OFFICIAL BIO
Regarded upon his 2006 arrival as a promising beatmaker looming in the shadows of J Dilla, Madlib, waterfalls and Dabrye, Steven Ellison -- known as Flying Lotus -- nullified all comparisons only two years later with Los Angeles. On that album, his first of five for the Warp label, Ellison distilled a uniquely crisp, spasmodic, and heady sound with elements of hip-hop, avant-garde jazz, IDM, and dubstep. While the abovementioned producers fueled Ellison, he had also been excited as a youngster by the '90s West Coast rap classics that combined programming and live instrumentation. His sound continued to develop as he put his own twist on the approach, recording with a crop of jazz musicians including the indispensable likes of bassist Thundercat and strings master Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. This process began with the turbulent 2010 set Cosmogramma and peaked in terms of acclaim in 2014 with You're Dead!, which crashed the Top 20 of the Billboard 200 and spawned the Kendrick Lamar collaboration "Never Catch Me," a Grammy nominee for Best Dance Recording. Ellison devoted a few years to various forms of film work and the operation of his revered Brainfeeder label, and returned in 2019 with Flamagra, his second consecutive album to top Billboard's Dance/Electronic chart.

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Rat Rios
Songwriter/Singer/Producer
Synthpop/New Wave/Electronic/80s

NOSTALGIC TUNES THAT TUG AT HEART STRINGS

🌀 Video game flavoured electronic music, with extra cheese 🌀

🍕 VIDEO GAME COMPOSER
☎️ MUSIC PRODUCER

DREAM SELECT - THE NEW ALBUM
https://ffm.to/dreamselectalbum

DISCORD
https://discord.gg/rTfCPkcdMk

I make music, i love games. For compostion, remixes, or collabs then call the hotline: pizzahotline247 
[at] gmail [dot] 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


Rune RK Biography

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past decade, you are certain to have heard the infectious saxophone-loop from Rune RK's hit track 'Calabria'. The original had it's first plays in the local clubs of Ibiza and before long the vocal edit, featuring Natasja, burst onto worldwide day-time radio. Over the years 'Calabria' has racked-up over 50 million views on YouTube and continues to be supported by the dance music elite.

After a busy start of the year touring with the likes of Nervo, Steve Angello, Tiesto and Hardwell, Rune RK is all set for an even busier summer, playing festivals all over the world. Rune's collaboration with Steve Aoki and remix of Kaskade has set the mood for his upcoming singles 'Burning Boombox' (which cleverly samples the Nightcrawlers vocal) and 'One Perfect Day,' which is his collaboration with Nervo and to be released on Spinnin Records.

As an artist who has been surrounded by creativity from the moment he was born, Rune draws his inspiration from the people and environments around him.
"Some nights I wake up with a melody in my head and I just know that if I go back to sleep it will be gone in the morning. I start singing into my phone or jump on the computer in the middle of the night. My neighbours just think I'm crazy."

Being a jack-of-all-trades, Rune doesn't limit himself to one genre. He's been working under multiple monikers and is currently hitting techno dance floors all over the world with his Kölsch project signed to Kompakt Records, and is additionally hosting his own legendary Arti Farti label night. Rune's creative horizons expanded even further when he started a successful design company with his brother, the renowned Danish designer Johannes Torpe. (Vivienne Westwood is a fan)

Rune RK's determination to bring new ideas into the EDM scene led to the production of his award winning video "Teacup," which features Scandinavian models in masks and underwear smashing up crockery. US-based website Dancing Astronaut commented on Rune's off-beat ideas; "It's definitely a change from the bikini and beach themes that we see in so many videos." Pete Tong was instantly captured by 'Teacup,' airing it on his popular radio show on BBC Radio 1. "Rune RK plays in a big room with an underground mind" Pete stated during Copenhagen's Distortion festival where the two played together.

Rune RK maintains a very humble attitude towards his musical success: "The fact that people across the globe respond to my music and my DJ'ing is a daily mind-blower for me". 


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