Dekmantel Podcast

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 house music so appealing. A keys player by trade, he is also a formal student of jazz, and all this shines through in his recorded output as well as the records he mixes together all over the world.

Over the course of an hour for us, Byron serves up breezy and musical house grooves dripping with cosmic keys, jazz looseness and timeless good time vibes. It’s a mix with a big heart and effortless mixing style that manages to be deep but dynamic, and is one of the reasons we are so excited for him to play with us in Amsterdam in August.

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 London. Also a political activist, booking agent and gender equality campaigner, she is a new breed of artist who is mindful of how important her voice and platform can be in the dance world. 

The mix she serves up for us is one of there longest we’ve had, and over more than two hours offers pad-laced stimulation for the mind as well as jerky machine rhythms that will make you move.“This mix has no deeper concept then to simply let go from having a concept”, Resom adds. Her contribution to our series is often dark and stripped back, there are curveball moments of wildness and heads down passages of electronic funk. Typically free from easy genre signifiers, this is dynamic music that always keeps you guessing.

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 everything from breakbeat laced ambiance to roughed up house. Last month he stepped up to Dekmantel Records again with his soothing 'Pillow Peace' EP. Before that, he served up his Political Dance series with us and contributed to Part 3 of our 10th Anniversary series. Versatile and vital, he is a breath of fresh air for the scene, as well as our podcast series.

Stretching his legs over the course of 100 minutes including loads of unreleased material, Central slowly sets the scene with summery ambiance made from pillowy synth clouds and melodies that drift by like a wispy cloud. It’s lazy and hazy and eventually evolves into shimmering pads and more cosmic atmospheres before some breezy, firmly rooted classic house glides you along. Perfectly feel good and with a big heart, this is the only mix you need for a hot day.

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 house to afro, forgotten soul to niche disco. The best place to hear all these is at Tangent, the top East London party he has run with Nick the Record for the last few years.

Across seventy odd minutes here, John keeps things sunny and tropical, with worldly sounds from niche disco, boogie and afro scenes all over the world. Each track oozes a sense of musicality as well as a solid underlying groove. The tracks feel joyful and happy, innocent and inviting and are all sequenced in a way that allows each one to really shine. All in all, it makes for a perfect soundtrack to a summer’s afternoon.

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 Phinery, Emma has also played seven hour sets at Hot Mass in Pittsburgh and holds a monthly residency at Technofeminism at Bossa Nova Civic Club. Next to that, the youngster just dropped her new, promising album Symbolic Use Of Light on Technicolour.

Clocking in at just over an hour, Umfang’s mix for us is filled with eerie and unusual rhythms that are often hugely roomy but underpinned by solid kicks. As the pressure builds, so does the tension, and by the mid point that boils over into raw and visceral drum tracks before falling apart into a flurry of distorted sounds, percussive hits and frazzled synths. Uncompromising and packing a lot in during a short space of time, it’s an eye opening mix that leaves you in a blissful place after a busy workout.

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 places like ://about blank and Berghain, and this summer will play Dekmantel Festival.

Her adventurous spirit and quest for that “special feeling” on the dance floor characterises her mix for us. It is seventy minutes of grooves designed to make you move, from rugged techno to slippery electro via pulsing kick drums that burrow deep into the night. Contrasting dark with light, wild acid with more streamlined sounds and overtly physical tracks with those that are more cerebral, it makes for an arresting trip filled with special dance floor moments.

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 sweeping DJ sets which range from Italo to techno, Afro to disco and back again.

With this mix we find him in fine form across three enthralling and widescreen hours that showcase his democratic approach to digging. Effortlessly drifting from slow and tropical grooves to party starting disco, it embodies the sound of summer, of late afternoon BBQs and sunset sessions before getting more groove driven later on. Bubbly, breezy house becomes the order of the night, and it’s all underpinned by a loose and playful sense of love for the good times.

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 brings a fresh and widescreen persecutive to electronic music that really stands her out.

Her mix is here just as alarming for all the right reasons: it quickly shifts from foreboding noise tracks to eerie drones, from cold wave styles to thudding house via nasty old school techno. Powerful and visceral throughout, it’s a muscular mix that takes many risks and veers off into a weird and wonderful world of sound that is never less than brilliantly unpredictable.

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. Distilling all these into his his own rhythm noise, the artist works on labels Ekster and YYAA with great success.

@hielehiele is known for his outstanding live sets and records that draw the perfect landscapes. But his one hour mix for us is one of the most brilliantly unusual in the series, and is completely dance floor orientated. One moment serving up kinetic drum programming it then flips into a retro synth world before dropping into a slow and atmospheric pool of pads and chords. Later on unhinged techno returns, dreamy house makes an appearance and experimental loops of busted drum and frazzled synths play us out. It’s perfectly anarchic and bravely left of centre and never lets up.

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 patch cables. Exactly what will go down at any of their shows is unknown even by the men behind the machines, such is their nature, but suffice it to say they always impress. Their studio sounds are equally beguiling and have come on Brokntoys and Hypercolour, and now they make their unique entry into our mix series.

Clocking in at just over an hour, it is a one of the most alive soundtracks we have heard: the whole thing unfolds and evolves seemingly with a life of its own. There are no joins between tracks, no jarring transitions, just a fluid fusion of electro and techno grooves coated in that raw analogue texture we all love so much. Variously prickly and kinetic, raw and freaky or more supple and seductive, it is a splendid session from some of the finest synth maestros out there.