Dekmantel Podcast

Anthony Linell was formerly known as Abdulla Rashim, the centre piece of a Stockholm techno collective who have been at the sharp end of the scene for the last few years. Mixing up club grooves with exploratory experimental music, the intriguing and mysterious artist runs the Northern Electronics label and, at the same time, put out much of his own music on his Abdulla Rashim Records. A master of atmosphere and hypnotic grooves that cannot fail to suck you in, this year alone has seen him put out two albums and an EP under his real name. The sounds are just as absorbing as always, and mix up dark ambiance with dungeon synth and desolate sonic landscapes.

All this carries over into his DJ work, and the mix he has served up for us here is a beautifully bleak and lonely one. Underpinned by slick rubbery drums and detailed with everything from funeral to sci-fi to subliminal synths, it’s an intriguing musical rabbit hole that gets weirder and more unreal the further down it you go.

Not for the first time, our mix series now turns to a DJs who has earned himself a Europe-wide reputation thanks to his essential skills as a resident. He is Phillip Jondo and his musical playground is Salon des Amateurs in Dusseldorf, a place where he serves up mixes of minimal wave and mutant disco, leftfield house and industrial that also takes him on the road to plenty of key gigs. Next to this he holds down a monthly show, We R All Egyptians, on London’s NTS and it is another brooding affair filled with ceremonial rhythms. Next to this, he also works as Garland with Simon Weins. Their debut release Preludes lands on Lullabies for Insomniacs on January 1st and is a loosely rhythmic offering that echoes with wonder and channels plenty of otherworldly magic.

For us, though, he has put together an ‘uptempo and clubby’ selection that is beautiful weird and beguiling and is nothing like a regular mix of four to the floor styles. Instead it is a fizzing and restless brew of mystic drums and forest synths, of impish spirits and cinematic post-human landscapes that make for an intriguing listen. Ending up with a flurry of future electro, it’s a mix that shows Jondo’s musical world is truly unique and offers you a sneak preview of what to expect when he plays Dekmantel Selectors for the first time in 2018.

Swede Peder Mannerfelt makes music that is hard to categorise. And whether producing for Fever Ray and Blonde Redhead or serving up albums and EPs on Archives Intérieures and Hinge Finger, he is fiercely inventive. From experimental tribal concept music like his The Swedish Congo Record to the disassembled and goth-tinged techno rhythms of his latest, Controlling Body, he always pushes boundaries in bold new ways. He is an artist who likes to forget what he knows and go with his instincts, and it has resulted in a body or work that is truly beguiling.

His mix for our series is just as esoteric. It is a two hour collage that starts of as a voodooistic brew of shamanistic rituals, abstract noise and kinked techno that takes you to a dark foreign world. From there there are some more traditional passages of drum rhythms and wild machine-made sounds as well as diversions into plenty more uncategorizable sonic spheres thanks to tracks from the likes of Pinch, Errorsmith, Vatican Shadow, Machine Woman, Umfang and tens more. It’s music as warfare, as cinema, as experimentation, and it sounds like nothing else out there.

Alexander Nut is an expert curator. He first proved that as the only experimental hip hop DJ on London’s Rinse FM with a show that was a cornerstone of the station’s early years. Alongside that, he has made his own Eglo Records into a future facing outlet that puts out soul, jazz, house, techno and everything in between, and core artists like Fatima, Floating Points and Funkineven have emerged and remained loyal to it as a result. His own DJing now takes him across the world on an ever busier schedule, and on his travels he never stops digging.

This podcast is proof of that as it freewheels through myriad different musical spheres. From breezy afro to photo house via spangled bass tracks and summery groovers, it is full of twists and turns and mixes and blends that few other DJs would even attempt. A lot is crammed into a busy hour, and along the way you will go up, down and round and round. It’s the sort of selection that is infused with the same sense of subtle spirituality that colours all that Nut does, and for that reason leaves a truly lasting impression.

Despite having a discography that dates back to the last millennium, Pittsburgh’s Shawn Rudiman has never quite enjoyed the spotlight he deserves. His often analog electro and techno manages to be tough but not austere, and it has come under his own name as well as in the duo THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) on a range of boutique labels. He’s a prolific artist who this month looks back on his career with a two disc retrospective, Timespan on Pittsburgh Tracks, that offers largely brand new tracks which “go from base-level warehouse to more cerebral sophistication”.

That versatility shows when he lays down one of his mesmeric live shows, as he has done for us in this exclusive new set. It’s just 45 minutes long but packs a lot in, from soul infused Detroit techno to elastic house. Passages of serenity are often followed by a heavily percussive wake-up call or serrated acid line, but never do things feel forced. From dark to light, visceral to beautiful, it has many different moods and is a great reminder of the talents of one of techno’s lesser known stars.

Norwegian Charlotte Bendiks came up on the famous Tromsø techno sound of her homeland. It means her music is mystical, frosty and metallic, which made it perfectly at home on the Cómeme label where she released her first EP. She has also had outings on Love OD Communications and throws her own parties back home, all while serving up off kilter DJ sets informed by growing up in an isolated and lonely arctic town. That lends them a sense of escapism, fantasy and story telling that when married to her so called “body music” style, make them utterly compelling.

Over the course of ninety minutes, she segues through hallucinogenic synth tracks, loosely jumbled percussion and acid flecked slow motion house that will jerk you into action. It’s a playful and intoxicating mix that will warm you through on a chilly evening and conjures party vibes in brilliantly off kilter and unusual ways. On this evidence, it looks like 2018 could well be her year.

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 out his debut album, Anxious. It’s a filmic meditation on beautifully bleak and eerie sounds and is another reason we love the man after he turned in a memorable closing set on our UFO stage at this year’s Dekmantel Festival.

Over a ninety minute live mix recorded recently, he gets more energised with plenty of hurried techno and urgent synth lines all tightly weaving round each other. It’s a high pressure and enchantingly linear set that touches on Millsian space vibes, industrialism and unhinged apocalypse music in one smoothly mixed and sequenced session that will leave you out of breath.

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 242, Dopplereffekt and Drexcyia. It’s arresting and unpredictable from start to finish.

Happily, the live artist and producer indulges all those passions and more on this blistering one hour mix. It explores every facet of electro, from squelchy and dark to smooth and grooving. It’s a history lesson, really, that takes us through the musical adventures of The Hacker as well as electro at large. Turn it on, turn it up and turn yourself on to a master of the form.

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-on-sight Mood Hut label they run with a larger collective, and their DJ sets are just as relaxed and big hearted, which immediately stood out at Dekmantel Festival and Dekmantel Selectors over the last couple of years.

Across an hour, the famously reticent pair—they’ve done no interviews—effortlessly segue through afro grooves, boogie laced disco and lo-fi house. It’s a timeless mix of sounds that could work a small back yard gathering as much a bigger club setting, such is its irresistibly colourful and emotive sense of charm. That being said, it's probably no surprise that having these two fine and talented chaps on our podcast series is a big honour.

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 still serves up compelling club sets.

Her mix here is a short, snappy and freaky one that leaves you wanting more. It’s a selection composed entirely of Belgian music because, she says, "I wanted to give back some love to the people of the country where I live. So many great talents and so much inspiration. Most tracks have been given by the producers themselves." From frazzled industrial techno to haunting EBM, sparse atmospheric tracks to groaning electronics, it packs a lot in over a short time and is utterly refreshing.