Catching Up: Ellen Allien Impresses With Her Latest Label And Party Plans

You've really got to take a bow to Ellen Allien. She's one of those rare polymaths who's deeply rooted in the scene with a hell of a lot of history behind her. Taking steps out DJing in Berlin over 20 years ago, she built up her rep with a regular sets in the city's best clubs E-Werk Casino and Tresor and went onto start her own label BPitch Control which to date has ratched up over 300 releases. Her DJ sets are some of the most exciting that you can experience right now, loaded with Allien's own passion and enthusaism for the dance she works in a special vibe amongst the techno, electro and house she packs in her crate. It's kind of right then, that currently she is at pretty much every important electronic music festival this summer and is continuing to nail her residency at DC10 while also bringing her own party concept We Are Not Alone to the international stage. She's been an artist that we have always had a lot of time for, yet have had a bit of a wait since her last appearance in EC1 so ahead of her return this coming Saturday we took the opportunity to catch up on the label head, party planner and DJ's latest pursuits... How’s your summer been so far? You seem to be pretty consistently busy gig wise and have already had sets at some of the most important events like Movement and Sonar… Ellen Allien: Now it's summer and it feels good! Movement Festival was definitely my highlight of the last 4 weeks. To visit the city in the midst of this amazing festival is something really special. I played the perfect sunset set on the ‘Made In Detroit' stage (sorry that I'm from Berlin), so thank you Movement! I love this festival so much because I can listen to all the Detroit artists that I adore and also the guys from Chicago. DJ Funk´s DJ set was so much fun for, and Kevin Saunderson also played a fantastic closing set, it was truly wow to see him representing such and amazing set in his home city. Just Derrick May was missing. I played with him once at one day open air beach festival in Italy, it was crazy energy on the beach. During Off Week we did two parties and an in-store. The first was a 'We Are Not Alone’ party at La Terrrazza. ‘We Are Not Alone’ is a new project from me where I invite artists I love and friends to spend a night with me, taking away the hype of headliners / ticket sellers. This time it was Oskar Offermann, XDP, Q Phase and myself. It was a great night, with good music and good people in the perfect open air location. On the Friday we did an BPitch takeover in-store at Discos Paradiso record store, with myself, XDP and Kiki. It’s such a great record store, I managed to find some classics in there! Lots of people came by to say hello, dance a bit, drink a beer and dig through the crates. I enjoyed this afternoon so much, it was purely just for the music. We’ve really been enjoying everything you’ve done recently mix wise, your Boiler Room set, Mixmag and Dummy mix - each have been exciting because they’re always brimming with energy and have something new to offer - can you talk us through about how you like to approach your sets at the moment? It´s always up to the situation, the place, the moment. I like to call it 'freak house', it’s my name for what I try to create in my DJ sets, and I try to create it in many different ways and of course with different styles of music. What’s the latest with BPitch Control, what have you got coming up on the label? Our most recent releases on the label are - Phon.o - Fractions Jesse Perez - Cell Phones DJ Shufflemaster & Chester Beatty feat DJ Funk - Our House Music My most recent release on the label also came out in April which was the Turn Off Your Mind EP We have 4 track vinyl by Boris Werner coming out in August and a beautiful live album from Dillon, that was recorded with a choir at Berliner Festspiele, will be in stores in September. How does this discovery process tend to work for you? Does it vary or is it just a case of sifting through the demos in your inbox? Yes of course it can vary, there are many demos in my inbox, I meet many people, play together with many DJs and sometimes, if there is a good music connection, it happens that you decide to work together. What artists have excited you the most recently? DJ Phon.o, Dillon and Garry Todd would be my first picks. In general I love Gerd Janson´s DJ sets and also Ben UFO´s, he always has the focus on good music and is very creative in the way he mixes. Boris Werner always makes me dance a lot, his music choices are amazing. DJ Steffi, Simply Techno! Ben Klock & Marcel Dettmann. DJ Serge from Clone Records has a lot of groove. I also love ‘booty' DJ sets like DJ Feadz and DJ Deeon, anything that makes me makes me jump like that! I also love Helena Hauff’s style. Mano Le Tough is also great, and not forgetting Craig Richards! He always takes me on such a journey with his DJ sets. Finally, two of the best DJ´s for me are Derrick May and Jeff Mills. We are doing our next events in Berlin on the 7th of august and in Barcelona on the 27th, where I will be showcasing even more of the DJs that I like. Obviously you run the label and base yourself out in Berlin, with a lot of your artists also coming from the local scene. You’ve said before you consider yourself very much a Berliner what does that mean to you? The past few years I signed a lot of music that I picked up while I was traveling actually. A lot of the music is from international artists too. It can depend on the tracks I play, if an artist picks up that I am playing their tracks again and again, we start talking and it goes form there. One of the most recent being Jesse Perez, he is from Miami. I met him because I am a big fan and I have been playing a lot of his tunes in my sets. We spent some good times together and in the end, we decided to put out some tracks by him, it was as simple as that. If I play the music in my sets, it’s always a good sign that it could fit to BPitch whether they are local artists or not. I am also very proud to support my local scene, Berlin is my home, and I am proud and privileged to be able to support the city through BPitch. To go back somewhat, can you tell us about how being there has helped shape your career? It’s purely passion for music and people. It is what brought me to where I am today. I just like to share music and vibes. And Berlin was always a meeting point for the electronic music scene. We have some many amazing artists, living, working and playing here. That is quite inspiring. And of course in the early 90´s, after the wall came down and this big techno movement with clubs like Tresor and E- Werk, radio shows, magazines and events like the love parade started, I was exactly in the right place, at the right point of time It’s quite a pressing issue for us in London right now the issue of cost of living, meaning that a lot of our talent has felt it right to base themselves in Berlin. Things are changing a bit out there do you feel like there’s a danger of the city becoming more of a hostile place to DJs in the future? I mean, there are millions of other places to go and to make music that are nice, no? My opinion is - If you want to be able to change something you should inform yourself as best you can and you should vote on your informed decision. Participate in the democratic process, go to the streets and take part in protest if you feel there is something going wrong. You need to be active if you want to build a better future. I hope Berlin will always stay a good and peaceful place for artists to live and work here. Finally, what’re you working on right now outside of the label have you got any of your own releases coming soon or other projects coming up? Well, at the moment it´s summer and festival time and I m playing 3-4 gigs a week. There will be some of my We Are Not Alone parties across Europe. But in autumn I'll take my time off then, go to the studio and work on my new album, that will hopefully be out in spring 2017. And my first Essential Mix should be out in the near future…