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No.568 April 2017 £4.95

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cover_new.indd 1 17/03/2017 15:01 "$$!(#) *(+'**(,-!%# For long-serving queen , a return to the physical — in both the way she plays and makes music — has re- energised her immensely. She’s been playing gigs in record shops, buying and playing lots of vinyl, and made her new album, ‘Nost’, using mainly analogue equipment. Her ninth album is a real return to the dancefl oor — deliberately so. It was created in her long-term home, Berlin — from where she runs her label, BPitch Control — although she now spends the summer months living in Ibiza. ‘Nost’ — taken from the term ‘nostalgia’ — is the sound of a DJ/producer still at the top of her game, as much in love with old and new as she’s ever been. DJ Mag went to meet her in Berlin...

Words: BEN MURPHY Pics: LISA WASSMANN

listen to techno records all the time,” says Berlin different aspect and genre of what I play. I wanted to techno boss Ellen Allien. “Non-stop. I bring the make an album the way I play in clubs,” she says. disco into my home. I like the feeling of having Of the nine tracks on ‘Nost’, eight are designed for a beat around.” club use. ‘Electric Eye’ is built from wriggling bass, big For this DJ, producer, label owner and vocalist, synth stabs and rolling ride cymbals, while ‘Physical’ the party doesn’t stop when she closes her front is all distorted claps and sinuous arpeggios. ‘Stormy door. Electronic music is her way of life. Memories’, the album’s centrepiece, is a powerful shift DJ! Mag is in the centre of Berlin near where Ellen lives, from melancholy synth and electronics into four-four and close to the offi ces of her pioneering BPitch Control acid bliss — and back again. It’s got a classic acid house label, to talk to the dance maven about her latest fl urry feel, clearly infl uenced by the 1990s favourites Ellen’s of activity as a creator and DJ. recently returned to. Since 1992, Ellen has been a leading light of the German “I wanted to do one track of the music I really love, capital’s club scene. She’s released seven albums, electronic sounds which are danceable,” she says. “That nearly 40 singles, and played sets around the world in kind of music is my favourite. I wanted a very emotional practically every club worth caring about. In addition, beginning without beats, and the end had to be as her label BPitch has released classics by , beautiful as the beginning. In the middle, it had to be Sascha Funke, , Kiki and many more. dance music so I could play it. It’s romantic electronic While Ellen’s last album ‘LISm’ found her in full-on dance, I would say!” experimental mode, touching on neo-classical and Other tracks like ‘Jack My Ass’, by contrast, aim straight abstract, beatless electronics, her new, eighth record for the posterior. With its tough beat, acid bass and ‘Nost’ is a love letter to the dancefl oor and her life as bleeps — plus Ellen’s vocal samples — it’s made for a DJ. peak-time. “It’s a fun techno track, a groove bomb. It’s a body journey, communicating to the body with the On a rainy, cold afternoon at the end of winter, we bass,” Ellen says. wind through the muted yet culturally vibrant streets of Berlin-Mitte, and pass the imposing Fernsehturm "#"$%&'( television tower that’s come to signify the city. When Ellen eschewed software during the making of ‘Nost’, we meet Ellen in a hotel lobby, she’s an immediately instead favouring some newly installed analogue warm and charismatic presence. With her hair dyed equipment that made her create in a novel way. Rather blonde, dressed in cool, understated black hoodie and than being stuck in front of a computer, she could try sports gear, in conversation she has an intensity and out ideas, record the best bits and then turn them into seriousness occasionally broken by laughter or wry tracks with a living vitality. humour. ‘Nost’ has got her fi red up. As we discover, “I bought a Moog, it’s like a wall!” she marvels at the it represents a return to her techno roots and love synth’s hulking dimensions. “Everything came out of classic dance tracks. “Every track is a completely of this. It’s a completely different dynamic. In every

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Aérea Negrot ‘Arabxilla’ “I simply love Aérea Negrot and her style. When I had a listen to her debut album on BPitch for the first time, I was completely amazed. This album is so creative and abstract in its own way.”

Telefon Tel Aviv ‘Immolate Yourself’ “What a beautiful album, and so many memories around it. Good ones and very sad ones, when band member Charles Coupe died in January 2009. I will never have enough of listening to this masterpiece of .”

Dillon ‘This Silence Kills’ “Dillon’s debut was something new and special when it came out on my label. It perfectly shows the wide range and diversity of sound I’m trying to present with BPitch. I remember the first show I saw at Volksbühne in Berlin. Very emotional.”

Moderat ‘1’ “I have to say, their first album is still my favourite one. When they just came together as a band. Everything on this album still sounds very fresh and experimental.”

Ellen Allien ‘LISm’ “This album gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted to do in the studio. It’s a 45-minute journey through sounds and melodies, an experiment, a soundtrack… and it was so much fun to work on it!”

the number of shops in existence has dwindled significantly. “I was thinking, when I’ve done all the record stores, what will I do after?” she reflects. “I don’t know. We don’t have so many left. I was a little bit sad when I thought of it.”

Club gigs naturally remain Ellen’s primary stock in trade. She’s busier than ever, last year racking up 140 shows. One of her best shows recently was at the newly revived . “I had my best gig at Fabric, sensation she’d be unable to feel back home. “Many lyrics, and they were very beautiful and very strange. ever. Because the people that came flipped out. I times I go to the sea and I feel so free and happy,” she This opened my brain, everything changed after I thought, when it opened again, it could be tricky. tells DJ Mag. “I don’t need anything, not even an ice listened to this. It was minimalistic, mysterious but But there was extreme energy, I’ve never seen energy cream. I watch the sea and I feel complete, I swim in groovy, and full of effects. This was the music I felt at Fabric like that ever. It’s because the crowd were the sea, and I feel nature. I could live on the beach 100%.” celebrating. That’s great.” without anything. Nature for me is a very free spirit. After a spell in in 1989, when she heard With a residency at Circoloco at DC10 in Ibiza, Ellen It’s a different way of living and feeling.” for the first time at The Wag, she now spends half the year on the island — something In the end though, Berlin is where Ellen feels most returned to Berlin, and after meeting Dimitri she never thought she’d do. In the past, she was creatively energised. It’s the place she feels a Hegemann, founder of legendary Berlin club , unsure about dance culture there, but now she connection. “For the months that I am here, I want she got a residency there in 1992, as well as the clubs thoroughly enjoys the atmosphere of DC10, and also to create. The city gives me peace. It’s quiet on the E-Werk and The Bunker. Working in the record shop checking out other kinds of DJ sets she might not streets, you can pay for everything, you can eat Delirium and DJing on the city’s Kiss FM station, Ellen otherwise be exposed to. cheaply. Street life is amazing here and I’m only cultivated her own signature style. “For five years I’ve been playing in Ibiza, which has creative here. In Ibiza I can’t create, I’m completely A mix of German electronics and techno, UK acid been new for me,” she admits. “I never thought it isolated.” and IDM with an experimental tenor, Ellen’s tastes could be a place for me, ’cause I didn’t like the music manifested in the Braincandy label, and later in 1999, at all in the past. But at DC10 there are many cool !"#!$%&!'() BPitch Control. Into the early 2000s, Berlin became DJs playing. The energy when people arrive there, Ellen Fraatz (her real surname) was born in West an increasingly fertile environment for inspiring it’s crazy. It’s really good, because I’m out of Berlin. I Berlin and discovered electronic music as a teenager. electronic music, which allowed Ellen to experiment meet different people, and listen to many different DJ At a club disco, sandwiched between Michael with fusing different styles. “I had a period where I sets. It’s interesting to hear what they do. I analyse, Jackson and a hit from the Neue Deutsche Welle played new school electro, Warp stuff, very abstract, analyse, analyse. I want to see what they do, what is (German new wave), she heard a song that pricked like Kid 606. I started mixing up a lot of electro with the emotion? I love to work with different people, I up her ears and alerted her to the possibilities of old school techno. It was maybe 2001,” she recalls. like to be with different kinds of personalities.” synthesised sound. “An old track from Kraftwerk That same year she released her debut album She also loves the sense of freedom she gets from came on, ‘The Model’. I never heard this song in my ‘’, an impressive set of electro, techno and going to the beach and sitting in the sunshine, a life before. I danced, I moved. I could understand the synth manipulations. On her next few records, from djmag.com djmag.com 039 2003’s ‘Berlinette’, with its glitch-pop vocal cut-ups party,” she says. “Johanna played vinyl-only, and it and melodic sounds to 2005’s excellent ‘Thrills’, she was amazing. Technically and the way she performs, it pursued a singular course between underground was great. That’s maybe why I wanted to start playing !"#$%&'()$#*$*' credibility and accessible melody, while her DJ sets vinyl again — because I wanted all Bossmusik records ventured into more conceptual territory. on vinyl! Cassy, I like her when she plays house music +,'-..-, “In 2006 I became very abstract and did parties at with vocals. It’s not the music I would play, but the WMF [reputed, now-closed Berlin club]. De:bug had way she’s doing it is cool.” DJ T-1000 (Alan a residency there, one of the best magazines from Ellen mentions Margaret Dygas, , Steffi, Oldham) Berlin. There was electronic dance, house, mixed-up Andrea Parker and as other women DJs “I think Ellen is a stuff. I invited Andrea Parker to play. It was amazing she rates. She’s also effusive in her praise for some great artist, a great — a really good period for new music, something of electronic music’s greatest female mavericks. businesswoman, and fresh. A lot of stuff came from the UK, but also “What Laurie Anderson did with the voice was a true Berlin original. . Then I was going a little bit too far with the amazing. Björk influenced me a lot, playing with the As a techno producer, sound. A friend said to me, ‘If you go more abstract voice. It’s outstanding. She’s better live than on the ‘Landing XX’ made my Ellen, I don’t know if people will still listen to you’. records. You have to see her live. I cry when I listen top 10 of 2016. For When you start going into stuff like Autechre beat to her. Her voice carries so much emotion, her way me, I’m not going to structures, it’s all amazing stuff, or like Shackleton, of pronouncing the words. Kate Bush, her abstract try and pander for PC it’s amazing what he’s doing. But if it’s not danceable, dances. I adore Kyoka, she is from Japan but moved points by stating the it’s not so interesting any more, if you like to dance. to Berlin. She makes electronica on Raster-Noton, obvious, that she’s a top female DJ. Her non- So when I was going too far, I stopped it.” and I play some stuff in my sets ’cause it’s really stop schedule, infectious energy and global Before she did rein it in, one of Ellen’s best and most danceable.” reputation speaks for itself. I like and respect out-there projects was 2006’s ‘’, Ellen and her team a lot. It’s fun working with an album made in collaboration with . A Coming up, Ellen is bringing her We Are Not Alone them, and I’m super-happy to be a part of superb set of armchair techno, electro and IDM, it’s party to OffWeek in Barcelona (at the same time as BPitch Control.” among the best electronic records of that decade. Sonar), with Dasha Rush, Kobosil and Silvie Loto. The continued guiding principle is a love of DJing and Aérea Negrot Ellen Allien was one of the first women DJ/producers her passion for music. In all her different activities, “I admire how much to break through in the Berlin scene. When she it’s this passion that shines through. When she talks dedication she puts started out, though many women had revolutionised about a particularly good set at Movement festival in into her work... electronic music in the spheres of ambient, pop and Detroit, her eyes shine at the memory. being creative and experimental composition, there were few scene “I played an awesome set, but the music was not systematic at the same leaders in house and techno. Today it’s a considerably about how I mixed it, how perfect it was, more the time is a talent that different picture, with many women DJs, producers history, you know?” she says. “It was the right place very few have. Music and label owners making a mark. Still, the industry to do it. The dancefloor became more full as people is fun, but she takes it remains male-dominated. To highlight this fact, and understood there was something going on, that the seriously with a smile to big up her female contemporaries, she hosted a We DJ was expressing herself totally. With passion. It was on her face. Inspiring Are Not Alone night at last year’s Amsterdam Dance a celebration of the music, of the tracks I play.” many of us working with her, she knows how to Event (ADE), inviting some of her favourite women push your buttons to make you work harder.” DJs to play. • ‘Nost’ is out on 12th May on Bpitch Control. “We had Magda, Cassy, Johanna Schneider from PHON.O Bossmusik, and me, for a female We Are Not Alone “As a first-wave techno DJ and a legend, Ellen is really experienced and knows how to play out music from more than two decades in a very cool way. She also has a talent to connect people and to support them — two things I really like about her.”