synths he let the music write itself. It's resulted in an album that bristles with glitches, amb...

@mannidee finds comfort in vibing off a room full of people who are lost in abrasive textures and high octane rhythms. It is that industrial brand of techno which he has perfected over the years, not least on his new Perc Trax LP, A Low Level Love. It is his second full length after 2018's The Residue on Tresor and shows a marked evolution in his sound. While still defined by blistering drum patte...

@airmax97 concocts rhythms and manipulates synths in weird and wonderful ways. His tracks are brilliantly curious and drip with personality while also making you want to move. He layers up textures and atmospheres like a painter spreads oil on canvas and does so with both eyes firmly on the future. Releasing mostly on his own DECISIONS label as well as the likes of Timedance, the multidisciplinary...

There is nothing safe about @dis_fig. The Berlin-based artist makes confrontational, unconventional music that harnesses the power of chaos. She initially came up on the New York club scene but was always most interested in the weirder end of the spectrum so moved to Berlin. It is there that she has established herself as someone who operates on the fringes of the dance floor. Her debut album PURG...

By choice, @mark_seven keeps a low profile. But the truth is, he is one of those low-key but influential characters you really should know. The Stockholm-based Brit is a busy record dealer and online store owner as well as DJ and producer with a penchant for timeless disco and house. He showcases this in his productions, but also via his much-loved Parkway and Parkwest labels which explore both th...

Darwin (@darwinspec) juggles many different roles in dance music as well as she juggles her records in the DJ booth. The Canadian-born, Berlin-based artist runs her own REEF parties at Berghain, and has nurtured a wealth of emerging talents on her SPE:C label. She is also the founder of Clean Scene, a climate action collective that wants to explore a more sustainable future for dance music. They r...

Techno has been reclaimed and refined in the last few years. For Ghanaian-American Discwoman associate Akua (@akua_b), that means a deep dedication to bringing forth narratives about the genre's history. It's about original, authentic and rebellious old school values of the sort that Underground Resistance defined so early on. It's about breaking modern expectations with a fresh sense of attitude....

@peverelist is one of those artist’s whose legacy is already assured. His labels Punch Drunk and Livity Sound have been at the cutting edge of their own unique musical niches for more than a decade. Fusing their native Bristol’s history of dub, sound system culture and bass, their output deals in endlessly fascinating genre mutations that continue to push electronic music forward. Peverelist’s own...

American Kareem Ali (@kmx19) came to dance music late but has very quickly made a big impression. The formally trained trumpeter has a fascination with the cosmos that colours all his music. Over nearly 50 releases he has proven himself adept at making everything from sleek electro to deep house, driving techno to cinematic ambient. The breakout producer also runs his own CosmoFlux label which he...

@cinema-royale is a DJ who plays flawlessly, no matter the setting or style of music he reaches for. As a lifelong lover and collector of film soundtracks, he likes to take the weird and make it wonderful; to make out-of-context moments into transcendental delights. As one of Amsterdam's deepest diggers, he can put records together that no one else can and is part of the core Dekmantel family. In...