Teichmann – Sophisticated Sets. A journey through groovy Powerhouse, hypnotic Tech-House, and dynamic Nighttime Techno. A Lake Full of Sound.

Kularis is the stage name of the german music producer Alex Golz. After starting DJing in 1998 it was a matter of course that he had to start his own productions. Three albums, many digital-EPs and tons of single releases show his musical idea of progressive trance to the people.
Fresh ideas jump out of his mind and start to let the crowd dance.
Try to catch him on one of his next gigs around the globe, like in Brazil, Germany, England, Italy, Portugal, France, Swiss, Mexico, etc.......

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


Not many artists are lucky enough to release a track that defies genre classification and reaches into mainstream culture, with people enthusiastically embracing its melody and adopting it as if it were a football anthem.
His track “Rave” has become an instant classic, a timeless piece of music gaining more than 100 million streams (becoming the most clicked Techno track ever).
Since 1996, a landmark year for him thanks to the worldwide success of his track “Zoe” produced as Paganini Traxx, Sam Paganini’s stylistic experimentations have gone from strength to strength, leading him to collaborate and release his music on several record labels like Plus8, Cocoon Recordings and Drumcode, reaching the highest spots on Beatport’s Techno Chart several times. His unique musical journey has achieved great success both on the underground circuit as well as on the mainstream channels.
In 2016 Sam founded his own record label JAM as a new platform to play out his vision of techno music. At first an outlet for his own productions releasing 3 albums and nowadays also a platform to discover new talented Artists.
Beside his studio work and production time, Sam’s DJ appearances are among the most requested by promoters worldwide: his sets are characterized by powerful grooves and have been described as “Sexy Groovy Dark Techno”, which speaks volumes, literally, on what to expect from his performances.
He has taken the stage at legendary clubs such as Berghain (Berlin), Output and Cielo (New York), Rex (Paris), Fabric (London), Crobar (Buenos Aires), Exchange (Los Angeles), Fuse (Bruxelles), Stereo (Montreal), Pacha (Barcelona), Fabrik (Madrid), Amnesia (Ibiza), Privilege (Ibiza) and Cocoricò (Riccione) just to name a few, and at Festivals like Awakenings (Netherlands), Nature One (Germany), Mayday (Germany), Tomorrowland (Belgium), Sziget (Hungary), Sonus (Pag Island), Time Warp (Germany), Ultra (USA). KAPPA Future Festival (Italy), Dour Festival (Belgium) and Monegros (Spain).

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