One of the most charming DJs in the business. A musical ambassador and a veteran of acid house, a champion of techno, a dance music pioneer, label owner, King of Ibiza – you name it, Carl's been there and done it, never losing sight of his passions – playing music, breaking tunes.

Making music with my machines

Booking :(Live set Only)juliette@blbcagency.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


Disciples 
London based production trio
DISCIPLES FT JAZZI SIRIUS - PRAY - OUT NOW 

Management :
Phil Sales (phil@threesixzero.com)

Booking enquiries :
DSL@wmeentertainment.com

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Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/artist/5EehXjjMktLuJmbRsM7YfB?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open

DJ, producer and label head.
@musiconofficial 

Marco Carola is a global ambassador of techno. From Napoli in the south of Italy, Marco was instrumental in the development of the electronic scene in the early 90s, he took the flourishing techno Napolitano scene to the rest of the world. Over twenty years later and Marco is still one of the most respected artists amongst the techno scene, widely regarded as one of the key factors in driving the genre towards worldwide recognition within electronic music.
 
As a revered producer and successful label head, Marco has spearheaded imprints such as Design Music, Zenit, Question, One Thousands and Do.Mi.No whilst releasing music on a selection of the words finest labels such as Minus, Plus 8 2M and Primate Recordings. In addition to five critically acclaimed albums, including his most recent Play It Loud, Marco has also been responsible for a clutch of seminal mix compilations. In 2006, his mix for legendary London club Fabric’s series was a lesson in sleek, future-facing minimalism. That was followed up by well received compilations for Time Warp in 2009. In 2010 Cocoon label boss Sven Väth asked him to mix the Frankfurt based label’s Party Animals CD alongside Nick Curly, which took Carola's dj taste and skills to new heights.
 
Famed for his energetic and impressive three-deck style of mixing and long journey set, Marco has remained one of the most in demand DJs on the planet throughout the last two decades. Favoring mammoth eight hour plus sets, Marco is predisposed to a subtle working of the crowd that has made him a favorite among fans from Ibiza to New York, South America and beyond.

DJ, Grammy-nominated producer and label owner Mark Knight is one of the most celebrated electronic artists of his generation with an impressive 200 Million + global streams to his name. His career has spanned close to two decades, with releases on a diverse range of world-leading labels such as Sony, Warner & Ministry of Sound, through to cool independents such as Cooking Vinyl, BBE, Elrow and of course Toolroom.   

Armed with a musical library that knows no boundaries and a consistent run of chart-topping hits, the success of Mark Knight’s recording career is matched only by the credibility and integrity maintained throughout his discography to date. Anthems such as ‘Man With The Red Face,’ ‘Alright’ & ‘Downpipe’ and working closely alongside bands such as Faithless, Underworld & Florence & The Machine have sealed a diverse musical heritage for the accomplished producer.   

Aside from his industry-leading production work on the underground dance scene he has also written and produced music for a range of global superstars including Calvin Harris, Black Eyed Peas, Dido, David Guetta, J Lo, Flo Rider, Icona Pop and more.  Mark Knight also continues to grow across international radio with Toolroom Radio now reaching over 15 million people in 60 countries across the world each and every week.

Worldwide Booking Manager : 
hello@goodlifemgmt.net

Italy exclusive

Juri@toolong.it



With music in his blood and rhythm in his soul, Raffaele Calza, aka Raffa FL, has a lot to provide for purveyors of fine electronic music. 

After spending his youth learning to understand and perform music, a natural progression to DJ’ing came at the tender age of just 14.

In the past few Years Raffa has released on Label like Toolroom Records, Lost Records, Roush, Definition:Music, OFF Recordings, Material which has helped him to get his name all around the Worldwide House Music Scene.

Raffa’s tracks have been played all over the world, from Mexico’s BPM festival and to the Rebel Rave in Peru and Sankeys Ibiza and They have gained support from many different and well respected DJ’s, including Droog, Russ Yallop, Sidney Charles, Matthias Tanzmann, Hector Couto, Cuartero and many more. 

As well as his tracks, Raffa the man himself has also been touring the globe like Uk, Russia, BPM Mexico, WMC Miami, Denmark, Spain, as well as regularly playing gigs in various, well respected clubs in Italy. 

As well as all of his performances, Raffa FL also has more production releases planned for this year on label such as LEFTWING & KODY’s Lost Records, Hector Couto’s Roush, Avotre's Santè and Sidney Charles, Cuartero’s Sanity Records, Mark Knight’s Toolroom Records just to name a few.

All of this shows that Raffa FL is the man for continually pushing to produce and perform quality house music, designed for lovers of the sound.

Multi-Genre DJ📀
Make sure you follow to hear new mixes ✅

Bookings: 

UK / International - Javier@analog-a.com
North / South America - aysh@thebullittagency.com

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Hot Creations / Solid Grooves / Relief Records / Emerald City / Wow! Recordings
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Latmun, the moniker of Joe Bradley is making his mark through a unique interpretation of the electronic music landscape. Both his DJ sets & own productions have a coherent energy, infectious grooves being the key component for crowds to be captivated worldwide.

Being a staple on the worldwide circuit since 2016, Latmun has shown his sound is diverse and adaptive, with regular appearances in world acclaimed venues such as Amnesia, DC10, Hi, Manchesters Warehouse Project and Printworks London. His sound has been experienced at staple parties such as Music On, Paradise, EDC, The BPM Festival.. and the list goes on!

Aside of the DJ sets, Latmun’s music has reached many fans worldwide resulting in multiple Beatport number ones and ending up in the record bags of artists such as Jamie Jones, Marco, Carola, Paco Osuna, Micheal Bibi and many others.

Latmun is an all round lover of music, the rest can be denoted by virtue of listening and experiencing what he brings for yourself, on a dance-floor near you!

lib grace is following