Two releases in, Margaret Dygas comes of age

Two releases in, Margaret Dygas comes of age

10 April, 2009 | 10.09AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: margaret dygas, non standard productions

Former London girl-about-town Margaret Dygas is treading carefully. After falling into the electronic music scene via a stint running the door of London’s quick-lived Home nightclub, the Polish-born, US-raised DJ became a regular at key underground minimal and techno nights across the UK including Technique in Leeds and Stink in London.

Unafraid of playing experimental dub and techno in her sets, coupled with her striking style and understated looks, Dygas quickly became the talk of London’s close-knit minimal techno scene which at that time, lacked female influencers.

In 2006, she moved to Berlin where she began a monthly residency at Panorama Bar, and made regular appearances at some of Germany’s best techno clubs including Hotel Shanghai in Essen and Club Der Visionäre in Berlin.

It wasn’t long before she dropped her debut 12” ‘Day After’ on Contexterrior, a conceptually minimal record that hinted at her experimental tendencies. However, ‘Day After’ didn’t quite pack the punch one had hoped for.

Margaret Dygas ‘See You Around’

Rather than follow up quickly with another sub-standard release, it took Dygas two years to get to her second 12” ‘See You Around’, which dropped this week on Tobias Freund’s ‘Non Standard Productions’ label. On the face of it, it seems like she has found the perfect home.

Like Dygas, Non Standard Productions’ output has been timid and Freund’s label, which he runs with Max Loderbauer, is committed to providing unconventional sounds (it is the spot they use to release music from their experimental techno alias NSI).

The freedom that Non Standard Productions granted Dygas has clearly had a positive effect on her music as ‘See You Around’ swaggers with the kind of confidence producers with ten times the amount of output might not muster. It’s utterly abstract, and creatively daring.

She flourishes on ‘Day After’ through its hauntingly beautiful sounds that are surreptitiously advanced. The textures and distance Dygas manages to convey is simply jaw dropping.

Going on better, ‘37 min to 7’ resonates with drifting drums and uncomfortable timbres, and the disparate sounds she builds into the track take centre stage pushing the rhythms down into the chorus pit. It’s far from the dancefloor yet still woefully danceable.

The story here then, is that with only her second release, Dygas is striding forwards into an unknown techno future and down a path few have treaded before. Some might point to French female producer Chloe as a possible comparison, yet Dygas’ music is much more abstract and less afraid to explore.

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