There are numerous pre-eminent names in the underground turntable community, which range across Europe from Amsterdam to Ibiza. However, aside from a few niche recordings of hour-long boiler room sets in subterranean rave caves, many of these up and coming DJs get the bulk of their visibility from online traction on social media, YouTube, live show streams, and fan-riddled comment sections. With the given exception of a few discrete articles online, there's remarkably little information you'd have to go on for some of these artists to know that they even exist, which (as you guessed it) is part of their appeal.

Hör Berlin Set - VTSS

Martyna Maja, better recognized by her stage name “VTSS”, is a DJ from Warsaw, Poland that is making ripples in the UK and Amsterdam scene. She's become known in the underground for successfully blending demonic industrial techno with EBM (Electric Body Music). Her mixes are done with the finesse of a speeding gazelle. Like a jolt of voltage into a pneumatic tube, she defibrillates the scene and shocks life back into the stale monotone synth bass drones that echo like the backdrop of oblivion heard so often in the Yelp hotel lounge bars of elevator taproom lobbies and shopping mall corporate DJs.

VTSS revives the spark of ingenuity in EBM techno like ammonia in smelling salts, by kicking some zest back in the genre with a wide array of drum thumps and samples interspersed throughout her songs. She borrows from her own archive compilation of private playlist discographies and has embroiled within her live set grimy tones, abrasive timbres, and angst-driven pile driver rhythms heard in the video above. VTSS's sound is similar to what was routine back in the 1990s rave haciendas, with acts like Underworld, Moby, Leftfield, and the Chemical Brothers, but she has given the genre a modern face-lift. VTSS brings a razor-sharp ferocity and a perfunctory keenness to her sets that immediately draws fans in and resonates with listeners in 2024.

"Remind U" - Flying Lotus

Steven D. Bingley-Ellison, aka Flying Lotus (or Flylo) is a record producer, filmmaker, DJ, and rapper from LA. He's also the original founder of the Brainfeeder record label. Aside from his notable jazz influence, being that he's the nephew of Alice Coltrane, the jazz pianist/wife of saxophone legend John Coltrane, Flying Lotus has pushed the boundaries of improvisational funk fusion with electronic composition and production. He has collaborated with artists to the likes of Reggie Watts, Thundercat, and Kendrick Lamar with his live DJ performances.

His career started in 2012 with the drop of his rap mixtape Duality. He began rapping under the name Captain Murphy, based on the Adult Swim TV show, Sealab 2021. The name Flying Lotus was supposedly inspired by lucid dreaming and was the moniker he used to send in song submissions to Adult Swim so that he could write ident bumper music for their programming block. Since then, he's released seven studio albums that have chronicled his evolution as an artist:1983 (2006), Los Angeles (2008), Cosmogramma (2010), to Until the Quiet Comes (2012), You’re Dead! (2014), Flamagra (2019) and Yasuke (2021), his most recent album, which is a score to LeSean Thomas’s anime series about an African samurai in medieval Japan.

Hör Berlin Set - SPFDJ

SPFDJ, or Lina Jonsson, is a DJ born in Sweden and based in the Netherlands. She's created a name for herself in the London and Berlin techno circuit with the genres of EBM, trance, hardcore, acid, and trance. She is also the founder/owner of her own record label Intrepid Skin (VTSS being one of the artists she's signed).

Her music has been described as irreverent, ruthless and blisteringly up-tempo, becoming associated with the re-contextualizing of the genre and being able to penetrate the sonically impenetrable. Described in her bio as an artist that, "inspires debauchery and sweat-soaked hedonism on an international scale", she's the quintessential badass bond villain. A sinister adversary with the turntable, SPFDJ is like a flammable match stick to a forest fire. She's a blue flame ignited from a stove top burner that enthralls and compels you, as if you were hypnotized by the hex of some evil sorceress. She holds down her domain the way an invasive alien species would a UFO space probe. All this makes it that much more apparent to her fan base and novices, who stand on the sidelines, that she is a force to be reckoned with.

Boiler Room Festival Berlin Set - Estella Boersma

Estella Boersma is a Dutch DJ and Producer based in Berlin who pivoted from a successful fashion career to filling boiler rooms around the world. She went from the voguish glam of runways and magazines to spinning records.

What really stands out to me about her Berlin set is the natural knack she has for the displacement of sampled sequences that are used, quite cleverly, as graceful transitions in the development from of one beat or tempo change to another. Estella has recently created and released music under her own label, EB-REX. She's made significant strides following the debut of her first EP off of the UK based Dance Trax label to now releasing her latest EP, EB001. Boersma is a fervent example of acid house, UKG-infused hard house, and anthemic dance-floor fillers blended with techno that relies heavily on breakbeat. She's also made several appearances through live streams with Hör radio and Mixmag. She has performed sets at venues from Awakenings to Fabric London and Glastonbury.

Grand Palais Set for Cercle - Boris Brejcha

Boris Brejcha is a German DJ and record producer born in Ludwigshafen, Germany. He’s self-described his style as “high-tech minimal” and wears a joker mask during performances based on the Carnival of Venice and the Universo Paralello Festival in Brazil. He carries a haunted, majestic aura to him like a jester that's just unshackled his ball and chain, enshrined by hisses of dry ice fog and cathartic break down interludes. Boris has brought in all sorts of crowds for venues and dancehalls from Coachella and Tomorrowland to shows in Paris, France, and Space in Ibiza. Being the rara avis act that he is, he's also helped propel techno labels like Harthouse in getting put on the map since 2006 and started his own label, Fckng Serious in 2015.

He kicks off the set with "Redemption", an eruptive slingshot of gradually increasing intensity, adorned by seraphic glassy crystalline synth riffs, syncopated percussion, and epic bass drops that exhibit warble-like distortions, psychedelic arias and Mediterranean-sounding celestial vocals. With the clean smoothness of a thin marble slab mirror and the jocundity of a harlequin, he takes us through 19 tracks.

The performance is an immersive sensory experience permeated with deep wow-wow wub bass and melancholic keyboard melodies. His set finishes with "Purple Noise". The track is an all out bacchanal of exotic vitality that brings the focus of the rave to a shiny glowing orb at the center of the stage, coated with projection mapping images that resemble the moon. The historic museum in des Champs-Élysées transforms into an operatic science fiction theater through his music and the intersection of light shows, lasers, and projection mapping that casts a visual projection of his face mask onto the orb behind him. He sets the tone immediately like a smoking gun and is able to stimulate and maintain the aural imagination of the listener for two hours and six minutes.

Because of this, the rave takes on a fantasy-like Brazilian carnival atmosphere showcasing Boris's innate talent for blurring the line between imagination and reality. This influence can be heard with the moody dark wave ambience of "Pegasus", the reverberating bells and chimes in "Knocking Birds", the twangy synth bass and spoken word samples in "Happinez", as well as the upbeat gushes and swells of the grimly sub-bass in "Space Driver" and "Thunderstorm". Boris creates a utopian wonderland with the auxiliary percussion of "Exit", "Shake it Down", and "Lieblingsmensch". He entices us with the soft lush piano chords and spoken word samples in "Spicy", the mystical ivories in "On His Way", and the submarine radar sounds in "I Take It Smart". This is a pivotal section in his live set which inflames the temperament of the Grand Palais with its catchy synth bass lines and vibrant euphoric turnarounds in the higher register. He finishes his set with a flanger fade out that slowly grinds to a halt like a sputtering exhaust. Then, he takes off his mask to reveal his identity and proves, once again, that this jester has nothing to hide.

Boiler Room Ibiza Set - Nicole Moudaber

Nicole Moudaber is a Lebanese and British DJ/event promoter born in Lagos, Nigeria. She is also the head of her own label imprint, MOOD Records, the host of an award-winning weekly radio show, and an activist member of The Lower Eastside Girls Club, an organization that helps disadvantaged young women pursue a career in the music industry. Nicole, also known as the Techno Temptress, got her start as an underground club promoter in Beirut. She went on to become an international rockstar amongst the DJ community that aims to provide a platform for female artists in the fight against gender inequality and showcases the skills of fresh blood looking for a come up. She features talented individuals on the cutting-edge of techno who are making a name for themselves through the help of radio play, guest-segment broadcasts and the exposure that comes with the backing of a record label.

They call these sets Villa Takeovers for a reason. Her 22-minute set takes over the poolside floor of a villa and we, as the audience, don't bother to ask why. Her style is emotive and diverse with a hedi brew of tropical percussion, industrial glitches, and metal clatter she uses in her sampling along topped off by Spanish voice samples over the repetition of straight ahead techno drum beats.

Boiler Room X Sugar Mountain Set - Honey Dijon

Honey Dijon, also known as Honey Redmond, is an American DJ, producer, activist, fashion label owner, and electronic musician born in Chicago and based in NY and Berlin. She's found a home for herself in the NY club scene as a vocal ally for trans rights and awareness as a transgender artist. Her sound is considered to be distinguishable due to her eclectic range of musical styles and idioms that date back to R&B vinyls from Stevie Wonder's I Wish album to Chaka Khan and the recorded monologue of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech.

She's able to unify the swing of Chicago, the halcyon amenities of classic house, and four on the floor disco with dirty rhythmic techno. Dijon has performed at venues from Glastonbury, Sziget, and Neopop to Sugar Mountain and Berlin's Panorama bar. She released her second album, Black Magic Girl, in 2022 following the release of The Best of Both Worlds in 2017 and Xtra in 2018. When I hear her sets, I hear the wild untamed pulse that is trance house.

Hör Berlin Earth Klub Set - horsegiirL

horsegiirL is the pseudonym used for the German DJ, singer, and songwriter that hides her identity behind a horse mask. She also goes by the name Stella Stallion and has served as an eponymous example of an artist that has been able to integrate rural tropes in her music: a blend of synthetic pop and what's being called "yee-haw hardcore eurotrance". It's not just that–the lore behind her agrarian countryside spinning style like referring to her fans as farmies.

Her live Hör Berlin Earth Klub set showcases her style: a whitewashed, nearly hypnagogic, pop strain of acid with the neo-soul vocals of house and the kitschy tempo changes of techno known as happy hardcore. This can be heard in her hypertech bubblegum pop arrangements of Britney Spears' "...Baby One more time", Jomanda's "Make my Body Rock", and "Lose my Breath" by Destiny's Child.

Earth Klub Set - Pablo Bozzi

Pablo Bozzi is a French-born DJ, producer, and musician based in Berlin. He is the founder of the Second Sight record label, a French music collective known as the Toulouse Gouffre Club and is apparently a classically trained musician that learned to play the harpsichord when he was only six.

Through his alias, Lapse of Reason, he's released a prolific amount of what's being called Italo Bozzy Music, a style of music which subsumes a hybrid of dance genres like new wave, industrial EDM, and Italian disco or eurodisco. Beginning in 2020, he released music using his real name as a main member of the group Imperial Black Unit, with the EP Walk On Wire. He's since released solo albums such as Fantasy, Testify, Street Reign, Ghost of Chance, Magnetisma, Last Moscow Mule, and Unknown Prospect Vol. 2 , all while having collaborated on projects like Maybe a Body and All of That with SDH (Semiotics Department of Heteronyms), as well as with groups like Infravision (Illegal Future), Soft Crash (Spritzkrieg), and Djedotronic (Transmutation).

Hör Berlin Set - Ireen Amnes

Irene Amnees is a producer, DJ, and founder of the London collective Under My Feet. Her latest EP was released off of Tresor Records. It's a collaborative album with Kamikaze Space Programme titled Unravelling , in addition to her the most recent live project s.a.t.i.n. with Ash Luk from Infinity Division (FKA Minimal Violence). Her first full-length LP, In The Land Of Silence, debuted in 2020 and released through Sonic Groove Experiments, a Berlin-based industrial and techno label.

She's the Resident DJ at Tresnor, a club in Berlin, and she has played iconic venues like Funkhaus, Iklectik, Berghain, Macao, Kraftwerk, Basement, Warehouse Elementenstraat, Fold, and a wide variety of European night clubs and boiler room event warehouses. This live set she did at Hör Berlin demonstrates her skillful ability to articulate the synapses of nostalgia with the use of retro synth-wave grooves and vocal samples from the 80s that are, in case you couldn't tell, a nod to the decade of decadence.

As anybody who follows these acts can witness, the underground is rich and brimming with the advent of artists that have galvanized support from their fans, some of whom have flourished into the powerhouse talents and headliners that fill up arenas and boiler room venues and some which have only begun to bloom. However, this only scratches the surface of what's occurring in the scene today.

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