Maksim Dark, a minimal-techno composer who started writing music at the age of 16. Within just a few years his music became widely visible after Richie Hawtin in late 2013, played a track called “Funny Jump” year after year. Read more
Myths abound in the north of Germany when it comes to techno ground zero, and they refuse to go away. Oliver Huntemann is one of a handful of children of the north who, for what seems like an eternity, add an element of credence to the mythology. He does not, of course, live in a snowy forest or at the edge of the polar oceans. The sun does, on occasion, shine down on Hamburg. Nevertheless, there is a tendency towards a hypothermic reduction in the rigorous efficiency of the Huntemann oeuvre. Images of cold storage warehouses, desolate heavy plant sites and bluish flesh are not entirely misplaced. Shards of German Engineering glimmer in his music, laced with persuasive logic, gruesome Darwinism. What remains: what works.
In “Brighter than the sun“, the English music theorist Kodwo Eshun depicts the birthplace of Kraftwerk, Dusseldorf, as the “Mississippi Delta of Techno“. Huntemann’s tracks may well have dragged themselves out of the same primaeval soup, but it was the far north which fired them with the necessary steel for clubland. The resulting creations are linear, free of fancy, charmingly direct. One particular London arbiter of taste sought to label the nature of his skeletal sound as “bare and stripped back to the metallic core“ – whereby Huntemann’s reduction does not end in thin minimalism, it draws attention to the core itself. Less is more to the max. The only luxury is a little dirt.
Whilst hordes of German producers and DJs set their satnavs for Berlin, Oliver Huntemann chose to head back home. His epicenter is, and will remain, the north. Hamburg, to be exact. This is where he produces his music and it is from here that he sets out into the world, thrilling the populous with his DJ sets.
Huntemann is also the owner of Senso Sounds, the label on which he released his Propaganda LP in 2017. The imprint is busy in the midst of releases two remix packages from the LP, the first of which came out November 30th (buy it here) and featured re-works from Alex Stein, Shall Ocin, Raxon, Carlo Ruetz, Hatzler, Marc Houle and Distale.
We catch up with the Hamburg producer, DJ and label owner to talk about his 2018 gigs, releases, weirdest food he has eaten and much more.
