Dekmantel Podcast

After a couple of well received releases for 1080p and Pinkman, Betonkust and Palmbomen II will properly consummate their relationship with Center Parcs, a debut album on our label this summer. It brings together two Dutch artists with an achingly nostalgic, perfectly washed out and saturated sound that calls on house, pop, ambient, electro and IDM and fills you with familiar emotions from a time and place you might never have actually experienced.

On this new, rough edged and hardware heavy mix the duo offer timeless sounds coated in tape hiss and rich in fuzzy, lo-fi melody. There are dreamy ambient passages that are like looking at sunlight through a frosted window, crunchy drum tracks that bristle and prickly with sharp hits and glassy keys and 80s synth tracks that are beautifully naive and innocent. The whole thing plays out with faded kaleidoscopic colours that leave you in a dreamy reverie, and it’s utterly magic.

SHXCXCHCXSH’s techno is as mysterious and abstract as their artist alias. The Swedish duo has remained anonymous since their debut in 2012, largely because they believe that existing in isolation makes it easier to be creative. And they sure have been that, with a spotless run of EPs and LPs on Avian and Rösten that balance light with dark, noise with groove. Though the pair produce famously heavy, dense and gritty soundtracks, they never forget a powerful underlying groove that makes them an equal part artful noise band and compelling techno duo.

Their mix for us is made entirely of their own new compositions and is aimed directly at the club after a few years making non dance floor material. It bares that out across an idiosyncratic hour of broken rhythms, fizzing synths and distorted textures "but we didn’t want to repeat tired old patterns and processes and tried something new. This experiment gave us a new way of working with rhythms and we never had as much fun in the studio. Much of the material that came out of the experiment is in this mix and much more will come out as one album called OUFOUFOF on our own Rösten in October, and one EP on Mord in November." As such the mix has all the dynamism of a impromptu live set as it shifts from the sound of malfunctioning machines to apocalyptic techno and back to anxious ambient. Unpredictable and challenging, it’s the sort of mix that leaves you thinking WTF and immediately heading back to the start for a second run, just to try and work out what you just heard.

Alessandro Adriani has been championing unusual and unknown synth wave and industrial sounds for a decade now. The Berlin based Italian has done so on his Mannequin Records label as well as on Pinkman and Jealous God and at his bi-monthly party at Säule/Berghain. An inquisitive mind and avid collector whose taste ranges from jazz to Italo to disco, he is a real treasure trove of musical knowledge, as are his DJ sets.

There’s a real sense of discovery to the mix he has laid down for us. It’s filled with chilly synths and industrial textures that are sometimes manic and wild, at others stripped back and haunting. There’s also twisted techno and macho disco, all stitched together with a sense of style that manages to sounds as much from the 80s as it does some unknown future. Adriani’s world is a timeless world, then, but one you’ll be compelled to return to over and over again.

Shanti Celeste always gets the party pumping. Not by reaching for obvious tunes or resorting to the lowest common denominator, but with great selections and slick mixing. Her reach extends deep into house, electro and techno, and can take you way back to the early days or propel you into the future with a seamless ease. Her own productions pull the same trick, and have given rise to pumping vocal house, slippery electro or darker techno jams on key labels like Dekmantel, Idle Hands, Brstl and her own Peach Discs.

The London based Chilean born artist also finds time to do an NTS show, and serve up red hot podcasts like this one. It is made up of predominantly new and forthcoming music from friends and peers such as Strategy, Peverelist, E-unity, Bass Cleff, SW:SVN, Talaboman remixed by L.B Dub Corp, plus FFT1 and LNS. And it sure does pack a lot in without ever sounding hurried. There are skeletal sci-fi rhythm tracks bleeding into corrugated electro funk, tribal broken beats and deep techno with a fantastic sidestep into the peerless neo-soul of Jill Scott. It’s a brave mix of styles and tempos that leaves you wondering how Celeste has made them all work together quite so well.

Kamaal Williams has almost single handedly made jazz cool again. The exceptional keys player first did so as part of the now sadly disbanded Yussef Kamaal. Their debut album Black Focus was widely heralded as a modern great, and will soon be followed up by The Return, which finds Williams link with bassist Pete Martin, drummer MckNasty and sound engineer Richard Samuels. It is said to be a natural successor that deals in the sounds of the London streets as well as plenty of visionary jazz. Williams himself also makes soul infused broken beats and house as Henry Wu on labels like MCDE and Eglo and plays mesmeric live shows, so is one of the most vital characters in the modern music landscape.

Before he plays for us a Lente Kabinet he has served up a special one hour mix that offers up plenty of his inspirations and influences. From high speed jazz funk to languid, worldly jazz via transcendental guitars and summery soul, it bares all the beautiful hallmarks of Williams’s own music and makes perfect sense in warm weather.

Stanislav Tolkachev has been turning out experimental techno for more than a decade but might never have been as prolific as he is now. Hot on the heels of an EP on Raw Waxes that brimmed with dark IDM invention, this month sees him serve up his fourth full length, It Will Be Too Late Then. It finds the Ukrainian serving up controlled machine made chaos, cavernous grooves and his trademark arpeggios across nine forward thinking tracks.

All this and more is showcased on his podcast for us. Tolkachev’s compulsive rhythms are the foundation for what is an end of days soundtrack that takes you from the heat of a percussive battle to a charred and desolate landscape. It’s cinematic music rich in texture, blistering drums and sharp melodies that is beautiful in its brutality.

Paramida is a breath of fresh air on the Berlin scene. Her sound and style goes against the dark, mono-chromatic, machine made music of most of the city and instead heads in a more colourful and Balearic direction. She pushes a bright and emotional sound, and runs the Love on the Rocks label with a similar aim. She calls herself ‘Berlin’s most hated’ but surely isn’t, instead she’s picking up ever more fans because of her “discofied tropical leanings” and passion for unusual house music.

And you can expect plenty of that in her podcast. It soundtracks a slow awakening with retro synths drawing you into, and jumbled grooves ranging from dreamy to sunset in style. The overall vibe is one a late eighties house party in Ibiza with plenty of curveballs and moments of subtle euphoria all included. It’s refreshing alternative to the Berlin sound the world knows and loves, and is a timely and welcome edition to our own series.

Since the end of Sandwell District, Silent Servant has continued to be an influential presence in the techno world. The American’s Jealous God label defies convention and expectation with each release and his own avant guard productions remain utterly unique. Each one speaks to his roots—Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, The Cure—by fusing post punk and industrial with techno in chilling ways. His conceptual and sincere aesthetic carries over into his live sets, but also his DJ mixes.

This latest one is special indeed: it is a mix of influences, in chronological order and “with only a few hiccups in dates” from 1972 to 2000 and all recorded on vinyl in one take. The resulting hour takes in plenty of those goth and alternative rock sounds, new wave, noise and experimental touchstones he grew up on in Los Angeles, but also seamlessly connects them to the techno that later influenced him so the likes of Kraftwerk, Neon, The Final Cut, Toddy Terry and Jeff Mills all make the cut. From stark and jerky rhythms early on to supple, strobe lit grooves in the second half, this is a personal mix that really tells the story of Silent Servant’s musical evolution.

SØS Gunver Ryberg makes big, powerful music. Hailing from Denmark the former stunt woman turned BAFTA nominated producer and composer lays down driving rhythms and textures for exhiliarating live shows at Berghain, Atonal, and on Boiler Room, or labels like Contort. Often stitching in field recordings to add texture and timbre to her work it adds up to a brilliantly dark and insular experience somewhere between noise and techno.

Says the woman herself of her podcast for us, “this is a mix between unreleased tracks, jams and some already released tunes. All music is by SØS Gunver Ryberg except the remix for Else Marie Pade.” The resulting 45 minutes start off as an all out assault: a flurry of synths and frazzled lines, overdriven drums and apocalyptic overtones. But the heaviness subsides and the energy dissipates into muggy and dystopian ambient. Drums do then return and bring with them a real eeriness that makes this an utterly compelling session.

One of many debuts at Dekmantel Festival later in the year will come from Detroit in Effect aka D.I.E, the now solo project of Tameko J. Williams, also known as DJ Maaco. The Motor City artist has roots that run deep into techno and electro and have helped make him one of Detroit’s most under the radar but influential acts. Records like ‘RU Married’ are classic to this day, while other releases on M.A.P. Records helped established D.I.E’s sound as the artists themselves tended to stay out of the spotlight.

But this mix will surely put Williams very much back in the headlines: it’s an hour of pure techno and electro heat from the heart of the 313 area code. Quick, slick mixes keep things moving at a real pace as slippery drums and squelchy bass race out of the speakers. Touching on everything from classic Drexciya to timeless vocal cuts, deeper grooves to all out physical assaults, it’s as much a mixing masterclass as it is a real history lesson.