Pär Grindvik Picks The Best in Raw, Deep and Hypnotic Techno

Pär Grindvik

Feb 21, 2020

Swedish techno mainstay Pär Grindvik explores Beatport’s new Techno [Raw/Deep/Hypnotic] category with 12 flawless selections.

I’ve been a collector all my life, and my passion for collecting records and music started at an early age. Having a brother that was an aspiring DJ in the mid-‘80s got me addicted to the 12-inch single/EP format, and I spent all the money I could on music. I just love the feeling of owning a full series of something, or finding that record or track that I’ve been looking for. When I opened a record store in 1998, and at the same time started to play out on a more regular basis, my collection became huge really quickly.

Moving to Berlin in 2006, the collection came with a truck of its own. And with more record stores around the corner I could continue to feed my need for music. With a collection of over 14,000, filing and categorization became essential. Around the same time, digital download stores and ways to play digital files became more common. So after switching from playing only physical formats, I started to play a mixture of both, which means that I suddenly had two collections to nurse in parallel.

So here I am, 30-plus years later, my collection has shrunk a bit but I’m still buying vinyl, I’m buying files and I’m streaming music everywhere I go. I believe that whatever formats the future holds, I will probably keep collecting and keep filing my music after mood.

Beatport, just like any other record store — like the store I had back in ‘98 — is always looking for the best genre classification to help collectors like me find our way through all the amazing music that is out there, and that we might or might not know about yet.

With the new sub-genres for techno, I believe I and many others will better be able to find what we’re looking for. With that, here’s a playlist that I feel exemplifies the new Techno [Raw/Deep/Hypnotic] category.

[Dub Techno] Model 500 – Starlight (Deepchord Remix)

There are tons of “classic” dub techno tracks from the ’90s, but there would be nothing worth calling a current dub techno scene without Roderick Julian Modell and Mike Schommer’s Deepchord project. Since Mike left the duo Rod has kept pushing out dubby, dreamy sounds under the name. Rod’s legacy hales over the past three decades and is still going strong. I picked a pretty obvious one, the Deepchord rework of Model 500’s “Starlight.”

[Dub Techno] Chris Manura – Planet 1 (Andre Kronert Remix)

If Rod and Mike are the US heroes of contemporary dub techno, Europe has an underdog artist that kept the genre alive with passion too. Andre Kronert and his plethora of aliases have been and still are responsible for a lot of the high quality dub techno being released these days — both as a producer, record label owner and through his record manufacturing company Matter Of Fact. Here’s a newly released remix that Andre made for Chris Manura.

[Electro] AUX88 – Technology

I’m a huge electro fan and a proud collector of odd electro 12-inches. But there’s few labels that have such a dedicated place in my collection as the Burden brothers’ Direct Beat label. I mean, I love electro of any shape, but if someone asks me what real electro is, then there’s just one answer: check out the Direct Beat catalog! Keith Tucker and Tommy Hamilton are AUX88 and my pick is called “Technology,” but it could have been any of their output, really.

[Electro] Pär Grindvik – Silent Below Deck (Solid Blake Remix)

Electro has been coming back over the last few years, with artists like DJ Stingray bringing it to dancefloors all over. But there’s one fresh name that’s been shining through a wee bit more than the rest, and that’s Solid Blake. Emma Blake comes from Scotland but is currently living in Copenhagen. And while a big part of the city’s sound is moving in the fast techno direction, Emma has been pushing her quirky electro sound louder and louder. My pick here is pretty obvious, as I was lucky to recently have Emma remix a track for my label’s 15-year celebration.

[Raw] Scalameriya – Slobodna

While today’s techno scene is banging things harder and faster, it’s easy to forget that there are some heroes that have been doing this for years, pushing their craft into perfection. One of them is Serbian-born Nikola Grebovic, aka Scalameriya, known for delivering the goods on labels like his own Genesa records, as well as Perc Tracks, Them and T47. My pick is the brilliant “Slobodna,” which hasn’t left my crate since I got it in 2018.

[Raw] Manni Dee – Estrangement Between

Belonging to pretty much the same camp as Scalameriya, Manni Dee has been delivering quirkiness without a pause for years now. When I first discovered him it was first and foremost the more experimental material. But I have to admit that I now totally capitulated to his more recent brilliant dancefloor bombs. My pick is a track called “Estrangement Between” released on the brilliant Leyla records. It might sound like sugar at home, but played out it’s a belter!

[Deep/Hypnotic] Anthony Linell – Nylon Metal

As a native Swede, I get super proud of any Swedish music and new artist generations that hit our scene. So to mention a deep/hypnotic techno track without mentioning labels like Northern Electronics and Hypnus would be plainly impossible. Anthony Linell, formerly known as Abdulla Rashim, has been a central figure in the Swedish electronic scene now for a good decade, bringing quality Swedish underground music all over the world. My pick is “Nylon Metal,” released on London’s beloved On The 5th Day records.

[Deep/Hypnotic] Deano (ZA) – Prog #2

On the topic of bringing new sounds around the globe, I have recently kept bumping into an artist called Deaon, which has been putting out more and more music that grabbed my attention. Then the other week it turned out that we were on the same lineup at a club in Cape Town. Deaon pulled off a super set of driven hypnotic techno and afterward gave me a promo of the new single from his own label. My pick is Deano’s “Prog #2,” which was just recently released on Wrong Assessment’s Awry label.

[EBM] Peryl – Aura

Another fresh talent that is releasing smoking-hot EBM-ish sounds is German artist Peryl. I can’t say that I know much about this artist yet, but everything I heard to date has been just amazing. I wanted to pick a track that I’ve been playing like crazy and that people always seem to know wherever I go, called “Du & Ich,” however, that one isn’t on Beatport unfortunately so I went with equally amazing “Aura,” released on Codec 992.

[Broken] YYYY – Disbelief

When it comes to broken techno, Argentinian duo YYYY can do no wrong. “Disbelief” is a few years old now but now and then when I get a dancefloor boiling I’m dropping it and the impact is amazing. The combination between the pretty emotional melody and that quite off broken beat is just the perfect blend.

[Broken] Pär Grindvik – The Right to be Forgotten

For my second broken techno track, I’ve chosen something I made, and that I think really blends with the new Beatport sub-genres. The track is called “The Right to be Forgotten” and it genuinely belongs in the broken techno folder.