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Armed with diligence, musical prowess, and a progressive vision, KOAN Sound portray the future of electronic music. With 15 years and a bulk of releases under their belt, KOAN Sound’s capacity to move the needle in electronic music is stronger than ever.

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


Wilkinson is one of the UK’s most beloved and successful electronic artists. Hailing from South-West London, his first insight into making music came aged 9 when his parents bought him a drum kit. After performing in bands across the UK from the Birmingham NEC to the local old people’s home; everything changed at 14 when
he discovered his passion for dance music. In his final year at college he bought his first production equipment, turned his bed-room into a studio and started a journey that would take him around the world.


After cutting his teeth on legendary drum & bass labels Ram Records & Hospital, Wilkinson would release a run of hit singles like 'Tonight', 'Take You Higher’ and 'Too Close' which cemented hum as one of the most exciting new producers within UK dance music. He had early chart success in the UK Top 40 with his singles 'Half Light',
‘Dirty Love’ and ‘Hopelessly Coping’. Everything changed with the release of his iconic 2013 record ‘Afterglow’, which became a top 5 hit in the UK, sold over 3 million copies, racked up over 500 million streams and became certified triple Platinum in the UK.


To date Wilkinson has sold a mighty 6 million singles and garnered over one BILLION online streams! He’s released three extremely successful solo albums, ‘Lazers Not Included’, ‘Hypnotic’ and ‘Cognition’. The latter released on his own label Sleepless Music became the most successful drum & bass album for over a decade,
charting at #1 on the OCC Official Dance Chart and at #3 in New Zealand’s album charts. The record included two Top 40 hit singles ‘Here For You’ with Becky Hill and the BBC Radio 1 A-List playlisted ‘Used To This’ with Issey Cross.


As well as solo he has amassed a hugely successful discography of hits, including a 2020 collaborative album with fellow Drum & Bass titan Sub Focus, remixes and collaborations with the likes of Rag N Bone Man, The Prodigy, Ed Sheeran, Chase & Status, Wretch 32, Naughty Boy, Laura Mvula and Becky Hill. 


He’s won ‘Best Single’, ‘Best Album’, ‘Best Video’, ‘Best Producer’ and ‘Best Live Act' at the National Drum & Bass Awards, not
to mention the VEVO Viewers Award at the MVA’s. Remarkably he’s also been playlisted by BBC Radio 1 17 times!


On top of his insane release history, Wilkinson has also built a hugely successful live career by consistently touring around the world over the past decade. He’s sold out a remarkable three headline shows at the iconic Brixton Academy, played headlining sets at some of the world’s premiere festivals including Glastonbury, BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend, Reading & Leeds, Creamfields, Snowbombing, Pukkelpop, Sziget, Rhythm & Vines and EDC Las Vegas among many others, held down multiple Ibiza residencies at Amnesia and toured around the world from New York to New Zealand.


In the last year Wilkinson has gone from strength to strength, releasing a string of huge singles including ‘Shine On’ with American dance music superstar Kaskade, ‘Balance’ with newcomer North which spent 10 weeks on the BBC Radio 1 Playlist and official remixes for Calvin Harris, John Summit and KETTAMA. 


For 2025 he shows no signs of slowing down with his two shows at Outernet London selling out in an hour, his biggest NZ festival show ever to over 17,000 people, plus his biggest ever headline show at Alexandre Palace on Nov 8th!

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