Marcel Dettmann

Ever since he emerged in the mid-2000s as a resident DJ at Berlin’s legendary Berghain club, Marcel Dettmann’s name has been synonymous with techno at its most stylishly austere. Born in 1977 in the former East Germany, Dettmann fell in love with electronic music in the ‘80s via New Wave and industrial. By the early ’90s, he was DJing in Berlin, where rave music had become the euphoric soundtrack to post-reunification youth culture. But it was behind the decks at Berghain—as well as when recording for its in-house label, Ostgut Ton—that Dettmann solidified his international reputation by doling out stern, muscular floor-fillers that are as sensual as they are severe. In the years since his rise to fame, multiple strains of underground dance music have come in and out of fashion, but Dettmann has stuck to his guns. His 2010 album, Dettmann, and 2022’s Fear of Programming contain the same dogged focus on spartan sound design and brutalist beauty.