Wankelmut
photo: denis apel · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Jacob Dilßner, a Berlin producer and DJ who records as Wankelmut, spent his early twenties DJing at underground Berlin parties around Bar 25 and Kater Holzig before his winter-2011 remix of Asaf Avidan & the Mojos' 'Reckoning Song' — released as 'One Day' — turned into an international hit and a genre-defining deep-house record. He plays guitar and grew up on rock and indie as much as electronic music, a mix that shows in his fondness for pairing four-on-the-floor grooves with organic, vocal-forward samples.
Wankelmut has named DJ Shadow among the electronic acts in his mostly rock-and-indie musical upbringing; the sample-collage, mood-over-momentum approach of 'Endtroducing.....' is a clear ancestor of how Wankelmut builds a track around a found vocal loop rather than a written song.
listen forThe way a single sampled, chopped fragment carries the emotional weight of the whole record while the beat stays sparse and patient — that DJ Shadow instinct, rehoused in a four-on-the-floor body, is all over 'My Head Is A Jungle.'
Wankelmut has cited Massive Attack alongside DJ Shadow as part of the mood-first, sample-based music he grew up on; the trip-hop group's slow-burn, bass-heavy atmosphere shaped his taste for tracks that sit inside a feeling rather than chase a peak.
listen forThe unhurried tempo, dubby low end, and a vocal that sounds intimate even in a huge room — 'Wasted So Much Time' carries that same held-back tension before it ever really opens up.
Wankelmut has named DJ Koze among the underground Berlin-scene DJs and producers who shaped his ear before 'One Day' broke internationally; Koze's warm, slightly off-kilter, sample-warped house is a direct reference point for Wankelmut's own genre-blurring productions.
listen forA groove that stays a little loose and human rather than quantized flat, plus a vocal sample treated more like found material than a hook — 'Give & Take' has that same playful, slightly askew warmth Koze is known for.