Joining us for our second edition of our Frixxxion podcast is Narr Radio resident, Esmé. For the last few years Esmé has been putting in the work and earning respect from peers on the local and national scene. 

When she's not playing out she's busy building a scene in Todmorden where she co-founded Vally Fever + ICONOCLAST; a grassroots queer festival  spread across multiple iconic venues and pubs.

Strap in for some gritty electro and techno bangers! 

We're back at The White Hotel on the 24th June with Hyperaktivist, Grace Dahl, Luke Daniels and Blasha & Allatt, so grab your ticket now if you fancy a dance :) 

https://ra.co/events/1532233

@esmetrax

FrixXxion 002: Esmé

This time @margasxoxo on the mic in a chat with @keepsakes about the industry, the New Zealand scene and his @havenakl label. James treated us with a slow industrial mix with some hip hop flavors.

The second hour belongs to a Berlin-based Macedonian producer @stojche and his vinyl mix full of fresh groovy and dirty techno classics.
Stojche has released a diverse catalogue of music ranging from detroit techno, dub to electro on labels such as 
@subwax-bcn-distribution , @freundderfamilie, @dogmatik-records, @groundedinhumanity. 

Love to both artists for their contribution.

Enjoy!

Szlag pres. Keepsakes & Stojche - Aaja Channel 2 - 31 08 22

@Banusound - TransSoundScapes LP

South-east Turkey born DJ, sound artist and producer Banu uses music as a political tool. For her, the strong message carried through sound is a vehicle to express emotions as well as a means of fighting against oppression. Using participation, social design, ecology, feminist and queer theory to create multimedia installations with sound as a main element, Banu‘s practice is closer to contemporary art and activist spaces than the club realm.

Banu‘s debut album TransSoundScapes is an exercise in female solidarity between her as a migrant woman and her sisters from the trans community, where an artist from one marginalised group is showing support towards her trans sisters, using her platform to help them amplify their voices and building a bridge towards a mutual understanding of femininity.

Conceptually, TransSoundScapes comes in continuation of Banu‘s previous research-based work, using music as a positive tool for change while working with various marginalised communities. The album originated from the very real experience of being confronted with verbal harassment in Berlin on a daily basis, particularly aimed at her transfeminine friends and companions. As a queer woman of Turkish and Kurdish origin, Banu did not only observe the verbal aggression directed at her friends, but also understood most of the insults shouted in languages such as Arabic. Seeing how she got significantly more verbal violence directed at them when in company of trans people made a lasting impression on her, so she wanted to try and use her relative privilege to amplify transfeminine voices through her music.

Coming from a very conservative family, making music has been her lifelong dream. It was the moment she had the opportunity to work with the iconic Arp 2600 synthesiser (a younger sibling to Eliane Radigue‘s infamous 2500 machine) that all her disparate interests came into place to create an empowering soundscape with the aid of analogue drum machines. TransSoundScapes has a very full, porous sound, where every element that comes into play sounds soft yet clear. Across the 7 tracks, Banu conjures pounding subterraneous bassy techno („Surgery“), slithering tentacular EBM („First Time“) and pulsating cavernous soundscapes („Harem“), where oversized dance-floor elements are woven with poetic spoken word passages, resulting in sensusous yet political anthems. Banu artfully merges loosely related genres such as techno, electro, dub and sound poems into a sound that is at once deeply personal and extremely compelling.

All of the tracks are collaborative efforts, Banu seeing the process as an exchange of care and shared experiences, while integrating research into her writing process. The lyrics in „Transition (part 1+2)‘‘ are an adaptation of Sara Ahmed’s “Living a Feminist Life”, while „Surgery“ was born out of series of interviews with trans people, channeling the metallic sounds of a surgery room to refer to society‘s perception of transness as a medical condition. Tracks like „First Time feat. Patricia“, „Harem feat. Prince Emrah“ or „We feat. Aérea Negrot“ document her encounters with various trans women, centering their life experiences while also developing a deep dialogue through the process of making music together.

The darkest and perhaps the most emblematic track is ‚‘Bianka (In Memory Of)‘‘, dedicated to the late Bianka Shigurova, a 22-year old Georgian actress found dead in her apartment. It was her Tbilisi photographer friend George Nebieridze who told her Bianka‘s tragic story, whose death is suspected to be an assasination due to transphobia. Banu chose one of Nebieridze‘s analogue photos of Bianka as the album‘s cover art.

TrasSoundScapes

BANU - TransSoundScapes LP

Catch Dona every 2nd Monday of the month, from 00h to 02h [CET] on rinse.fr

Rinse France Podcast

The Dj Plant Texture Sessions with Rodnevs and Aksed - 13 Octobre 2022

Fear of Programming

Reverse Dreams

Preorder now at Juno: https://bit.ly/3Foy9Ej

Berlin-based maverick Stefan Goldmann returns after the exquisite and sonically spatial delights of his Vector Rituals album with two more upbeat tracks that nod to techno but nevertheless steadfastly refuse to follow its stricter rules. 'In Aggregate' and flip track 'Carob' both throb and surge their way to the run out groove, eschewing the usual array of drum sounds to leave the rhythmic urgency down to other elements and turning the genre's on its head. Which is, let's face it, what he does best.

PREORDER

PREMIERE: Stefan Goldmann - In Aggregate [Macro]

@patricccio
@hereandthere_etc

“In this mix, I tried to find a nice middle ground between my old style and what I’ve been into lately. I’ve been moving away from four-on-the-floor rhythms and moving more towards broken patterns, but I wanted to throw in some bass infused, atmospheric and dreamy techno to tie it all together. Overall, the idea behind this mix was to go for a more clubby sound - energetic, percussive and hypnotic, but with some unexpected turns.”

hereandthere w/ patricccio

Star-Kid / Lenson / Ian Martin / 543ff @ LRC label launch 14.4.2023

Colapso De La Función De Onda

Aequor

Suns Enchantment

Downbeat - Fantasy trip - Part 2

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