A globally respected and highly accomplished artist, label boss at the seminal Hot Creations, founder and curator of the worldwide Paradise event series and member of cross-genre band Hot Natured, Jamie Jones has achieved iconic status in the electronic music world. A trendsetter and seasoned tastemaker, the Welsh dance music superstar pioneered his own distinct sound, drawing on his deep knowledge and experience to cultivate DJ sets that weave through a range of diverse, complementary styles selected to energise and enchant the dance floor.

Bookings: 
jdb@anna-agency.nl • benjamin@anna-agency.nl

A musical journey started by two friends back in 2012, combining forces on their past production output and musical roots merging into the techno project ‘Park & Sons’. The Dutch-born -and Amsterdam-based techno-duo consists of Jorik van de Pol & Vincent Leijen.

Back in 2015, they started organizing warehouse raves under the ‘Compass’ name in a massive port-warehouse in the city of Arnhem, Netherlands. After hosting and playing numerous raves feeding their production drive and talent, they felt the urge to share their own musical creations with the world.

Their sincere dedication towards techno music skyrocketed their first imprint ‘Park & Sons Music’ with one of their early releases ‘Uncle Carl’ (an ode to the one and only) back in 2016. This lovechild gained massive support from the man Carl Cox himself, who even opened his last-ever legendary Space Ibiza set with this track in full-length.

Through a string of remixes and originals in the years that followed, they secured substantial live- support from heavyweights in the industry. Adam Beyer, Carl Cox, Joris Voorn, Hot Since 82 & Maya Jane Coles, all playing their music on influential shows like Ultra/Resistance Miami, Boiler Room Johannesburg, Space Ibiza & Awakenings.

The Park & Sons’ discography also steadily increased with standout releases such as: “Icarus (To The Sun)” ft. Nathan Nicholson, frontman of UK indie band The Boxer Rebellion, “Epoch” and their unique one-off collaboration “This Feeling” with Roger Sanchez ft. Julie McKnight on New York’s legendary Strictly Rhythm label. This has not left them unnoticed getting airtime on tastemaker radio-shows like BBC R1, Beats1, Sirius XM, Radio 538 & Slam FM and collecting a couple of million streams already on their self-released tracks.

Over the years they have become consummate and globally in-demand DJs, spreading their signature sound at many of the leading clubs and festivals around the world, such as: Ultra/Resistance Seoul, Beijing & Shanghai, Elrow, Spectrum by Joris Voorn, Free Your Mind, Soenda & Rotterdam Rave just to name a few.

2019 launched a long-desired new chapter in the life of Park & Sons unveiling their new Kobra Records imprint, propelling the clearly grown and dynamic duo deeper into techno spheres. The label prefers releasing music in EP format encouraging artistic diversity, whilst also hosting a creative hotspot for up-and-coming and established artists. Kobra Records had lift-off with Park & Sons’ critically acclaimed EP’s “Stellar Nights” and “Seoul” and has more musical techno stories up its sleeve. Rumor has it a live show is in the making too, so watch this techno space.

http://prksns.com/spotify
http://prksns.com/apple-music
http://prksns.com/deezer

Secret Cinema founded Gem with the philosophy to sign solely tracks that will withstand the sands of time. Gem Records looks to push the conventional boundaries of electronic music and showcase the artists who believe in the art of music. Together, artists and industry professionals create a platform to present their unique and distinguished sound to the world.

http://www.gemrecords.nl

New single out now // Dopamine
https://weval.lnk.to/dopamineSO


Critically-acclaimed Dutch act Weval (AKA Harm Coolen and Merijn Scholte Albers) arrive on Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint with their new EP Changed For The Better. The duo hail from Amsterdam, where they have been cultivating a unique sound that balances high energy electronic funk and emotive synth arrangements with bold, beautifully composed melodies and songwriting. The duo recently embarked on a mission to rediscover themselves and what truly drives them, in a process of liberation from self-imposed constraints. Their creative process was reinvigorated with an uninhibited approach and Changed For The Better represents Weval unfiltered, accepting themselves for who they truly are. It’s sincere and heartfelt and unashamedly positive.

Bookings: naomi@earth-agency.com (EU / RoW) / sgoodgold@teamwass.com
Management: mb@285.group / am@285.group

For Rune Reilly Kölsch, Kompakt has become a great label to call home. In 2013 the German imprint celebrated 20 years of record releases at the cutting edge of electronic music, championed in June by one of the most genre re-defining albums and personal music projects for an era: Kölsch’s landmark long player, ‘1977’.

A melodic autobiography on black wax, the Kölsch project has seen 36/37-year-old Rune take stock of a diverse and successful production career and draw upon his own personal beginnings: a nostalgia for childhood, family, friends and the confusion of applying his split-cultural heritage to what it means to think of ‘home’. As Rune freely admits, “being half Irish, half German and living in Denmark – it was all one big messy period of my life.” 

Born to hippie parents in the freetown of Christiania (a commune-like autonomous borough of the Danish capital Copenhagen) his childhood was spent surrounded by creativity. His mother was an artist whose family had roots in German politics and his father a singer songwriter who travelled through Asia playing music in the early 70's. Kölsch, however, did miss out on building friendships and found solace in making up “this imaginary world that I would spend days in,” before the family moved to Germany – a period of memories, relations and characters from which ‘1977’ derives its titles.

For Rune, the tracks he began building from 2010 took in this personal reflection, his being “completely locked in to reminiscing about what shaped me as a kid and into the individual that I am now” – contemplating his unique past to form the brickwork of ‘1977’, one of the most future-facing techno albums of recent years.

Influenced by hip hop, pop and the incredible legacy of Jeff Mills and Derrick May, Rune started producing in 1995, embarking on a string of success stories. In 2003 he released the multi-million selling, saxophone-infused ‘Calabria’, that saw collaboration requests pouring in from artists as diverse as Nicki Minaj, Shakira and Flo Rida. He then set up Tattoorecs – releasing pioneering underground tracks with no titles, just tattoos for artwork, that garnered critical acclaim and support from minimal and techno trailblazers such as Sven Väth, Richie Hawtin, Magda, Tiefschwarz and Ricardo Villalobos.

This appreciation of the complete musical spectrum has gifted Rune with a devotion to groove and melodics and with it the dexterity to input real creative change to the genres he reveres, not least his beloved techno. “2010 was the year of the ketamine house wave, where the music was 118 bpm and everything was extremely boring”, reflects Rune. “I wanted some melodic techno, some energy back in this scene. People needed the energy to express themselves and go crazy for a bit.”

This notion faced opposition, even from within Rune’s close circles. But it was Kompakt founder Michael Mayer who had the insight to see what Kölsch was trying to achieve. Rune’s conviction that vibrations and melodics are the key to human response had tipped the balance, underlined by his experience as a hip hop DJ where he “needed something to catch me and drag me in. And that’s what techno should do!” Here too he drew on his love of Jeff Mills and Derrick May, recalling how “they used to make mistakes all the time. It would be a big mash of all kinds of stuff, but at least something was happening. That’s what I was missing and that’s what I’m trying to change with the Kölsch project.”

The result is ‘1977’, a personal collection of dancefloor destroyers that are continuing to send clubs and festivals across the globe into melodic supernova. Take this video of Kölsch’s set at Belgium’s I Love Techno festival, one of Rune’s 2013 highlights, where “people were doing sit downs, singing along to all the tracks”. Watch it. It puts the hairs up on the back of your neck. “The response was overwhelming,” said Rune in a recent interview with Mixmag (who named Kölsch as one of their ‘Stars Of 2013’), as “when you think about it, it was just a bunch of childhood memories with a kickdrum underneath.” 

Elsewhere he’s ripped up the airways with an acclaimed Essential Mix for Pete Tong on BBC Radio 1, delivered his incendiary soundscape to Singapore’s world-renowned ZoukOut Festival, boomed his live show through the heaving basement of London’s XOYO and played the hallowed Space Terrace – in his words “a boyhood dream since I started going to Ibiza in 1999. That was what I wanted from life!” So opening Amnesia in 2014 with Joris Voorn will be a bonus then...

While these are reasons enough to keep the beaming smile beneath Kölsch’s trademark black fedora, his humility remains just as striking. While tracks like ‘Goldfisch’ have taken pivotal positions in the set lists of world class DJs from across the dance music spectrum – traversing the underground with Seth Troxler, while simultaneously providing credible new euphoric highs for the likes of Axwell – Rune remains joyously down to earth. All despite producing, with ‘1977’, an album that has crossed as many cultural and musical boundaries as his own childhood past.

From the face-twisting melodic drive of ‘Opa’ and ‘Bappedekkel’, to the chord-surfing piano groove of ‘Der Alte’ and the euphoric crescendos of ‘Lorely’, ‘Oma’ and ‘All That Matters’ (all hits in different countries), the fact remains that whether in your living room, on the dancefloors of the world’s greatest parties, or simply in your headphones on your way home, Kölsch’s ‘1977’ has re-defined techno and become an achievement that speaks for itself. 

Words: Phil Dudman – Clubs & Live Music Editor, Mixmag


Hot Since 82

Yokshire based DJ & Producer.

@KneeDeepInSound

Management: Jamesd@anglomanagement.co.uk
Bookings: SHogan@wmeentertainment.com
North, Central and South America:
andrew@liaisonartists.com
mariesa@liaisonartists.com

Follow us and you will get your weekly fix of The Boom Room! On-air, Saturday's 20-00 CET @ SLAM! radio.

SLAM! was born in 2005. Ever since that joyful moment it’s always been our goal to lead not to follow. This is exactly what SLAM! does with The Boom Room, 4 hours primetime Techno, Melodic, Afro and all other genres we like to call quality housemusic.

The Boom Room selects the finest new releases from the makes of, Joris Voorn, Eelke Klein, Adriatique, Robag Wruhme and Reinier Zonneveld just to name a few. Inviting musical pioneers and world class dj’s in our Boom Room is SLAM!'s saturdaynight business.

Play Music, Play Life.

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