by Don Crispy

Ellen Allien

For a taste of the Berlin DJ’s upcoming set at WIRE, check out her new disc Thrills

“I’m viewed as the Berlin export” B Pitch Control

Cold War Berlin, an island of Western bohemianism in a sea of gray communism, created and continues to be known for a vital arts culture. Ellen Allien was in Berlin when the Wall fell in 1989, and it’s clear that being part of the city’s formative artistic community was key to forging her sound.

“I’m viewed as the Berlin export,” she boasts by email. “Me, my labelmates and other Berlin-based musicians defined the sound of Berlin. Of course we got a lot inspiration from outside, like in the early age of techno where we had this deep and strong connection to Detroit and its sound. But today we’re sitting at the knot of an international, especially European network, with our small Berlin networks part of bigger and bigger ones.”

Growing up in Berlin, Allien was exposed to soul and disco thanks to Allied occupation radio. She got her first taste of acid house while spending a year in London in 1988, and the dye of her future was cast in 1989 with her first DJ gig in Berlin’s Fischlabor, the city’s most important techno venue at the time.

But Germany wasn’t the only country to be influenced by Occupation radio. Japan also came under the spell of black American music; later, US and European electro-pop. Bands like Ryuichi Sakamoto’s seminal Yellow Magic Orchestra created the Japanese ele-pop imprint in the ’80s, leading to the ’90s dance explosion, out of which emerged Denki Groove, the techno-pop unit created by WIRE co-producer Takkyu Ishino.

The synchronicity between the musical cultures and high-tech environments of Japan and Germany is the background from which Ishino has forged links with many German dance music icons. His WIRE events are known as showcases of German artists, and Allien has been a familiar face in the five years since the event began.

“The Japanese treat music in a very respectful way, and they are so well-informed about it through the Internet,” she says. “I really like the Japanese mentality and the familiarity they have with each other, the carefulness and their great understanding for art.”

Allien stands out as one of a few influential women in the male bastion of dance music. Not only a DJ/producer, she’s also the founder of B Pitch Control, the label that released her third and latest album, Thrills. “It is still unusual to be a successful female DJ,” she says. “The way people treat successful women is still strange, no matter in which area. But I gave a lot of good vibes to our followers, not only female musicians, also male ones. Because they can learn (and I guess they already did) how the business is working and how they can deal with each other respectfully.”

With a substrata of propulsive Detroit techno, Thrills works its way through acid disco and minimalist, body-thumping beats, with nods to the electro wave of the moment. “My first record, Stadtkind, was like a love letter to my city, Berlin,” she says. “Berlinette was very experimental and more abstract. I did a lot of touring after the release of Stadtkind, [and] Berlinette is also an expression of all that. After gaining success with my first two records, I decided to stop for a moment and to search for me, for my person. That’s Thrills.”

WIRE@Yokohama Arena, Jul 17. See concert listings for details.

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