mail: artbatmusic@gmail.com

label: Upperground

ʙᴇʟɪᴇᴠᴇ ɪɴ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ

Label: Arcane

All enquiries: Night Department

Bookings worldwide:
marco@futurism.agency
Management:
management@adriatique.ch

https://www.encodetalent.com/kevin-de-vries

In the ever-evolving electronic music landscape, Kevin de Vries stands out as a luminary, crafting melodic techno masterpieces that echo through clubs and festivals worldwide. With a unique talent for melding musical intricacies, he has carved out a prominent place in the industry.

Kevin utilises the mesmerising and often transcendent potency of loops to captivate the dance floor. His close affiliation with Afterlife, where he has been a core artist since 2018, has provided a key platform to showcase his creative talent. Since his first release, Kevin has been part of the brand’s story, one which has unfolded to encompass a vast global community and a progressive ethos based on connection. Cuts such as ‘Dance With Me’ and ‘Metro’ have showcased his production abilities and distinctive style.

Kevin’s relationship with the label and event series also inspired the progression of his musical approach. The connection to his audience is the driving force behind his constant evolution. On stage, Kevin is a natural performer, matching the vibrancy of his music with his stage presence. Whether at larger scale productions, or more intimate settings, his aim is to form a symbiotic relationship with the audience - a mutual energy exchange that inspires Kevin, and the dance floor simultaneously.

Elsewhere, Kevin has released with Drumcode, Experts Only and Cocoon. With each release, he injects emotionally charged energy, combined with mesmerising beats and rhythmic arrangements. 

His unique sound has been featured in some of the most notable clubs, including Brooklyn Mirage NYC, Space Miami, and Hï Ibiza, as well as at world renowned festivals like Coachella, EDC Las Vegas, Tomorrowland, Awakenings, and Time Warp.

Kevin’s vision for the future upholds his community focused ethos - to connect with as many people as possible through his music, to keep finding new ways to communicate his message and, ultimately, to stay true to himself.

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


Living & Breathing Dance Music. Find us at http://www.djmag.com

Grammy nominated Australian DOM DOLLA is experiencing a meteoric rise, his signature style of house music is connecting with global audiences, and he is recognised as one of the most exciting producers in electronic music.

Dom discovered house music when his Mother handed him a copy of Basement Jaxx’ 2001 album ‘Rooty". In his late teen’s Dom spent weekends hosting pub‑discos & djing at parties whilst working as a graphic‑designer during the week. In 2015 Dom was encouraged to quit his day job to pursue his obsession with music and production.

Dom emerged with a string of critically acclaimed club hits; Define, You, Be Randy, Take It, San Frandisco, Pump The Breaks, Moving Blind and Strangers ft. Mansionair. In 2022 Dom released ‘Miracle Maker’ ft. Clementine Douglas which was named BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record In The World, propelling Dom into his global break‑out moment with a run of hit singles, Rhyme Dust w/ MK, Eat Your Man w/ Nelly Furtado, Saving Up, girl$, CAVE w/ Tove Lo and Dreamin ft. Daya, which saw Dom’s catalog surpass 1 BILLION streams, receiving a GRAMMY nomination for his remix of ‘New Gold’ by Gorillaz feat. Tame Impala & Bootie Brown, and ARIA award for best ‘Electronic Dance Release’.

Dom’s dedication & craft has been recognised by Rolling Stone named ‘Best New Artist’, GQ’s ‘Solo Artist of the Year’, labeled Billboard Dance’s ‘One To Watch’, awarded Dancing Astronaut’s ‘Artist Of The Year’’ and was celebrated on the cover of DJ Mag.

Everything you're looking for: ffm.bio/cloonee

Label: @hellbentrecords

N&S America john@analog-a.com
Australia jacob@thickasthieves.com.au
Europe & Rest chris@stilvortalent.de
Management dennis@township-rebellion.com

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