From packed out events, a cutting edge record label to opening their very own club… Ratha Gud caught up with one of the freshest brands in Tech House and Techno responsible for putting Luxembourg firmly on the dance music map!
Pierre Bellion welcome to DMC World, where are you in the world right now?
At the moment I’m in Luxembourg setting up our new club Studio 21 and next week I’ll be back in Berlin in my office.
What was the first piece of music you heard today?
First track I heard today was ‘Time Has Change’ from Die Zwei, as it was played on the radio this morning on a local radio show.
Introduce us to the Lauter Unfgug team, how did you all meet and how was the brand born?
I met Thierry Loesch, my partner in crime at a New Year’s Eve party in 2012. He was already working with another label. But at the end of the evening we decided to start our own. In 2013 we started with our first event in a local club called Declic in Luxembourg with Markus Kavka. And it was supposed to be a one shot party for my birthday.It ended with Alex Heide coming along and after a few beers at an after party we decided to create a brand since in Luxembourg at that time the underground scene and music was kinda empty… and not known by the big public. We got known pretty quickly thanks to our efforts, and converted a lot of people to that kind of music and from 200 people events we went to 700 people parties. Our events in And since we worked with international promoters from Belgium, Germany and United Kingdom; working with people as professionals brought us succes ever since at the Luxembourgish Night Life Awards, something we are pretty proud of. In 2015 Alberto Stocco join the team to help us run the label. Since then we got some very nice great releases out and supported by big names in the scene and got loads better ones coming soon. Andy is a web « master » he takes care of all the electronic « blogs » connected to the labels and make them work as they supposed to be. And the last one to the crew is Jorge Costa that is now the Event Manager of our New club Studio 21.
What does the name Lauter Unfug mean?
Lauter Unfug actually is a German word play that Laut madness and Unfug loud, so like loud madness.
So you’ve been running LU events since 2013 Who have you had on the decks?
Since 2013 we’ve had some big names including Adam Port, Agent!, Claptone, Coyu, Ramiro Lopez, Dosem, ANNA, Rampa, Alan Fitzpatrick, Basti Grub, Andhim, Nic Fanciulli, Alexander Aurel, Kruse & Nurnberg LIVE, Low Steppa, Christian Smith, Dave Clarke, Josh Butler, Huxley, Christian Nielsen, Butch, Matador , Anja Schneider, Mark Fanciulli, Monkey Maffia, Santé, Giorgia Angulli, Sidney Charles, Marcus Meinhardt, Saytek, Tiefschwarz and Riva Starr, just to name a few!
What made you also start a record label and how do you go about scouting for your talents?
I’ve got a lot of friends that produce good music, and if I like it I release it and as well I can ask friends of mine do remixes, all people that release with us are people I actually know.
Do you see it as important to have a Record Label as a club promoter?
I don’t think it’s important, since the record label is a complety different work than a club promoters job, but as the rest of the crew are DJs and producers, we always thought we needed to bring our brand up. Basically we always wanted to have a record label, it’s as simple as that, plus we are the first serious record label in Luxembourg, so of course it becomes important for the scene to have a record label that tries to get to the level of the international standards.
What’s the philosophy behind the label and events?
The philosophy behind the events is to bring a good harmony in between the dj’s and the crowd. Bring them the joy and pleasure when they come at our parties. We also want to push the electronic music and show what can be build in Luxembourg; as here people mainly go for the commercial stuff when they go out.
The label and club features a lot of Techno /Techhouse artists, is that a fashion thing or is Techno running in your veins? Tell us a bit about your influences and the Lauter Unfug Sound.
Basically in Luxembourg Techno and Tech-House is a new scene, that differentiate us from the other countries that have been developping their scene from the 90’s already. Here It’s mainly all for the commercial music and fancy parties, with our label we try to bring our sound to the people and it has already got a pretty good feedback. We are in all the deep sound, different from the others.
What’s been your biggest release to date?
Our biggest EP’s have been Riven – When are You Hungry with the remix of Rhadow that was played a lot. And of course the Haste Midi EP Fool, featuring remixes from Ruben Mandorlini and Daniel Stefanik.
What’s been the biggest challenge with running the label and events so far?
It’s funny, to be honest the biggest challenge is that the week days doesn’t have enough hours and the weekends are too long.
What are your proudest moments?
The proudest moments are when the label is getting a good support from big music magazines DJ Mag, Mixmag and DMCWORLD. Furthermore, our club Studio 21 that finally has the standards to host events like the ones we are bringing and can compete with the interational standards.
Do you see yourselves exporting the brand and hosting events further afield to say, Ibiza or Amsterdam?
Of course we do. Last year already we had a showcase at ADE in Amsterdam and Stuttgart, adding to that some showcases already planned abroad in cities like Basel, Saarbrucken, Berlin, Dusseldorf or Brussels, and we are working to come back with new location for the ADE this year in Amsterdam.
Congratulations, we heard that the Lauter Unfug crew won a series of awards this year at the Luxembourg Dance Awards, what did you scoop?
Every year we win some awards and we are just happy that our people like our events parties and support us and the label. The main objective for us is to bring to the Luxembourgish people this new culture and enjoy it as we do.
What can we look forward to next on the label?
We have nice EP‘s from the likes of Beatamines, Grovebox, Matchy & Bott, Rhadow, Riven, Peter Berg, Haste Midi, DotStripe, Including remixes from Arado, Nico Schwint, Floriant Kruse, Deepshakers, Stefano Riteri, Boy Next Door, David Hasert and Channel X and many more. We are growing slowly and internationally something we are really proud of…
If you could have one big artist release on your label, who would it be?
To be honest this is a difficult one. But as you ask me to choose, I’d like to have Danny Tenaglia and I’m a big fan of Roger Sanchez, there are so many artists I like this is a tricky question.
What events are you most looking forward to this Summer?
I am really looking forward to all the events at Studio 21, it’s always very nice concept of events and the feeling between us and the people is always great.
A birdy tells us you’ve just opened your very own club Studio 21 in Luxembourg, what inspired you to make the move?
We had so many problems with locations in Luxembourg, they don’t have the standards for the big DJ’s, that made us have to build a proper club ambiance when we brought guys like Nic Fanciulli or Dave Clarke. An example I can give is when we had to build a completely new stage once for Kink. Now we have an L-acoustic sound system and it’s the only one in the country, we are the only ones that are allowed to be open in the city center for 24 hours. We then have optimal conditions for an electronic music club in Luxembourg.
Who can we see playing there soon?
Soon we’ll have artists of the likes of Ame, Madga, Channel X, Wehbba, White Noyz, Stefan Hinz to name a few.
What are your staff top 3 tunes at the moment?
Pierre : Haste Midi – Fool, Danny Tenaglia – Music Is The Answer, Bill Withers – Who Is He (Henrik Schwarz Edit).
Haste Midi: Haste Midi – Fool (Original Mix), Reset Robot – Umpaalow (Original Mix), DJ W!ld – Vinyl Killer (Original Mix).
Thierry: Riven – When Are You Hungry, Gorge – La Angels, Burnski – Visions .
Finally what’s coming next from Lauter Unfug?
Coming soon is the EP from my good friend Dominik Vaillant called ‘Skyscraper’ with remixes from Boy Next Door and Chris Hartwig, who both did an insane job.
‘Skyscraper’ from Dominik Vaillant will be released on July 22nd 2016 on Lauter Unfug Music
Check the brand new Lauter Unfug podcast with Saytek! https://soundcloud.com/lauter-unfug/lauter-unfug-podcast-40-saytek-live?in=lauter-unfug/sets/lauter-unfug-podcasts
For more information about the Lauter Unfug Record label and events please visit http://www.lauter-unfug.com
