Dekmantel Podcast

Overmono is the UK sibling duo of Tessela and Truss, aka Ed and Tom Russell. As individuals, they have embodied everything that is exciting about the English underground for the last few years on labels like R&S, Perc and their own Poly Kicks. Now, combined as a live duo, they are making widescreen techno for XL Recordings that is informed by a ravey past and always comes on strong.

In the club their shows are arresting affairs cooked up on an array of hardware tools. You can catch this show at Dekmantel Festival this year but for their podcast, they enter DJ mode and serve up eighty minutes of the sort of beats that colour their own sounds. Far from an all out techno assault, it is a well balanced trip through reflective metal breakbeats, deep pulsing kicks and experimental electronic ambiance that leaves you suspended in space one moment and tethered firmly to the dance floor the next. Unfolding with a spaced out and dreamlike feel, this is techno but not as we know it.

Dexter is one of electro’s most important figures. The Dutchman has been a key part of the scene for nearly twenty years, both with his own solo works, but also in collaboration with the likes of Steffi. Together the pair run their own Klakson label, a small but well formed outlet that constantly invigorates the genre. As a performer he is famously adroit in the live arena, but also does magical things with records across multiple decks. His roots as a breakdancer mean he is a slave to a powerful rhythm, and that shows in this new mix he has put together.

Though it lasts only an hour, Dexter packs so much you feel you have been riding his grooves for much longer: there are plenty of slithering analogue lines and sci-fi melodies, but also much more raw and rugged drum patterns that encourage you to jerk your body as the tempo moves from 120 up to 135bpm at the hands of tracks from labels like Klakson, Viewlexx, Fragile and Apron. Never settling in one place for too long, you’ll find yourself lost in acid, then catching a breath in a more serene synth workout then ducking and diving below a volley of percussion before you can even say ‘hell yeah!’

Like many of his Far Eastern peers, Wata Igarashi has a deep, trippy, psychedelic techno sound. Listening to his tracks is like being beneath a dark sky that is expertly coloured with little exploding fireworks or shooting stars. There is also an element of automated industry to it that speaks to a bleak future and it comes on labels like Time to Express, Bitta and The Bunker New York. On these releases his immaculate sound design is always subtle yet stirring, and his DJ sets are similarly stylish and absorbing.

Here he serves up one such trippy techno affair that builds in intensity and has “a little more bite towards the end“ according to the man himself. At two hours long it snakes its way through various desolate landscapes, with dubbed out rollers and more intense, multi-layered cuts all making for a variety of moods and grooves that segue together smoothly and seductively.

As Dollkraut, Pascal Pinkert very much operates out on his own. His mastery of sound makes for music that is at once from the future but also reminiscent of the past. Fusing synth and new wave, pop hooks and a knack for rough riding grooves, he is a versatile producer who can freak you out or make you open your heart. The Dutchman does so with releases on labels like Doppelschall and The Gym; releases that soon sell out and become much sought after. His latest is the gritty yet romantic Holy Ghost People album, which is due on Jennifer Cardini’s new label in March.

The same haunting but spaced out 70s sound that characterises his music and DJ sets also defines the mix he has put together for us here. It’s a jaunty journey through a cinematic and upbeat world of naive pop, electro boogie, robot disco and glam-synth gorgeousness that oozes style. Few DJs have a sound that manages to be as aesthetically tight yet musically diverse and this, but Dollkraut pulls it off with ease.

Felix Dickinson’s story is closely linked with the story of house. He has been playing it (and making it legal to do so via his pre criminal justice act rave orchestration) since day one, has held decade long residencies in Japan and has made it under names ranging from Foolish and Sly to Bastedos. Besides working with labels like Rush Hour and DFA, he also runs his own Cynic Music and has been a key DJ at places like Glastonbury, Garden Festival and Sonar. His style is, generally, to play music from all over the place, but he always manages to mesh them together into some thing fun and coherent.

Over the course of 70 odd minutes here he shows off his far ranging taste and looks back as much as forward. Carefully controlled throughout, the set mixes up floor filling house with breezy grooves, chattery Chicago jack and euphoric piano anthems. It’s party starting but tastefully so and once again has you wondering who needs DJ Harvey when you have Felix Dickinson.

Lee Gamble is one of the most adventurous producers, label bosses and DJs in the electronic world. Over the course of four album projects and many EPs he has explored the ghost of jungle, abrasive ambient and textural techno in thrilling and compelling ways. Formerly releasing on Pan, he now heads up his own UIQ label and with it has curated some of techno’s most exciting new sounds. As well as DJing, he is behind a regular NTS radio show and tours a mesmeric live A/V show that always encourages you to escape and get lots in unfamiliar musical worlds.

The two hour mix he serves up for is the freaky, left of centre post-rave adventure you would expect. It’s disorientating and non linear. Initially it focuses on texture and mood more than groove, then his jungle roots bubble up, and just as you think you know where you are going, Gamble pulls back and descends into bleak cinematic soundtracks. Unpredictable and wilfully contrary, like his own challenging productions it is a masterclass in sonic subversion that reveals more with each new listen.

Elena Colombi likes the weird and wonderful things in music. Her show on NTS proves that, skipping as it does from techno to EBM, post punk to industrial and wave music with an always inquisitive ear. An under-the-radar regular at some choice parties around London for years, she is sure to break out into the wider consciousness in 2017, and we hope that this new podcast from her goes some way to assisting with that, because she is a selector well worth sharing.

Filled with frosted industrial landscapes, muffled drums and plenty of metallic surfaces, Colombi’s mix finds light in darkness and human emotions in abstract sounds. It’s a fully realized sonic world that could be old, could be new, but is never less than wholly absorbing and uniquely odd.

The music Aurora Halal creates is informed by many different disciplines. She is a producer, but also a videographer and visual artist who has worked on films about modular synth godfather Morton Subotnick amongst others. She is also the force behind Brooklyn’s Mutual Dreaming party series as well as the Sustain-Release festival. In just a couple of years she has cooked up an expressive and experimental techno sound—solo and with the likes of Ital—on labels such as Lovers Rock and her own Mutal Dreaming Recordings. Oppressive and foggy, her distorted, imperfect sounds made up of heavy drums and scurrying synths have taken her to plenty of remarkable live gigs all over the world. Now she steps up to our mix series with equal aplomb.

It is still only a couple of years since Moire first emerged, but already he operates in his own distinctive sound world. It is a place his broken house and techno is murky and disorientating, ambiguous and otherworldly. So far it has come on cult labels like Spectral Sound, Ninja Tune and Actress’ Work Discs in the form of some essential EPs and an LP, and now he steps up to our mix series ahead of the arrival of his second full length on Ghostly International.

Over the course of an hour the Londoner lays down some loose and hazy house that gets more and more rugged as the grooves unfold. It’s lo-fi but stirringly emotive stuff that ends in a place of refracted melodies and heavenly vocals that really lift you out of the real world.

As you will already know, we really appreciate proper selectors here at Dekmantel. The next man to step up to our series is a prime example of that: Brooklyn based DJ and visual artist GE-OLOGY has been writing musical stories with real beginnings, middles and ends since he first started collecting wax aged five. After a career in hop hop working with royalty like Jill Scott and Mos Def, a slightly new direction has seen him put out a select few house productions on revered labels like Sound Signature, whilst the records he plays reflect his genuine musical and instrumental playing skills.

Proof of that comes across the two diverse hours he digs deep to serve up for us here. From boogie to disco, jazz funk to smooth soul, this is the sort of golden and heart warming selection that has people demanding IDs and scouring Discogs immediately. Right up there with our friends like Sadar Bahar and MCDE, this is a joyous soundtrack filled with moments you will not forget.