8 Tracks: Of Waking Life

Djrum – Now couldn’t be a more critical time in Djrum’s career. Portrait With Firewood, his second full-length album but his first for R&S, sees Felix Manuel writing and recording the most personal, intimate music of his career. Hear lead single Sex, which holds the dancer in close, breathy confidence whilst at once devastating them. The new album is released during Waking Life, so expect Djrum to be on top of his game.

V.I.V.E.K – Artist, label owner and rigorous selector V.I.V.E.K is at the vanguard of a now-large group of producer/DJs giving back the dub to dubstep. As the heard of System Music, a club night and label, he’s been an integral part of dubstep’s restoration and, alongside the likes of Sleeper, Kaiju, Commodo and the rest, has painted the genre in a new light where subtlety and musicality are the name of the game.

MOLLY – Molly has long since established herself as one of Paris’ brightest house music talents with her residency at the city’s legendary Rex Club. Her dedication has seen her become a regular fixture internationally; she can on any given weekend be found playing across the US, Asia, Australia and Europe. Alongside her esteemed residency, she has also released music of her own on the like of Rekids, All Inn, AKU and Karlovak, all while A&Ring Rex Club’s in-house label, and Recit de Voyage, a label of her own.

Where to begin with Objekt? The Berlin-based EBM innovator is hardly an obscure choice, yet his world-class sound design and the countless DJ accolades of which he is a recipient posit him as a once-in-a-generation talent who’ll always be worth the time.

map.ache – Few artists do tender like map.ache. The KANN Records co-founder and Giegling signee’s music meets every definition of the word delicate: it’s intricate and airy, it sounds fragile, it’s considered, deft and dexterous. What’s more, it comes ruptured with that addictive hauntological melancholy that his compatriots at KANN and Giegling also pursue. map.ache plays live at Waking Life, so expect to get your full fix.

Cologne’s Cio D’or music has a tendency to position itself outside of temporality, to sound like a relic unearthed from the rubble of another civilisation. Her exploitation of effects and atmosphere helps forge a brand of techno so singular it seldom sounds of this earth. It’s a wonder that something so unique should come so naturally; since 2004, she’s two solo albums, ten solo EPs and two EPs in collaboration with Donato Dozzy.

Emerging to the fore in 2016 with an untitled EP for Workshop, Manchester’s Willow epitomises the music-first, publicity-shunning that so many of the music world’s greatest enigmas are known for. What we do know is that unassuming release quietly expanded the boundaries around what house music could, or should, be. Almost two years have passed since with no new music to show for it, so we can be sure she’s concocting some painstaking material, some of which may reveal itself in her set at Waking Life.

Hailing as much from Moscow as Berlin, Vlada favours a world-reaching assortment of everything the term ‘electro’ encompasses, going from goofy to gritty in a matter of moments in as delightfully unpredictable a fashion as possible. Her set at 2017’s edition of Waking Life was a revelation since which she’s mixed for XLR8R, Groove Magazine and played internationally. A consistently vital up-and-comer.