for inquiries
Sean@Monochrome.co.il
@seandoron

J Balvin is the stage name of José Álvaro Osorio Balvín, from Medellín, Colombia. Balvin is a reggaeton singer whose polished urban singles and best-selling albums have made him a top-tier Latin pop artist. He became interested in music at a young age while listening to rap, champeta, bachata, and reggae on the radio. He was also a big fan of music videos; it was from these that he began to develop his dance moves and cultivate his own style.

He signed to EMI Colombia in 2009 and released his first single, "Ella Me Cautivó," which charted at 35 on the U.S. tropical chart. This was followed by the release of the full-length Real in 2010. Balvin contributed four tunes to the soundtrack of the Tim Bulot film El Negocio. All of them charted, including "En Lo Oscuro," which hit the top spot in his native country.

La FamiliaBalvin was a featured vocalist on the Colombian version of Robin Thicke's smash single "Blurred Lines," which was issued in October of 2013, just prior to his own second album, La Familia. All four singles from the album charted in Colombia's Top Ten, and "Yo Te Lo Dije" hit number two on the rhythm chart and number nine on the Latin pop chart in the U.S. The B Sides collection appeared in September of 2014, featuring two more radio chart-topping singles in "6 AM" and "Ay Vamos." The latter won a Latin Grammy for Best Urban Song. His 2015 single "Ginza," the offcial pre-release for his next album, entered the Hot Latin Songs chart at number one, topped several others, and was certified platinum.
EnergíaBalvin's collaborations were as notable as his own work that year. He and Julión Álvarez were featured on Juan Gabriel's single "La Frontera." His "Latino Remix" of Justin Bieber's smash "Sorry" scored big for both artists at Latin pop radio and in digital streaming and downloads. The following year, Balvin won the Premios Lo Nuestro Artist of the Year Award and was a featured guest on both Sofia Carson's charting debut single "Love Is the Name" and on Alejandro Sanz's "Cuando Seas Grande" -- from a performance at La Voz -- along with Gloria Trevi and Los Tigres del Norte. In May, he released the single "Bobo," produced by Pharrell Williams, who also appeared on the track along with Mosty and Bia. It topped the Latin songs chart. The full-length, Energia, was produced by Sky and featured additional contributions from Bull Nene, Daddy Yankee, Fuego, Yandel, and Juanes.

marettmusic@gmail.com
Melodic House & Techno 
Website: https://marettmusic.wixsite.com/shaydahan

KM074 is out now
https://ffm.to/km074

Keinemusik is a network with the label as the pulse pumping centre. Driven particularly by the spirit that moves the collective behind the imprint. The spirit to find your own agenda and let nobody get in the way. The spirit of refining House and Techno off the beaten path. Be it within their own tracks, within productions of other sorts or DJ-sets. The spirit of recall value within record- and flyer-artworks and everything intermediate in word and image surrounding releases and parties. And the spirit of diversification – Rampa’s effect-gadget-venture TEILE being one example. Keinemusik’s own booking department ‘Worldwide Dancing Club’, established in 2018, being another.

Keinemusik has been around since 2009. It has been naming an existing friendship and linked interests of the four members – &ME, Adam Port, Rampa and Reznik. A more or less constant count of five releases per year have been released ever since, solely laid down by members of the crew. And a considerable count of label-parties went down, not only in Berlin, but around all international focal points for electronic music. And surely, there’s plenty more where those came from. So see you soon in a record store or on a dancefloor in your area!

A globally respected and highly accomplished artist, founder of Mago Music, A gifted artist at the vanguard of the underground dance scene for over a decade, Magit Cacoon has seen exponential growth in her success and reputation as a globally renowned DJ and producer. As comfortable behind the decks as she is in the studio, Magit’s career trajectory has skyrocketed after successful periods in Tel Aviv and Berlin. Furthermore, over 150 production credits have made their way onto the likes of Ipso, Renaissance Records, Radikon, Second State and Crosstown Rebels plus a host of releases on her own Mago Music. 
Drawing high-profile attention through her music, a growing number of A-list producers have also featured, playing a role in a raft of successful releases and supported by a leading cast of DJ royalty that includes Solomun. It is also with English lead-singer and superstar engineer/producer, Steven Wilson – globally renowned for his award-winning solo work and as lead singer and guitarist for Porcupine Tree – that has seen Magit remix “King Ghost” on Wilson’s Grammy nominated 2021 album, “The Future Bites”, alongside Nile Rodgers, Tangerine Dream and Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro.2020 saw the launch of a new venture and the Mago Music label that has provided an opportunity for an eclectic mix of artists to join forces with Magit in a melting pot of musical ideas. The result has been an array of successful releases. A remix for the world-famous Renaissance Records saw a reworking of Argy’s “Power of Detachment” in late-2021, while 2022 saw no let-up in Magit’s relentless rise to the upper echelons of the underground dance scene. A collaboration with Speicher regular Kölsch, saw “Prison Grass” feature on the German techno legend’s IPSO label.A parallel career behind the decks has been met with equal success, not least through a nomination for “DJ Award for Best Breakthrough” artist in 2018 as the Israeli superstar continues to captivate world audiences with a cross-genre sound. As part of Solomun’s Diynamic crew, global DJ performances at premier nightclub events and festivals including the ‘Get Lost’, ‘Melt’ and ‘Fusion’ festivals’, ‘Day Zero’ and the world-famous ‘Tomorrowland’, have all been regular bookings for the Israeli star’s tour schedule. Furthermore, performances around the world for DC10 and the iconic Fabric, London have shone a spotlight on Magit’s charisma and vitality from within the DJ booth. A highly successful period in Berlin saw a 3-year stint hosting “Sweat Lodge Radio” with further standout performances across the city via mesmerising sets at Watergate Club, Panorama Bar, Kater Blau and the legendary Bar 25.A huge social media following and similarly sized talent continues to see Magit Cacoon at the top of promoters booking lists. Her ability to cast a spell over audiences with an array of bewitching sets on a musical journey of power and poise, confirms Magit’s inimitable talent. Post-pandemic, she has hit the ground running with a surfeit of gigs across the globe. Continued performances have seen successive sets in 2021 and 2022 for “Get Lost” in Miami and OFFSónar’s Barcelona events, while visits to Central and Southern America in late 2021 saw scintillating shows in Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Costa Rica, for Riot in Córdoba, Espacio Broadway in Santiago, and Renaissance in Tulum. Further regular spots at Fabric across 2021 and 2022 have cemented a growing reputation as June 2022 also saw an appearance for Renaissance Ibiza at the party island’s renowned Amnesia and the Extrema Outdoors Festival, Belgium. Success, passion and talent are recurring themes that are consistently part of Magit Cacoon’s rising career trajectory. With Mago Music continuing to deliver an array of club floor-fillers including her own indie dance cut, “Adoration” in December 2022, plus releases on KATERMUKKE, DGTL and Watergate Records, a packed schedule of gigs and festivals are set to follow in 2023. Showing no sign of a downturn in energy, drive and success, Magit continues to find her varied skill set very much in-demand.

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


Diynamic has constantly been an underground electronic music label on the rise. The motto: Do It Yourself. Founded in 2006 by Solomun and Adriano Trolio in Hamburg, nowadays undeniably amongst the hottest imprints worldwide: Diynamic Showcase events all around the globe, Diynamic Festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin and Brazil, two own weekly residencies on Ibiza including the infamous “Solomun +1” events at legendary night club Pacha and the Diynamic Outdoor event series as well as own stages at major music festivals everywhere. 

DEMOS:
We don't accept any music via Soundcloud or Facebook, but you can send a 320 kbits MP3 via email. Send promos to solomunpromo@diynamic.com and demos to solomundemo@diynamic.com. All submissions will be listened to and if we are interested, we will get back! Please allow some time though, because, as you can imagine, there are very many people sending in music.

Ben Gozlan is following