This is Dada Land. Get ready to arrive beautiful and leave ugly. There are no rules, but the rules of Dada. Don't look back in the past. Always go forward. And whatever you do: don't trust us.

As a producer, musician, DJ and serial collaborator, Chris Schwarzwälders distinctive style of deep, restrained house is hard to pin down, but you’ll always know it’s him when you hear it. 

Born in Frankfurt am Main in the 80s, he started playing hiphop in the 90s. While making beats on his MPC2000, he dropped into Offenbach’s Robert Johnson club and fell in love with techno. 

In 2009, Chris moved to Berlin and started DJing at KaterHolzig, where he found a group of people who thought about music in the same way he did. In contrast to the trends of the late 00s, the sounds being made from this little paradise on Berlin’s river Spree were slower, softer, and more soulful than a lot of what was being played in clubs at the time. 

It was here that Chris began to cement his reputation as both a solo producer and collaborator, who was capable of bringing his trademark sounds to a whole number of side-projects - many of which have gone on to play to crowds around the globe. He joined the Feathered Sun collective in 2013, together with a group of friends including Acid Pauli, Nu, Jo.Ke and Raz O’Hara. Dreamy, groovy and often improvised, the collective represented a special kind of musical freedom in which a group of producers came together to create something new in a singular, live moment. 

At the same time, Chris’ friend Mira was making moves of her own, and they started to play back-to-back sets, soundtracking the legendary Monday mornings of KaterHolzig, and now, Kater Blau. The two, who are both residents at Kater Blau, have now been playing together internationally for almost a decade, and have formed a common musical understanding that translates throughout every one of their sets - deep, clubby and melancholic. This partnership has also carried on into the studio, where they have collaborated on numerous hits. 

His most light-hearted side comes out in collaboration with Iannis Ritter, where the two musicians take on a weirder, more melodic & electro approach than Chris’ other proejcts. 

If you were to ask him, Chris would describe himself as reserved, logical, rational, melancholic and humorous. Which is why you’d never hear him telling you about the hundreds of nightclubs and festivals he’s played around the globe, or the number of hits he’s had with his productions. If you’re lucky though, Chris might tell you about his favourite synthesizers, and get lost in a conversation all about electronics and sound. Which is exactly where Chris wants to be - lost in electronics and sound.

David Dorad's Upcoming Gigs
Sat 10 Apr, 21 
Refshaleøen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Fri 20 Aug, 21 
Slakhuset, Stockholm, Sweden

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Every scene has its hypes that come and go; hypes that rise to a euphoric zenith, only to fall once they reach a state of supersaturation. The perfect substrate for this is the esoterically charged club culture of Techno-Mekka-Berlin which threatens to blow at any moment. However, every climax refers to a golden mean. We may not always recognise this constant at first sight, but it is undeniably the basis for everything that Berlin ever brought forth.
David Dorad is part of this basis. He is one of the characters that have kept the scene very much alive in the past decades. Born and raised in Halle, he came to the capital city after the reunification as a squatter in 1994 and began DJing. After having foraged through all facets of contemporary music with youthful zest, he commenced to play his first gigs. In 2004 he founded the party collective „Bachstelzen“ with friends. The great attention to detail and homely atmosphere of their events extended their name well beyond the city limits. For some years now, they have been a constant at the Fusion Festival, too. And wherever the Bachstelzen showed up, the Bar25 was never far behind. At first David Dorad
was a guest here, then a DJ and soon a valued friend. Ultimately the in-house booking agency of Bar25 (nowadays known as SASOMObookings) offered him a home base. By now he plays every weekend. And not just within German borders! He‘s well underway in expanding his international status. David is what we would call a charismatic thoroughbred DJ, far from being the business type. You won’t find any Twitter messages or pictures of his cat online. He is so very Berlin: down-to-earth and versatile. When he plays a set, his wish is for everyone to enjoy themselves, regardless of wether they‘re Hippy, Yuppie or Punk. Be it techno, deep or funky; he won‘t submit to any musical dictate within a given scene and prefers to take on the long afterhour shifts. These are most ideal for weaving a soft but vivid
soundscape whose colours are characterised by the season, the setting or the crowd. His harmonious sets are packed with honest energy and don‘t shy away from knocking forth a sassy electronic version of the Berliner tongue. Sometimes a bit cheeky or brash, but always meaning well. He determines this diction by aptly intertwining well-tried classics with new, carefully chosen records, weaving away, until the bigger picture reveals itself to his listeners. It‘s as if his magic hand commands the art of splitting synapses and rejoining them as desired. That would put him ahead of most brain surgeons! David doesn‘t bask in the past or in the future; he‘s a man of the moment. And this moment
he gladly lets drift.


Tour dates:
https://www.facebook.com/Kotelett.Zadak/app_123966167614127

Booking: heiko@kotelett.info

Where the two actually originate, nobody knows for sure. Rumors have it that they once had a common love for sprat fishing and point their fateful meeting to somewhere on the North German Coast.
If you believe the various rumors, Zadak lost his pants in a raid by the Department of Fish and Game, while Kotelett, due to an overdose of moonshine, lost his Boating License. Both lost their Fishing Licenses and, whoops!, there went their livelihood...
What was left for them to do but abscond to the interior, a bleary-eyed and shady escape to where no one knew them by name. "From now on ...." one of the two is said to have mumbled into his beard; which one is still not known. All in all it was a perfectly logical development, since the nights were rough anyway and the lamest things always ended up in the Net...if all catfish are gray.
And so, control rod was quickly exchanged with controller, stroke side with backspin, and fog horn with fog machine. What was formerly filleted, is now being filtered, what was being caught, is now pitched. Since then they have never again scrubbed the decks, but instead record from them.
Now, wherever they drop their anchor: there blows a strong bass-breeze, sound waves rise and no shot glass remains dry. Every Mermaid has exchanged her ingenue for a good pair of dance shoes and goes crazy from the unmistakable sound of the two self-acclaimed Club- Irish. Whosoever doesn't hold tight to the bar will be swept away like the sprats in the net.
Even after days-long sets and a potently boozy fee, a glance into the crowd of faces, tanned by the thick club air, reveals all: Kotelett and Zadak remain uncompromised and bring together that which belongs together - music and magic moments.
(The Department of Fish and Game would like to add: "We are simply happy to be rid of them.")

I've been a DJ for a while. I kind of like it.

Ninja Tune has established itself as one of the world’s leading independent record labels. Now a bonafide global music institution, synonymous with diverse, uncompromising releases and equally visionary artists—from breaking-through to GRAMMY-winning, internationally acclaimed acts—committed to pushing the boundaries of music.

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