A truly unique sound for the next generation of music lovers!
For more Deep & Sexy, check:

Born in the early 80's and raised on African beats (his roots),  Reggae, Funk, Pop /Rock, Hip Hop, House, Break Beats or Electro...

Phangan FM's Founder and Instructor/Producer at Koh Phangan Academix Dj School (since 2013). An uncompromising follower of the DIY (do it yourself).
Constantly digging for new music, while shaping his own and mixing into various genres dj sets...

He was just 15 when he discovered the Electronic scene alongside Jeff Mills, Laurent Garnier, Nathan Fake, Oxia and more...
Cruising "his way" between underground and mainstream, without worrying about the purists.

Meanwhile Leon gives you a flavor of his project through its "We Play" podcasts series.

e.Mail: leon.phangan@gmail.com

Clubbing was in its infancy when Berlin-born Monika Kruse began her first residency at the Babalu bar in Munich, where she grew up. Classically trained in piano from the age of four, Monika has always had a love of music and her early sets spanned hip hop, funk, soul and early deep and vocal house. This new breed of electronic music seized Monika’s soul and imagination. Dance music was in its infancy and since there were few clubs where you could play techno she threw her own parties in illegal venues ranging from World War II bunkers to trams to empty houses. Fortunately the police were a little behind the musical curve… “I had some funny experiences,” she recalls, “But nice ones! They stopped us once in a tram because they thought the smoke machine was a fire!” On another occasion, they came and asked her to turn down the bass so the house they were playing in wouldn’t crumble. “Luckily, they didn’t have a clue about techno!” 
	
Monika Kruse's star is shining brighter than ever with a global fan-base hungry for her irresistible beats. In 2014 her club appearances included Space Ibiza with Carl Cox, Amnesia Ibiza with Marco Carola, We Love... at Space Ibiza, Sankeys Ibiza, Egg London and regular sets for her residency at Berghain Berlin.

She dazzled the festivals, too, playing events such as Time Warp, Melt Festival, 18 Hour Festival, Eastern Electrics UK, Ultra Music Festival in Miami and South America, Sonus Croatia, Awakenings ADE, and SEMF Stuttgart. She also hosted a stage at Amsterdam's Edit Festival, showcasing some of her favourite artists such as Pig & Dan, Nick Curly and Miss Kittin.
Classically trained in piano, Monika's love of music is broad and deep. She grew up buying records, accumulating a music collection that grew to span funk, soul, hip hop, and house music. When the revolutionary rhythms coming out of Chicago and Detroit captured her imagination it led her to throw parties in illegal venues including World War II bunkers, trams and empty houses.

Electronic music culture has evolved rapidly since those early days but Monika's talent and passion is constant. “My ethos is ‘sweat with a smile,’” she says. “I give love to my audience and they give it back. LOVE – it’s the best thing in the world. My aim is to help people forget whatever is going on in their life and have a little holiday – just get lost in my music.”
Monika is also an active producer. Her Terminal M label celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2015 and she chalked up hits this year with Pig & Dan collaboration 'Soulstice', a Beatport Top 10 techno anthem. The fantastic remix package of 'Summer Drops' was also a Beatport chart favourite, featuring Monika's track reworked by Nicole Moudaber, Uner, and Mendo. With just two releases Monika was one of Beatport's Top 100 techno artists for 2014. Look out for the special re-release of the album Monika Kruse @ Voodooamt 'Passengers' in celebration of Terminal M's 15th birthday.

Monika’s passion for spreading the love extends beyond the dancefloor, too. In 2000 she founded a charity called No Historical Backspin to fight racism and homophobia. “It’s sad and ridiculous that people still get beat up, or in some countries even killed, for being gay. Or get treated badly because of their skin colour, or gender, or because they’re a refugee” she says. “But it happens. Sharing and caring is the only way to make the world a safe place for everyone. It is important for DJs to show they respect everyone.” She is currently organising a No Historical Backspin party at Berghain. Funds raised will go to Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, which supports victims of hate-crimes and campaigns against right-wing extremism.
Her charity work, like her DJing and production, is an expression of Monika’s faith in the transforming power of music. “It was my first love,” she says. “Music was my best friend. It never let me down. In good times music was there and in bad times music was there.”

Bookings : ian@safehousemanagement.com

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


👉 My New Single 'Phantasy' ft. Raphaella - https://goldenpathrecs.lnk.to/phantasy

👉 Latest Releases and Remixes
https://claptone.komi.io

In a now long forgotten world, many generations ago, a bird like shape emerged from wooded darkness, floating and fluttering, drifting and dreaming. Backlit by a bright glow of iridescent light, the undecipherable form wore a dazzling golden mask. Its long beak swooped down like an inverted horn and since then, people have referred to the mythical being simply as Claptone...

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexcruzmusic
Bookings: bookings@alexcruz.eu
Press: press@alexcruz.eu
Tour Dates: https://bit.ly/2ttWAyi

donrob is following