Efdemin

Efdemin behind the decks: permanently in motion, wildly gesticulating, chuckling, dancing, sweating and going through his records over and over again. His DJ-sets are a lecture in tightrope walking. From being lost in reverie, total seriousness, pure delight, wit and grit, reduced house tracks, straight and dry techno, the Berliner by choice serves it all – peppered with breaks and surprises. Expose yourself to this tour de force over the course of a few hours and you certainly will never forget it. Due to his output and particularly his constant and remarkable DJ presence, Efdemin is surely one of the most independent, versatile and inspiring characters in today's club scene.

That's as striking as it's conflicting with his production work. Calm, cool and collected, Efdemin's music is infused by elegant darkness, discreet beauty and the complete lack of jittery. With long players and 12-inches for Dial or Curle, his remixes (e.g. Depeche Mode), his Pigon project together with RNDM or his drone and ambient pieces under his original name Phillip Sollmann for instance, Efdemin is equally at home in very different circles. In the world of art as much as in the techno realm, and while moving from intelligent pop quotes into the universe of Sun Ra, he does the splits effortlessly and without overstretching it. A sonic thesaurus like his second album Chicago finds his place in Efdemin's body of work as well as the stripped down funk of Just A Track, the urgency of Acid Bells or the straightforwardness of Bergwein. Going well along with all those gestures and desires is his own Label naïf. Accordingly named and vinyl only, it's his outlet to release music from friends and allies that is close to his heart.

Having come a long way from the character defining Hamburg (with the cornerstones that are the Golden Pudel club and his DIAL family) via a university stay at Vienna (music and performing arts) and even working as a music journalist, Efdemin has been a mainstay during the days and nights at Berghain since his arrival in Berlin.

But it's not only there where his work as a DJ is characterised by melodic techno from the Detroit school of thinking, classic US-American house music and its current renaissance. Equally important for his turntable art were the European feedback from Profan to Perlon, spartan pulsating techno and the way you present all of it. Sometimes each in one box, at other times continuously connected, but always in one flow and cast, offered with the right daredevilry. Efdemin and his music are considerately adapted to time, place and certain moments, but never lost in between.

Gerd Janson, 2011