No matter how grey it is outside, we’ve got something to really look forward to this weekend: one of our most favorite record labels on earth, Permanent Vacation, celebrate their 10th birthday this friday, 15/12/17 at BLITZ Music Club!  Tom Bioly and Benji Fröhlich, the heads behind Permanent Vacation, invited Bostro Pesopeo, John Talabot and Tuff City Kids a.k.a. Gerd Janson & Lauer to party with us! A birthday party you shouldn’t miss!

The BLIND TICKETS for NYE & NYD at Blitz are sold out now – a strictly limited amount of REGULAR TICKETS is available from now on via Resident Advisor & eventim. Keep your eyes open: line-up to be released very soon!

Sven Väth is quite simply unique. A legend in his own lifetime with a commitment and passion that has influenced the advance and evolution of electronic music. Clubs, record labels and careers have been launched. There are some people that are destined to emerge and change things. Change landscapes. Sven Väth is a risk taking visionary, an instigator, an innovator and very possibly invincible.

1981 and Frankfurt it started. Quickly the figurehead for a techno revolution in Germany that was to spread far and wide. Worldwide. Setting sail alone, this was 1981 and this was new. The Omen Club and so many other adventures punctuated this period, getting the sound out there . Vinyl then, vinyl now. Parties that mattered and changed things. Parties that reinforced a vision and eventually gave birth to Cocoon. An extraordinary residency in one of the best clubs in the world was unleashed in 1999. Cocoon Ibiza, Amnesia on a Monday night. Now 16 years of parties that have set new standards in production and have never compromised on what matters. The music. An incredible risk became, and still is, one of the great successes in modern music and clubbing. A phenomenon now attracting upwards of 80,000 visitors in a 4 month season with Sven Vath front and centre throughout. Along with Cocoon Ibiza Sven created a booking agency (now Flash Artist Booking – targeting the best and the brightest), an event agency (Cocoon Event – spreading the vision across 5 continents and now over 30 countries) and a record label (Cocoon Recordings – with a back catalogue stuffed with quality) that gets ever more important and keeps on growing. 2016 and that means an astonishing 35 years as a Dj and an equally astonishing 17th season of Cocoon Ibiza. The most charismatic DJ of his generation is more vital and relevant than ever. Utterly professional, utterly unpredictable. No one else like him. Not even close.

This friday, 08/12/17, Sven Väth will play at Blitz Music Club with Maurizio Schmitz, René Vaitl, Roland Appel & Leo Küchler presented by World League.

Benjamin Damage’s roots lie firmly within the UK’s underground. Drawing from early rave to jungle to nineties house, Benjamin’s non-purist approach to techno produces an energy and emotion rarely found in modern electronic music. Teaming up with fellow Welshman Doc Daneeka for the 2010 underground hit “Creeper” in 2010 caught the eye of Modeselektor, who quickly offered the project a home on their renowned label 50 Weapons. Working together in Berlin, the duo fused UK bass, techno, lush ambience and haunting vocals to create the critically acclaimed album ’They!Live”. This album solidified Damage as an innovative mind in electronic music, and saw him relocate to the techno obsessed German city in 2011. Through 50 Weapons, Damage releases teamed brutal indulgence with moments of atmospheric tension and tenderness, culminating in the release of his stunning debut solo album ‘Heliosphere’ in 2013. Hailed by critics as a return of soul and warmth to the cold industrial world of Berlin techno, ‘Heliosphere’ was hallmarked by a contrast very present in the artist himself.  It is this complexity and journey within Damage’s music which makes his powerful DJ sets a favourite in both his adopted home and abroad.

Our Resident DJ Skee Mask compiled a playlist with his favourite tracks for Resident Advisor. Have a listen here. This saturday, 09/12/17,  he will play alongside Benjamin Damage and Bambounou at Blitz Music Club!

Bambounou,  who was one of the two French elements of Berlin-based label 50 Weapons. At the age of only 24, 7 EPs and an album (“Orbiting” – 50 Weapons) behind him, Bambounou has quickly raised as one of the major acts of French and European’s house and techno scenes. His productions, widely inspired by the Chicago, Detroit and London scenes, have already proven his talent. We are looking forward to have Bambounou at Blitz Music Club this saturday, 09/12/17!

Our very dear friend and amazing artist Benjamin Röder installed 2 wonderful paintings at our BLITZ bar. Read more about his work a www.benjaminroeder.com.

We just found out that electronic music magazine Resident Advisor will not continue their annual polls. Read the corresponding press release below or directly on their site here.
Over the years we felt more and more critical about these polls. We feel there’s nothing really to be added  to RA’s statement. Full support and thank you RA for being open for change.

We’re no longer running the RA polls. Here’s why.

Since Resident Advisor began back in 2001, our mission has remained the same: to support local electronic music scenes and to connect the larger electronic music community. But outside of those core goals, plenty has changed. While remaining completely independent, we’ve grown from a site focused on the scene in Sydney, Australia, into an online magazine, events database and ticketing service with a global following. Today, the decisions we make can affect club culture and electronic music, a world we love and where we hope to be a force for good. It’s with that in mind that we’ve decided to stop running the RA polls.

When the polls started, they filled what we saw as a gap in coverage. Other magazines had been doing similar lists for years, from Mixmag to DJ Mag to Pitchfork, but none covered the music for which RA had become an advocate—the vast tier of electronic music dubbed “underground,” for lack of a better term, a global network of DJs, producers, clubs and labels that were doing amazing things, but that, whatever the size of their cult followings, had not achieved the kind of success that would land them in other lists.

RA held its first top DJs poll in 2006, with voting open only to the site’s contributors. The idea, simply, was to capture the highlights of that year. In 2008, we asked our readers to vote in these polls for the first time, which we’ve done each year since. More than ten years after that first RA poll, the aim has remained the same but the poll—and the scene around it—has changed immeasurably.

The underground, as Michaelangelo Matos put it, is massive. The world RA covers is more professional, more competitive and more lucrative. Over the years, this raised the stakes for the poll considerably. What began as a lighthearted way to praise our favourite artists and toast the year gone by had become something of more serious consequence: an industry index influencing many different parts of club culture, from event lineups to artist fees to the atmosphere of the scene in general (especially at this time of year). Over time, it became our most-read piece of content.

This added responsibility has caused us to reflect on the polls, and to consider whether they are still aligned with our mission and the best interests of the scene. After a great deal of what you might call “soul-searching”—or more specifically, discussion, both internally and with other members of the electronic music community—we decided they are not.

If our goal was to reflect the past year in electronic music, our 2016 DJ and Live Act polls were the culmination of a growing feeling: that the homogeneity of the results didn’t represent the diversity of the scene. Musically, they featured just a portion of the music we cover and that gets played in clubs. But that’s a comparatively trivial point. More pressingly, the DJ and Live Act lists were overwhelmingly dominated by men, mostly from the US and Europe. They didn’t represent the reality of electronic music in 2016, a scene in which countless incredibly talented women play to packed clubs each weekend. To continue running these features would be to diminish the vital contribution they make to electronic music.

It’s also important to remember that dance music is an art form born in queer communities, shaped by people of colour and populated by artists of all genders. But, simply put, this isn’t something you’d know by looking at the recent results of our polls. At best, the lists misrepresented the reality of the scene; at worst, they helped to reinforce some of its harmful power dynamics, which still favour white men above everyone else. This is reason enough to make a change.

On a more basic level, we decided that we don’t want to rank artists in this way. On reflection, to put artists in a list in descending order of perceived quality does a disservice to them, even the ones at the top, and creates an atmosphere of self-interested competition. For this reason, we’ll also be stopping the staff-voted, numerically-ordered polls—that is, top labels, top tracks, top albums and top mixes / compilations / podcasts.

We still believe there’s value in recognising artists who’ve done something remarkable each year, and will continue to do that on an annual basis, but in a much different format that does not aim to replace the polls. Over three features, we will highlight the artists and records from across the scene that we think made a significant contribution to electronic music this year. We’re grateful that you trust us to suggest who or what we think deserves recognition—we’d just now like our year-end coverage to do this in a way that feels healthy and forward-facing. Our coverage should always have a global outlook and draw from the perspectives and backgrounds of all members of our community, from the most famous DJs to weird new music being made in bedrooms.

Ultimately this decision is rooted in something we alluded to at the beginning of this piece. Our staff is made up of people who have dedicated their lives to electronic music. Beyond our roles within RA, we are DJs, producers, promoters and fans, people with dance floor memories that still give us goosebumps. This is a world we love and respect, and which we want to treat with love and respect. At this point in time, ending the polls feels like the best way to do that.

Thanks for reading.

Hailing from Munich, Glaskin (aka brothers Jonathan and Ferdinand Bockelmann) can be traced to the same fertile techno scene that gave rise to Skee Mask, Zenker Brothers and PYUR. They first appeared with a pivotal track on Scuba’s acclaimed Fabric 90 mix last year, and with a new release on Hotflush, they are certainly ones to watch. Listen to Glaskin for the second time at BLITZ this saturday, 24/11/17!

When visiting Fabric Club in London for he first time, Ruffhouse boss Sverre aka Top Shotta was asked politely not to wear a tracksuit when he came back next time. Rumours are that bouncers and club affiliates even took him for an “original UK street mobster”. So far the story, indicating everybody ought to know that these Ruffhouse guys are taking their business seriously: Pushing UK Bass forward. Packed parties in and around Munich, 3 stable compilations with support from internationally renowned producers and DJs. Now the first vinyl EP hits the streets, clubs and record stores. We are happy to welcome the Ruffhouse Munich crowd (Top Shotta, Tymotica, 600-Cell) on saturday 25/11/17 at Blitz!

https://soundcloud.com/ruffhouse-munich/sets/ruffhouse001-pastiche-122-eden-beach-street-lights-remixes-clips

It is not just the rising young talents who look up to Hawtin. Daniel Miller, founder of the seminal Mute label, referred to him as “a leader” and “a pioneer”, the New York Times called him “one of the electronic dance world’s intellectual forces,”. However, it’s plaudits from other areas that showcase the breadth of Hawtin’s appeal. Raf Simons, former Creative Director at Dior, says he listens “to Richie Hawtin’s music like others listen to classical music”, calling him “the Kraftwerk of today”. In 2013 Simons asked Hawtin to put on a special performance at the Guggenheim, New York’s iconic art museum, as the centre-piece for their annual fund- raiser. A special Plastikman show in November that year, constructed around an LED obelisk and with music specifically composed for the occasion, awed everyone present and pushed Hawtin through a six year creative block to complete his latest Plastikman album “EX”, the first full studio album in over a decade. “Going to the Guggenheim to make a site-specific work was one of the most incredible experiences,” he explains, “It put me put me back in the studio, inspired me to make new material and in five days I’d finished the new album. Music came out of me because of the opportunity to play in this beautiful architectural space renowned for art not music. It allowed me to step very far from dancefloor, gave me a huge amount of freedom back. Art and music, architecture and music, painting, sculpture – these mediums live together.” Find out more about Richie Hawtin in the documentary attached and see him behind BLITZs decks on friday, 24/11/17!

Inimitable electro duo Dopplereffekt are one of the most mysterious, thrilling and consistently challenging entities in electronic music. Originated by Gerald Donald, one-half of Drexciya and responsible for era-defining releases under a variety of enigmatic aliases, the current iteration of the group includes Donald and fellow explorer To-Nhan. Together, the pair’s razor-sharp production and a peerless capacity for transportive soundscapes are as likely to reference concepts embedded in physics and biology as they are capable of moving crowded dancefloors. Dopplereffekt inhabit a unique contemporary sonic world, with a restless creativity and intense commitment to carving out their own musical space. We are happy to announce that Dopplereffekt will play a live-set at Blitz on Saturday 02/12/17. Tickets on sale soon!