Electro

Looking to the future, Abd has a lot in the works. Having started a new party series, 3AFAK, co-curated with her friend Sanna, Bergsonist also has an LP landing soon on Optimo Music as well as an EP on Hypercolour. With plans to tour Europe again, she is also heading back to Morocco for the first time in four years, intending to make the most of the trip by working with local artists and capturing field recordings to use in her music.

Last track that blew your mind?
“Boy Harsher ‘LA (Original Mix)’”

Last film you watched?
“Planet Earth”

Last DJ that blew your mind?
“Optimo!”

Favourite album to relax to?
“Coil ‘Time Machine’”

Dallas, Texas is an unlikely nerve centre of electro music. The city’s small but tight knit cabal of producers and DJs have been releasing essential underground tracks since the mid ’90s to rival anything made in Detroit or The Hague and, despite indifference from the dance mainstream, several of Dallas’s biggest electro names have acquired world renown.

It’s fair to say that Oliva changed the face of her local scene, and she’s now making her mark around Europe. The Kraków native came up at a time when drum & bass was the predominant sound of the city, but years of her own hard work as a DJ and promoter mean it is now about so much more. Olivia first went to legendary local club Kanty with her older brother and “had to bribe bodyguards” and “sneak in through the fence”.

Speaking of the recent popular revival of the sound he and his contemporaries have been dedicated to for years, Bolland is elated by the waves of new artists and labels breakthrough through.

“Yeah the scene has had a nice lift over the last few years which I feel it really deserves,” he explains. “For me the hottest new acts I have been enjoying are Jensen Interceptor and Assembler Code, No Moon, Solid Blake, Volruptus and Animistic Beliefs as well as labels like Craigie Knowes, Private Persons and Mechatronica.”

Sync 24 and Cultivated Electronics show no signs of slowing. With a busy summer lined up with sets at for Brooklyn party Nails and Wax, Houghton festival, the label’s annual bash at Berlin’s Griessmuehle with the Mechatronica crew in October, and a big party lined up in London’s Village Underground, it’s remarkable to think that Bolland is also working on his first solo LP.

“So watch this space,” he says.