“Moving bodies is a celebration of dancing and human connection through sound. The tracks were made for the dance floor with the intent to invoke emotions and bring people together.” - ALINKA
Alinka returns to Gudu with her second full EP for the label, Moving Bodies. Originally from Kyiv but now based in Berlin — via a formative spell in Chicago, where she was a resident of Justin Long’s .Dotbleep party at the city’s legendary Smartbar club and co-founded her label and party series Twirl — Alinka is one of those artists that just gets it. She’s a pillar in this whole foundation that this whole thing is built on and she knows exactly how to make dancefloors move. Moving Bodies is another masterclass in just that: music that innately understands the transcendent power of a dancefloor when everything lands just right. 
As with Alinka’s work, there’s not a shred of fat on these tracks: nothing ever feels flamboyant or unnecessary. It’s music purely designed to, well, move bodies. EP opener ‘Give Your Love’ swings between floaty pads and pumping organs, while ‘Future Funk’ takes things deep and aquatic - The Jacking Zone by way of Atlantis. ‘Body to Body’ might be the most outright peak-time moment on the record, the sort of track that would be primed for a Daft Punk Essential Mix inclusion in an alternate timeline, before EP closer ‘Set You Free’ rides out on the sort of rave pianos that just always hit.
Previous support for Alinka: Peggy Gou, TEED, Horse Meat Disco, Pan Pot, Skream, Nadia Ksaiba, Honey Soundsystem, Anja Schneider, Matrefakt, Gina Breeze, Jordan Nocturne, Crosstown Rebels

Moving Bodies

Future Funk

RUSS - Music for the ravers 
⚡️THUNDR label manager and resident 
📩 russmusicuk@gmail.com

bouncy punchy grooves.

booking: daynacanningmusic@gmail.com

Unfilled Space
Manchester, UK
Enquiries: lacunarecordings@gmail.com

“There are at least a few people in this thing determined to keep House Music weird. Chicago’s Alinka is one of them.” – Terry Matthew, 5Magazine

Alinka is the kind of DJ other DJ’s will tell you about. She has a unique power on the decks that comes from lifelong passion and time served, with a focused devotion to her first love – house music. Raised on Chicago’s vibrant house sound with toes dipped into Detroit techno, Europe’s more robust approaches to bass music and the myriad of genre’s coming from cities like Berlin, London and Paris.

Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, her early childhood included reluctantly learning the piano, her mother is a pianist, while trying to convince her parents to let her play guitar. Her exposure to Western music was limited, living in a communist country where censorship was common practice. Her family eventually immigrated to Chicago as Jewish refugees in the late ‘80s as the USSR crumbled. This was her first experience of pop music and she fell head over heels for the chart sounds of Madonna and Janet Jackson. Then came house music from local radio shows where you could frequently hear tracks by Chicago legends like Cajmere and DJ Funk, and shows like Sonic Boom helped expose underground music to the masses.

By the late ‘90s, music had taken over her life. Teenage Alinka immersed herself in the dance music scene spending her summer pulling double shifts at a local pool and moonlighting for rave promoters to build up enough cash to buy decks. After a year of skipping class to relentlessly practice her mixing skills, she began her full-time musical pursuit. Working for various club promoters, doing odd jobs passing out flyers and helping with party logistics - anything just to get into clubs underage to see her favourite DJs - all while spending hours digging for tracks at Chicago’s legendary record shop Gramaphone. In 2001 Justin Long recruited her to be the opening resident for his .Dotbleep party at Smartbar where she honed her skills for the best part of a decade.

In 2012, an impromptu meeting with former Hercules and Love Affair vocalist, Shaun J. Wright, changed her life forever. Their evolving friendship resulted in what would be the first of many musical collaborations. The pair launched their Twirl parties and label, continually strived to inspire each other both musically and spiritually, the result has been an impressive catalogue of material for both of them collaboratively and individually on the likes of The Classic Music Company, Jackathon Jams, Crosstown Rebels, Leftroom, and of course Twirl, where as well as their own material the duo have welcomed renowned artists like Spencer Parker, Virginia, LA-4A, Kim Ann Foxman, and Jason Kendig onto the label.

Recent years have seen Alinka really hit her stride as a producer with successful releases on world renown labels like Rekids, Crosstown Rebels, Need Want, Permanent Vacation, and Peggy Gou’s Gudu Records. She also turned out a standout collection of remixes for labels Me Me Me, Live At Robert Johnson, Correspondant, and Get Physical.

Now living in Berlin, Alinka has well and truly found her feet and inspiration. Alinka has used this base to throw down at parties across Europe from Berghain/Panorama Bar to Circoloco, with regular visits back to the US to play standout clubs like Smart Bar and Ukraine's famous ∄ club in Kyiv, where she stands as club’s first international resident, playing a minimum of six shows per year including a curated show.

Her evolution continues with the recent re-launch of her Twirl imprint, highlighted by the ‘Day Dreamer’, ‘Sorry For Not Trending’ and ‘Edgewater’ EPs that finely balance Alinka’s future-focused ethos, with a unmistakable, proud passion for her Chicago heritage.