We might not always show it but by God do we love techno here at WWD. It’s this time of year we get excited. The summer season has drawn to a close and the darkest days are descending, techno is coming and nothing signifies the resurgence of the club scene more so than the approach of the year’s first Techno festival, I Love Techno. Although the techno element may have dissipated slightly, it is still very much at the heart of an extremely strong line up that will descend upon Ghent on Saturday. We’ve been looking forward to this one for a while now and we’ve outlined our picks for the night in question below.
Chris Liebing
This year’s addition includes some techno giants and first on our list is CLR chief Chris Liebing. This man is a stalwart of the techno game and is bound to put on a serious show. When this man takes to the stage, prepare to stomp those feet because he spins techno to send those steppers into overdrive. Driving basslines on dark atmospheric beats and the use of plenty of effects will have you singing the praises of Liebing. Not to be missed!
Len Faki
You’ll be staying put for Liebing following the set from Len Faki, that is of course if your eardrums haven’t burst, because here with Faki you’ll probably also lose your mind. The Berlin native certainly knows his stuff and this isn’t one for the lighthearted! He will ooze out every last drop of energy you have and drive you into the ground with his heavy hitting style. You’ll all have heard his ‘Podium Mix’ of Dustin Zahn – Stranger To Stability at one stage or another but check a more recent production, BX 3, it does jobs!
Kolsch
Nobody can deny the production skills of Rune Reilly Kølsch. He’s produced under a number of monikers and he’ll take our favourite one with him to I Love Techno this weekend. There is an impressive back catalogue of tracks with the name Kolsch preceeding the title and the crowd are sure to be impressed by his set on Saturday. His productions centre on melodies and they really are crowd pleasers. Nobody can deny the appeal of Der Alte (which will no doubt turn out to be a timeless classic) and with that featuring on his new album packed full of variety(1977) , i’m sure the Dane will have plenty of his own content and with Rune being a techno man at heart he’s likely got some darker spices at the ready!
There’s also lots of Deep, Electro and Tech House to be had. Our selection includes:
Bodhi
We’ve first hand experience of powers of Bodhi. The Cardiff boys rocked an early summer show in Dublin at Bruce Willis (coincidentally they made their return to the Lost Society this week) . Many of you will know them for their delicious ‘Good Vibrations’ Remix but they’re much more than that and this last few months they’ve proved themselves with impressive releases on Sinden’s Grizzly label and more recently Future Classic. Their lastest EP Imperfection/No More is a real aural pleasure, hugely catchy, upbeat dance. For a unique House experience we recommend adding them to your I Love Techno itinerary.
Booka Shade
German duo Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier, better known to you and I as Booka Shade are House & Tech champions. They’ve been impressing ceaselessly for the years. Their most recent release ‘Love Inc’ when down a storm one month ago and after the album Eve dropped on 1st Nov we’re sure we’re in for a real treat. With the prospect of catching some more new material, we’d wholly advise checking the guys out!