For bookings contact: timeforunderscore@gmail.com

Remixes and Management: jesse.voorn@gmail.com

The Online Dance Music Authority.
Dancing without prejudice since 2008.

More than 30 years in business, over 800 catalogue releases, over 8000 songs + remixes and still going strong!! Compost is one of the most prolific, highly acclaimed and in demand indie labels in Europe. Compost and its sublabels Compost Black Label, Compost Disco, Drumpoet Community, Derwin Recordings and rumpelmusig standing for quality music, a sophisticated mixture of electrifying disco, house, techno, soul, jazz and a little bit of pop. XLR8R wrote: "...top address where electronica meets musicality". Besides internationally respected artist like Robert Owens, Trüby Trio, Koop, Beanfield, Christian Prommer, Felix Laband, Karma, Ben Mono, Kyoto Jazz Massive, Marsmobil, Eddy Meets Yannah, Sepalot, Alif Tree, Shahrokh, Wigald Boning a.o. the label is also well known for its praised compilation series V.A. "Elaste" (Vol.1-4), "Future Sounds Of Jazz" (Vol.1-14), "Partykeller" (Vol.1-3) or "Glücklich" (Vol.1-5). Like Gilles Peterson once said: “With great pleasure I pronounce Compost the most consistent and forward thinking record label of continental Europe.“

Italian duo Neverdogs are two decades strong into their tenure within the global underground dance music scene. Renowned for their extended feel-good and uplifting sets, full of sensual tones, sultry atmospheres and upbeat House & Techno, Bamboleo Records frontmen Tommy Paone & Marco De Gregorio continue to set a precedent for cutting-edge avant-garde dance cuts.

With Tommy inspired by a mix of Punk, Electro, Experimental Rock, ‘70s/’80s + more, and Marco from the likes of Depeche Mode, Yazoo and ‘80s House, the Neverdogs blueprint draws influence from the likes of Larry Levan, Tony Humphries, Masters At Work, Satoshi Tomii, Deep Dish, Ralf, Ricky Montanari and Flavio Vecchi among others.

Rising to fame through a celebrated residency at Amnesia Ibiza with renowned Ibiza brand Music On from its beginning until 2011, Neverdogs continue to appear across the world’s best-known festivals, brands and club spaces. Some of their most recognised appearances have been Destino Ibiza, Studio 338 London, Pacha Ibiza and Fabric London - where they recently celebrated 20 years of Neverdogs with one of their increasingly popular Bamboleo showcases. When considering leading electronic imprints, Neverdogs have become almost inevitable.

Releases on the likes of elrow Music, Mindshake, Bamboleo, Tamango, Snatch!, Moan, Sanity, Blackflag, Deeperfect, Roush, Avotre and many more continue to cement their prominence through high-quality dancefloor-focused subterranean club records.

In 2019, Neverdogs released their ‘Details’ album on Bamboleo Records. The thirteen-track body of work goes way beyond the dancefloor, with Tommy and Marco describing it as “13 tracks that we think not only the people in the industry will enjoy, but also everyone in the music scene.” The album offers a kaleidoscopic journey into the profound and cultured depths of Neverdogs’ musical creativity, providing a variety of moods and soundscapes for every listening scenario conceivable.

Neverdogs’ music is a constant complement to performances of many of the industry’s most respected tastemakers, including Marco Carola, Yaya, Joseph Capriati, Jamie Jones, Dubfire, Apollonia, Paco Osuna, Loco Dice, Luciano, Guti, Cuartero, Kenny Dope, Davide Squillace, The Martinez Brothers, wAFF, Richie Ahmed, Oxia and many more.

Using Neverdogs’ sterling global reputation as a vessel, their Bamboleo Records brand also continues to attain an ever-growing fanbase. Through impressive releases from Reelow, Matteo Gatti, WLAD, Sebastian Ledher, , George Smeddles, Wax On Mare St. and many more, including Tommy & Marco themselves, and label showcases in major cities globally, Bamboleo is fast-becoming a celebration of cutting-edge underground House music and unforgettable
dancefloor memories.

As they look to the next decade of their journey, Tommy and Marco remain focused on elevating the Neverdogs and Bamboleo concepts to new heights, amassing an increasing global appeal and an ever-growing fanbase of unique underground music appreciators.

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


Booking Contact : elia@pulsatingforms.com
Licensing Contact : info@dirtcrew.net

Break 3000 (Runs Dirt Crew Recordings) has been a DJ and Producer since the early 90s. Releasing on labels like Nova Zembla (KK), Meuse Muzique, Pocketgame, Trapez, MBF, Lasergun, Mood Music and of course Dirt Crew Recordings. Most recently launched "Electron Feel" to revisit and re-release old goodies and New Music.

www.myfavoriterobotrecords.com
My Favorite Robot Records has been a strong force in underground electronic music since 2008.

The Toronto based label is an offshoot of the act “My Favorite Robot” formed earlier in 2002 by Jared Simms and Voytek Korab.

The label has managed to consistently release quality music by some of the electronic dance world’s most renown producers such as H.O.S.H, Kenny Glassgow, Jori Hulkkonen, Eric Volta, Sasse, Fairmont, Tiger Stripes, Tim paris, Chymera, Sid Le Rock, Tim Green, Clarian, and My Favorite Robot themselves just to name but a few and there is no slowing down for them!

runs UltraMagnetique / Philpot Records / Phil_e / Legit Edits
releases on Accidental jnr, 18347, Local Talk, Pampa, Perlon, Logistiic and many others over the last 20 years..

Workshops for production and mixing, online and one on one
available! Just send a PM if interested!
 
booking via daniel@best-works.com

manollo is following