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.

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


From early breakout hit "Phat Dope Shit" in 2002 to "Heavy Heart", a new collaboration with Skrillex and Fireboy DML, Dice has always been in the headlines. After his debut album "7 Dunham Place" on his own now long-running and well-regarded Desolat in 2008, came the major label follow-up "Underground Sound Suicide" on Ultra Music with guests like Giggs, Just Blaze, and Neneh Cherry, then the agenda-setting and club-focussed house and techno showcase that was "Love Letters" in 2018. 

Add in tens of EPs on Ovum, Minus, Cocoon, to name a few, and his remixes from everyone from Kevin Saunderson to Moby, Black Coffee to Disclosure, Warren G to Basement Jaxx, Loco Dice has always been at the beating heart of the electronic scene. 

His DJ sets, too, always brim with personality, whether in a small underground basement or on an iconic main stage at some of the world's top festivals like EDC Ultra, Tomorrowland and Coachella to name a few, playing to thousands. He has had era-defining residencies at iconic Ibiza super clubs like Circoloco at DC-10 and on the Amnesia Terrace as well at Space Miami. 

His lockdown move has been to unveil En Coleur, a label reserved exclusively for his own music produced at that time. SB Recordings followed. A new label open to all styles of dance music.

Since day one Loco Dice constantly pushes the boundaries of techno and house music production, from his appearance in 2004 PlayStation2 game "Decks & FX" to cooking up his own ideal fusions of hip hop and electronic music with his FKD side project or writing critically acclaimed runway soundtracks for Italian fashion designer Marcelo Burlon during Men’s Fashion Week in Milan for both FW20 and SS20.

Dice's distinctive fashion sense and strong visual aesthetic manifest in his collaborations with Amsterdam fashion label Daily Paper, pro sports hat purveyors New Era and in his own clothing brand Seran Bendecidos. 

All of this and his longevity prove that Loco Dice is undoubtedly an insatiable creative force most interested in the uncharted territory between genres and styles, the elements that link everything together.

Connecting club culture to the wider world, on screen and irl through parties, film and video.

There are few artists carving out a legacy for themselves like Dax J is right now. The British DJ and producer from London has gone from the backroom parties to headlining raves at every major techno institution the world over, all whilst staying true to the underground with an individual style all of his own. His technical skill, pure selection as a DJ and attention to high-end sound production has placed him at the forefront of a global scene, and established him as a singular presence within modern dance music. 

Recent accolades for his unswerving devotion to his sound have included places in the top 100 DJs polls published by Resident Advisor, DJ Mag and Groove Magazine. Over the years, he’s also received nominations as Best Techno DJ, Best Breakthrough DJ and Best British DJ from Mixmag, DJ Mag and the DJ Awards. He's renowned for playing mammoth closing sets at monumental parties including 10-hour marathons in the world’s most notorious techno clubs, Berghain and Bassiani.

Also known as a prolific producer and successful record label boss, his trademark sound remains in constant rotation among the most respected DJs in dance music, a style which was first fully recognised on his highly acclaimed 2015 album, "Shades of Black". Upon its initial release on his own Monnom Black label, Mixmag named it "Album of the Month", Hardwax described it as “brilliantly banging” and it also took the coveted No.1 spot on Juno Records. 2018 saw Dax release his multi-faceted second solo album “Offending Public Morality”. The record won support across the board, including that of BBC Radio 1 who picked it as their “Biggest Record of the Week”. By the end of 2018, “Offending Public Morality” also featured in the “Top 50 Albums of the Year” lists for DJ Mag, Tsugi and Apocalypse Mag. Two more events that crowned a year of great success were his enrolment into the BBC hall of fame with the release of his debut Radio 1 Essential Mix, and Be.At.TV’s choice of his 4-hour closing set at NeoPop Festival for their “Best DJ set of the year”

N&S America john@analog-a.com
Australia jacob@thickasthieves.com.au
Europe & Rest chris@stilvortalent.de
Management dennis@township-rebellion.com

Welcome to the Soundcloud profile of Varo Gavea. Here I publish mixtapes and livesets with the open Varo Gavea sound: flavours of house, disco and EDM in an energetic vibe. If you are more in the mood for deephouse and techno, please visit my mixcloud page via the link below for some stylish underground sounds. But for now: let's enjoy the music over here and thanks for any support!
Varo Gavea
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Contact and bookings:
varogavea@gmail.com
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