A born and raised Berliner, Ellen Allien first made a name for herself DJing in Berlin’s wild, burgeoning techno scene of the early ’90s. At the end of the decade, she founded Bpitch Control, an electronic music label that launched the careers of production outfits like Modeselektor and Apparat. Since releasing her own debut album, Stadtkind, in 2001, Allien has produced five more full-length albums, each the culmination of a different stylistic phase in her genre-flouting career (which has even included a foray into fashion design).

Her latest, Dust, is also a departure from what came before, a warmer breed of techno-pop tweaked and teased through experimental soundscapes. One of the few constants in Allien’s musical oeuvre is her focus on the city of Berlin. We asked her to speak to us about some of the Berlin musicians that inspire her today and help define the current scene.

Sascha Funke
“He’s very beautiful. The way he’s DJing, it’s very emotional. Many girls are always coming to his parties. He’s a DJ and producer, producing music between house [and] minimal techno, with an indie rock touch. His energy is really nice, how he mixes them.

“A rock band plays for maybe two hours, but the best DJs play for five and a half hours. In America, it’s coming back a little bit, the feeling for electronic music. But in terms of DJ performance, the way we celebrate parties here is completely different. There’s more of an energy. Because, you know, here we have no closing time. It’s longer. The culture is different. DJs have time to build it up.

“Sascha Funke is not just techno. Techno people listen to everything. They go to parties. They go to concerts where Caribou is playing. It’s completely mixed, the scene here. If you go in the club, you dance. If you go to a rock show, you go to a rock show. Since I’ve made music, I’ve played guitar, I played saxophone, I played in bands. Jam sessions for hours without recording. I’m not just a DJ.”