Inside Bigger Than Techno: Lilly Palmer on Techno, Transformation and Astral Plane

Techno was the first place Lilly Palmer felt she truly belonged. The German DJ and producer has become one of the defining figures of contemporary peak-time techno, commanding festival main stages across the globe with sets that balance relentless energy, melodic emotion and trance-infused euphoria. 

Yet despite the meteoric rise, Lilly insists that the essence of what drives her has remained unchanged since the early days playing intimate clubs in Zurich. "Honestly, the core of what drives me has never changed," she says. "It's always been about emotion and connection." 

Long before the sold-out arenas and festival crowds stretching to the horizon, she was searching for the same thing she seeks today. "When I was playing small clubs in Zurich to maybe a hundred people, I was trying to take them somewhere, to create a moment where everyone in the room felt the same thing at the same time. That's still what I'm doing on a festival mainstage."

While the scale may have changed dramatically, the mission has not. "The scale changes, the production changes, but that hunger to genuinely move people? That's never wavered."

That desire is rooted in her own personal experience. "I grew up feeling like an outsider, and techno was the first space where I truly felt like I belonged, where nobody cared about who you were outside of those walls. I carry that feeling into every single set."

It is a theme that emerges repeatedly throughout the conversation: connection, belonging and transformation. But for Lilly, techno occupies a uniquely powerful emotional space. "Music has always meant freedom," she explains. "The freedom to express, process and transform emotions."

"What techno does that nothing else quite manages is that it gives you all of it at once: the joy, the catharsis, the relief from anger or pain, the melancholy, the pure physical release."

Those moments on the dancefloor, she believes, transcend music itself. "When I say 'bigger than techno,' I'm speaking about this indescribable feeling that takes over completely in those moments. Those moments when strangers become family, when the pain becomes colour, when time seems to stand still and the beat carries you upward into something almost spiritual." Then she pauses before adding: "Techno has saved me, genuinely and I see it save people in the crowd every single night."

That emotional depth is evident in her performances. Her sets are known for combining aggression and tenderness, often shifting between pounding techno rhythms and soaring melodic moments that catch audiences off guard. "It's both, always both," she says when asked whether her sets are carefully planned or instinctive reactions to the crowd. "I go into every set with a kind of emotional arc in mind. I know the journey I want to take people on, from the first beat to the last."

But no amount of preparation can replace the energy exchange between artist and audience. "The crowd tells you everything in real time. Their energy, their body language, you feel it back as clearly as they feel what you're putting out."

Her musical foundations remain visible even within today's harder sound. "My sets grew from a more melodic deep house foundation in Zurich, and that DNA never fully left. Even at 150 BPM, I'm always looking for that melodic moment that cuts through the intensity and makes someone close their eyes. The aggression and the tenderness have to live together. That tension is actually where the magic is."

As techno's popularity continues to surge globally, Lilly finds herself balancing ever larger audiences while remaining deeply connected to the culture that shaped her. "My roots are in the underground and I'm fiercely protective of what that means," she says. "The underground isn't just a physical space, it's an attitude. It's about authenticity and genuine connection, not spectacle."

Even on the world's biggest stages, she refuses to compromise. "When I play a huge festival, I'm not trying to water anything down for a bigger audience. I'm trying to bring the underground to them."

That philosophy extends directly into her debut album, Bigger Than Techno, a project that serves as both a creative statement and a personal manifesto. "People sometimes read it as an ego statement, like I think I'm bigger than techno," she laughs. "It's actually the complete opposite. Bigger Than Techno is about techno itself being bigger than anything. Bigger than a genre label, bigger than a scene, bigger than any boundary you could put around it."

For Lilly, the album represents the full emotional and stylistic spectrum that electronic music can encompass. "Techno creates transformative experiences, it builds communities, it inspires people on a level that goes far beyond the dancefloor into the very fabric of human experience. This is sacred space. This is where authentic self-expression flourishes without colour or constraint."

That mindset explains why the album moves fluidly between techno, trance, psytrance and hard dance influences. "The genre boundaries were never really my starting point," she explains. "The emotion was."

Working alongside her husband and creative partner Egbert, the process remained instinctive. "You follow what feels true rather than what fits a box." The resulting album reflects a lifetime of musical influences. "I went from musicals as a kid, to death metal as a teenager, to deep house, to peak-time techno. Genre was never really the point."

The same openness informed collaborations with artists including Armin van Buuren, Maddix and Vini Vici. "Each one opened a different door," she says.

Working with van Buuren on Ayi Giri proved particularly meaningful. "He has this nostalgic, euphoric trance energy that connects with something very deep in me. What worked was that we didn't try to split the difference between his world and mine, we fused them and you can hear both of us clearly."

Meanwhile, Gaana Modam ventured into more spiritual territory. "'Gaana Modam' with Vini Vici and Shanti People was genuinely spiritual. Those mantric vocals from Shanti People sit right at the heart of what I believe techno can be: transcendent."

The album may represent a snapshot of who Lilly Palmer is today, but she remains reluctant to define what comes next. "I genuinely don't know yet and I think that's the right answer. Whatever comes next will be equally honest, equally personal." One thing is certain. "I'll never stop pushing."

As the conversation turns toward the future, it inevitably arrives at one of the most unique events on Palmer's calendar: Astral Plane Total Eclipse Festival. Unlike most festivals, Astral Plane is built around a rare celestial phenomenon, the total solar eclipse that will cross Europe in August 2026.

For Lilly the invitation to perform at the festival immediately struck a deeper chord. "Immediate, full-body excitement," she says. "A total solar eclipse crossing Europe for the first time this century, day literally becoming night, stars appearing in a summer sky, the sun's corona visible to the naked eye and there will be music underneath all of it." She smiles. "That's not just a festival. That's a ritual."

It's a description that feels entirely consistent with her broader philosophy about music and community. "I've always felt that techno operates on a frequency that goes beyond the ordinary and here's an event that literally bends the physics of the day to create something extraordinary."

Being part of that moment alongside artists such as Kevin Saunderson, Ellen Allien and Luke Slater remains difficult for her to comprehend. "Being part of that in the mountains of Segovia is something I genuinely couldn't have dreamed up."

The more Lilly speaks about Astral Plane, the more it begins to sound like a physical manifestation of the ideas explored throughout Bigger Than Techno. Connection. Transformation. Transcendence.

Asked whether the festival's emphasis on cosmic energy and collective experience resonates with her understanding of techno, her answer arrives without hesitation. "Completely and deeply. Techno at its best is exactly that. It's a modern sanctuary where genuine thriving happens through music and community."

In a world that often feels increasingly fragmented, she sees dancefloors as rare spaces where genuine human connection still flourishes. "I believe we reclaim our capacity for connection in an increasingly isolated world every time a dance floor comes together with true shared intention."

Then she paints the scene awaiting festivalgoers in Spain. "An eclipse set in a mountain range at 1500 metres, day turning to night, 10,000 people unified by the same cosmic moment and the same music..." She pauses, as if imagining the moment herself. "That's not metaphor. That's the literal version of what I try to create every time I play. I cannot wait."

Astral Plane Total Eclipse Festival takes places August 10th, 11th and 12th in Segovia, Spain. Get more information HERE.

Read the full interview with Lilly Palmer on The Night Bazaar website HERE.