Dekmantel Records

Kiosk Radio is an online community radio streaming 24/7 from a wooden shack in the heart of Brussels’ historic “Parc Royal”.
More info and music: https://kioskradio.com

Steffi @ Kiosk Radio 03.09.2022

Vivian Koch (aka Ful Niviak) is the cofounder of Berlin-based HeyNow and one of a raft of new generation musicians to have come of age in a time of such deep self-reflection. Beat-focused sets and more ambient productions are the two sides to Koch’s coin, the latter serving as a means of spiritual healing intended as a gift for the scene she was part of for so long (she started DJing at the age of 16 to be precise). This time, her dialectic sound yields fruit in the form of Bassiani Podcast 145, an atmosphere-heavy and evocative dreamscape, cathartic breakbeat from start to finish.

@kochvivian

Bassiani invites Vivian Koch / Podcast #145

Erika has always explored the eerier corners of her native Detroit. She captures the empty space and late-night mood of the city in music that is deep and dark. For many years she has been a key behind-the-scenes figure who runs the well-regarded Interdimensional Transmissions label and has hosted plenty of her own parties. Her productions - either solo or with Brendan M. Gillen as Ectomorph - are rooted in techno and electro but explore everything from hard-edged grooves to spaced-out soundscapes. Erika also runs an educational platform for workshops, masterclasses and courses that help bring on the next generation. 

This week's mix draws on all that experience across 75 blistering minutes. It's electro from the off with haunting spaces, booming bass and elastic rhythms setting the scene for what becomes a storied selection. There are gritty and grimy warehouse sounds as well as slippery sci-fi workouts and plenty in between, all threaded together with the control of DJ who knows exactly where she wants to take you.

Dekmantel Podcast

Dekmantel Podcast 407 - Erika

Further information and tracklist: https://bleep.com/features/bleep-mix-249--full-efx

“It's super sludgy psychedelic, ruff & raw in some parts broken and moving around 118 -120 bpm max. This is the anti peak time mix” - Anthony Parasole (@the-corner_brooklyn)

Bleep Mix #249 - FULL EFX

Marcel Dettmann - Fear Of Programming - Dekmantel - DKMNTL095

https://dekmantel.com/shop/records/marcel-dettmann-fear-of-programming
https://marceldettmann.bandcamp.com/album/fear-of-programming

a1. Coral
a2. Suffice To Predict
a3. Renewal Theory
a4. Transport
b1. Water (Feat. Ryan Elliott)
b2. Pxls
b3. Reverse Dreams
c1. x12
c2. (Batteries Not Included)
c3. Picture 2020
d1. Selective Dissolution
d2. Tone
d3. Fear Of Programming

Nearly 10 years on since his last solo LP, Berlin techno icon Marcel Dettmann arrives on Dekmantel with an expansive album captured in a flash of inspiration.

In many ways Fear Of Programming is a reflection on the artistic process – the critical hurdles one has to overcome, the constant strive for originality, the ability to capture inspiration in its pure moment of inception. Bar the closing title track (and we all know Marcel loves a surprise closing), these 13 tracks came together during a period in which our hirsute host was able to immerse himself in studio practice and set the intention to record an album’s worth of material every single day. From the resulting mass of work there were many options to choose from, and Fear Of Programming stood out as one of the most complete statements on Dettmann’s approach in the here and now.

Unconcerned with an overarching concept, it was the work in the studio which drove the musical direction. No labouring over knotty arrangements, no painstaking mix downs – just honest expression, a moment caught, a groove locked, a stroke of synth sent pirouetting over a cavernous bed of texture. The results are varied, and while you might well hear plenty of bruising machinations in line with the techno Dettmann has made his name on, there are plenty of other shades expressed across the album.

Ambient sojourns, beatless epics and angular electronica have equal footing with strident, floor-friendly workouts. Standout piece ‘Water’ offers an icy ballet of swinging minimal and drip-drop melodics fronted by Ryan Elliott on lesser-spotted vocal duties, urging, ‘give me a sign, just a little something to let me know that you’re mine’. It’s playful, but still underpinned with the sincerity that comes with Dettmann’s work.

Running on instinct, Dettmann presents an honest version of himself in the here and now, speaking through the sonics and not over-thinking the results. His decades of experience helming a thousand techno parties speak for themselves, while his evolution as a musical entity through collaboration and his own BAD MANNERS label demonstrate his appetite for change. Indeed, the working method which resulted in the album also spurred him on to create a live set beyond his well-established DJ practice. Without resorting to a conceited overhaul, Fear Of Programming opens up the idea of what Dettmann represents in the modern techno landscape.

DKMNTL095 // Marcel Dettmann - Fear Of Programming

When a young Rabih Beaini travelled from east Beirut to west after the end of Lebanon’s civil war he crossed a musical Rubicon, on the other side a record store whose eclectic mix of sounds and cultures would have a profound impact on his later praxis. He’s since become known for championing an off the wall mix of references from Serbian krautrock to tape music, tarab to drone, and is a critical voice for anything outside the usual remit of western electronics. This avant-garde tack has made Beaini’s ‘Morphine Records’ a go-to name for those in the know, forward-thinking fare that magically criss-crosses a world of music usually out of reach. Horoom brought that alchemy a little nearer last month, hosting Mutant Radio’s ‘Out of Whack’ with Beaini playing as headline invitee. Bassiani Podcast 152 is his set recorded live: a synthesis on the cusp of east and west, earth and space, a truly matchless energy, boundary-pushing frequencies from one of techno’s most interesting players.

@rabih

BASSIANI PODCAST SERIES

Bassiani invites Rabih Beaini / Podcast #152

TASCAM DR-40X

Serge @ RSO Berlin - 220923

XDB is Kosta Athanassiadis – German by birth and in residence, with Greek parentage. He started djing in the early 90s and still plays vinyl only. Over the years his music was released on labels like Dolly, Harbour City Sorrow and Sistrum. In 2006 he started the record label Metrolux. There’s a refreshing lack of gimmickry to his approach – keeping it low-key allows him to be judged solely on the basis of talent. Enjoy!

TASCAM DR-05X

ITPS087 XDB

Hailing from Germany’s leafy heartland via Leipzig, Nadine Moser has found a spiritual home in Berlin for the last 12 years. The capital has provided space for her to flourish as an artist whose work focuses on both the exploration of new sounds, as well as a political energy so key to the city. From here, she coordinates a schedule which includes residencies at left-leaning haunts Pudel (Hamburg), Paloma and ://about blank, as well as a radio show on Refuge Worldwide and mentorship of women and non-binary artists for Spoon DJ Workspace. For the music itself, she has a preference for deep, organic sounds, subtle build up and introvert melodies (worth noting here is ambient side project M2N2). Rarely will she release cuts from a live set, which makes Bassiani Podcast 153 a lucky exception. If you do want to count your blessings though, this is number two in the Podcast series: a 138 minute mix from her last visit to the club, packed with shuffling basslines, ethereal synths and libertine energy, lovingly dedicated to the Horoom crowd. Resom’s techno return to grassroots.

Bassiani invites Resom / Podcast #153

For Erika’s second album “Anevite Void”, she explores her live process as it permeates everything she does, including documenting the process of life in the elaborate sci fi mythology she created. 

@erikadotnet began performing live in Ectomorph in 1997 when she was gifted a TR-606 by BMG and asked to join the group. This grew to her building her own studio, performing solo as Erika, collaborating with people like Jay Ahern and Noncompliant, and performing as a member of Circle of Live. Her depth of thought and clarity of vision has led to her mentoring people on live performance through the In Bloom platform, where she has made a large impact on many up and coming musicians. 

“Anevite Void”, Erika’s new album, finds her organically writing songs for her live shows, allowing them to take shape through performance, and later recording them in the studio, making this the first album she has entirely written and produced on her own. Mixed by long time collaborator BMG, she finds this record as the launching point for a new process for her.

Conceptually, this album was inspired by “the irregular life cycles created by three suns circling over a planetary organism that presents two major biomes: rocky crystalline desert, and deep layered forest, each of which exists above and/or below ground, depending on what phase the suns are in.” From this realm the album took shape. She also chronicled this concept in drawings but found this painting by Detroit puckish punk legend Nai Sammon perfectly visually explained the concept, and chose it for the cover. She describes “each track is about an organic process that occurs: acts of survival of the biomes, or what happens between them and the multitude of other beings that they host.”

Erika is currently splitting her time between being based in Berlin and Detroit, is part of the triumvirate that runs Interdimensional Transmissions (BMG, Erika and Amber) that are releasing this record and produce legendary events such as No Way Back, Samhain and Return to the Source. She performs live and DJs and collaborates and oozes sonic truth in its many forms. Visit the “Anevite Void” in early 2023.

LP version:

A1 Emergency Shutdown
A2 Opal Haze
A3 Dirt Breather

B1 Obsidian Sunset
B2 Star Line Down

C1 Anion
C2 Crystal Circuits

D1 Desert Red
D2 Tomorrow's Fires
D3 Wandering Mountain

Digital:
1. Emergency Shutdown
2. Opal Haze
3. Obsidian Sunset
4. Star Line Down
5. Anion
6. Desert Red
7. Crystal Circuits
8. Tomorrow's Fires
9. Dirt Breather
10. Wandering Mountain

Anevite Void

Erika - Anevite Void (Preview Clips) [IT 50]

Pre-order: https://vril.delsinrecords.ltd/release/7286/vril/animist / https://vrilofficial.bandcamp.com/album/animist 

Channelling his own explorations in search of the soul inside the machine, @vril_01 draws from the deep well of his live performances to present his third LP for @delsinrecords, 'Animist'. Inside lie 12 pieces which seem to probe at the unknowable distance between tangible consciousness and the astral plane, imbuing even the most seemingly synthetic of materials with a living essence. Given his illustrious back catalogue, it’s no surprise to hear VRIL conjure explicitly electronic music with such loaded emotional impact and seemingly organic animus, but in the process he also toys with the idea of how far the technology’s spiritual potential can reach.

Premiere: VRIL 'Katharsis'

Tunik - A New Dawn - Dekmantel - DKMNTL096

dekmantel shop: https://dekmantel.com/shop/records/tunik-a-new-dawn
bandcamp: https://tunikmusic.bandcamp.com/album/a-new-dawn

A1. New Dawn Fades
A2. The Aeon
B1. Electro 01
B2. Third Eye Connection
05. MS20 (Digital Only)

Tunik (@tunik303) lands on Dekmantel with his distinctive strain of jacking drum machine electro-techno. The Barcelona-based, Argentina-born artist first emerged in 2020 with a standout EP and collaborative spot for Nicolas Lutz’s My Own Jupiter label before notching up a release with Furthur Electronix, and now his emotionally-charged sound spreads its wings once more.

A New Dawn lands somewhere between original 80s synth-pop, the noirish allure of early 00s electro and sleek modern techno, using a full spectrum of synths to draw out harmonically rich tunes that pack in the feels while holding enough mystery to keep a dancefloor enthralled. From the melancholic chimes of 'New Dawn Fades' to the electro lament of 'The Aeon', 'Electro 01's punchy, bass-warping rave energy to 'Third Eye Connection's acidic introspection, it’s an EP which cements Tunik’s highly developed expression through his array of studio tools, all strapped to finely honed club structures for maximum dancefloor impact.

DKMNTL096 // Tunik - A New Dawn

Nadia Struiwigh - Birds Of Paradise - Dekmantel - DKMNTL092

buy:
https://dekmantel.com/shop/records/nadia-struiwigh-birds-of-paradise
or https://nadiastruiwigh.bandcamp.com/album/birds-of-paradise

a1. Shadow On The Left
a2. Rainbrain
a3. JSF48
b1. hLOw
b2. 02nd
b3. Grown Trancy
c1. Endofthe Tunnel
c2. cmmn cmmn
c3. Dreamsynth204
d1. Parcel 33
d2. Yep, Beavers?
d3. Birds Of Paradise

Celebrating the interconnected strands of head-tripping electronica she holds dear, @NadiaStruiwigh arrives on Dekmantel with her fourth album of widescreen machine soul. Birds Of Paradise joins the dots between electro, techno, ambient and jungle as a reflection of the symbiotic relationship between the contrasting elements which drive all life on earth - the inescapable and chaotic forces of cause and effect. Echoing the free-spirited approach of electronic music in the mid-90s, it’s an album which rejects absolutes in favour of emotionally honest expression, true to Struiwigh’s deeply felt passion for the sounds and styles which defined her own journey into music.

Since first emerging in the wider scene, Struiwigh has ably demonstrated her instinct for different sonic approaches across her accomplished career, whether exploring expansive ambience on album projects or holding down the physical intensity of a residency at Berlin techno temple Tresor. Her 2017 debut album Lenticular on Central Processing Unit most closely resembles the approach on Birds Of Paradise, where introspective beat constructions and nuanced sound design folded into a natural, flowing whole unbound by perceived rules around genre. The narrative flow uses contrasting energies to glide though distinctive spaces, unfolding with the considered pace of a truly immersive listening experience.

From the rich, undulating beatless pastures of ‘JSF48’ to the intricate mechanics of ‘02nd’, the dubby downtempo of ‘cmmn cmmn’ to the crunchy beatdown of ‘Dreamsynth’, the spaces Struiwigh defines on Birds Of Paradise are brilliantly vivid and bound together by an affinity for emotionally-charged ambience. At times the effect is nostalgic, calling to mind the exotic ecosystems of Future Sound Of London or Higher Intelligence Agency, but even these passages are charged with a restless futurism informed by the imagined vistas of science fiction as a comment on the realities of the here and now.

Widely recognised for her expertise in a multitude of production processes (not least her extensive knowledge of outboard gear), Birds Of Paradise pools Struiwigh’s devotion to her craft into an exquisite instant-classic to be savoured and absorbed in the same fashion as so many iconic electronica albums which have come before.

DKMNTL092 // Nadia Struiwigh - Birds Of Paradise

Tunik - Nosferatu - Dekmantel - DKMNTL098

vinyl: https://dekmantel.com/shop/records/tunik-nosferatu
digital: https://tunikmusic.bandcamp.com/album/nosferatu

a1. Nosferatu
a2. Slave
b1. W72
b2. Sorrow

Barcelona’s Tunik follows up on last year’s A New Dawn with a distinct turn to the dark side as he pays tribute to the iconic, vampiric creature of the night, Nosferatu.

The horror theme on the title track is a natural fit with the Argentinian artist’s schlocky strain of EBM-styled electro-techno, but the music is no joke. Boxy drum machine jack and a suite of darkly seductive synth lines strike the perfect note between vintage flair and modernist impact, and the macabre mood lingers over the rest of this trip through gothic club music.

Whether it’s the Twilight Zone creep around the edges of ‘Slave’, acid blood raining down on ‘W72’ or the undead getting busy with the grungy bass and dry snare hits on ‘Sorrow’, Tunik has got exactly what you need to send a shiver down the dance floor’s spine and raise the temperature in the room, all in the same heartbeat.

DKMNTL098 // Tunik - Nosferatu

Sepehr - Genesis Domain - Dekmantel - DKMNTL103

buy via dekmantel: https://dekmantel.com/shop/records/sepehr-genesis-domain
buy via bandcamp: https://sepehr.bandcamp.com/album/genesis-domain

a1. Genesis Domain
a2. Delicate Senses
a3. Twisted Solstice
b1. Planet Lonely
b2. Queen Of Demons

Making his Dekmantel debut with a flourish of symphonic, transcendental techno, Sepehr takes us into a fictional metaphysical zone he calls the Genesis Domain.

Over the past 10 years NYC-based Sepehr Alimagham’s versatile club music practice has taken in techno, D&B, electro, EBM and acid on a suite of scene-leading labels. This new EP builds on the pseudo-spirituality he explored on recent LP Fall From Grace with an exploration of an imagined space “where your reality can be reinvented at any given moment.”

On the A side, the title track sets the pace with a throbbing, sparkling-yet-spooky trip that allows a touch of trance into the mix, while ‘Delicate Senses’ explores snappier broken beat rhythms and edgy atmospherics with a distinctly moody outlook.

The mystical electro shades of ‘Twisted Solstice’ and ‘Planet Lonely’s melancholic 4/4 pastures strike a note between contemplative introspection and anthemic main stage energy. ‘Queen Of Demons’ is the consummate EP closer, leaning on brooding low end and snaking, intricate beats with a healthy dose of shimmering beauty up top.

Consistent with his versatile approach since day one, Sepehr proves any blend of tempos and rhythms can be folded into his vivid, evocative sound world — the results will always draw you in close until his vision becomes yours.

DKMNTL103 // Sepehr - Genesis Domain

Sam Goku - Radiants - Dekmantel - DKMNTL104

vinyl: https://dekmantel.com/shop/records/sam-goku-radiants
digital: https://samgoku.bandcamp.com/album/radiants

a1. Tides (Under The Moonlight)
a2. Tanggu FM
b1. Radiants
b2. Temple Arp

Building on the buzz around his dynamic techno releases of the past few years, Sam Goku @samgoku makes a welcome debut on Dekmantel with four striking set pieces which subvert the rules of the average floor fodder.

Through his steady stream of output on the likes of Atomnation Berlin-based Robin Wang has established himself as a must-check artist with an instinct for the unconventional. That comes through in jaw-dropping fashion on Radiants’ opening cut ‘Tides (Under The Moonlight)’, a swirling, mystical thumper which rises with graceful restraint to a thunderous peak. By way of contrast ‘Tanggu FM’ brings things up close and claustrophobic, using slippery sound design and stuttering vocals to create a different kind of maverick energy on top of the rugged low end. Even when he does reach for anthemic hooks on the EP’s title track, there’s a fundamental otherness to the sparkling chords and a toughness to the beat which edges out the competition.

This is just a snapshot of the versatility at work across Radiants, a record which will cement Goku’s position as a standout producer taking a less obvious path to truly distinctive, devastatingly original showstoppers.

DKMNTL104 // Sam Goku - Radiants

Amsterdam based DJs, events company and record label. - support@dekmantel.com for all your webshop and label enquiries.

DKMNTL095 // Marcel Dettmann - Fear Of Programming

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