When attention turns to the Dutch underground electronic music scene, the spotlight rarely falls on those championing the melodic and emotive potential of futurist Detroit techno. Yet scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a new generation of DJs, producers and label owners dedicated to Motor City style machine soul, with Jasper Wolff standing front and centre.
Wolff has been a pivotal figure in Amsterdam’s techno underground since the late
nineties, when he started to become a regular face behind the decks at some of
the Netherlands’ most vital and important techno clubs.
Thanks to falling in love with
underground electronic music at a young age, he already gathered an impressive
collection of techno, house records and was already being booked to appear at
sizable festival and clubs.
Wolff is probably best known for his long-running partnership with Maarten Mittendorff. Connecting the dots between Detroit techno, intergalactic electro and the sounds of influential local labels such as Rush Hour and Delsin where they released their ‘Tesseract EP’ in 2018, Wolff and Mittendorf quickly became residents at the late, great Amsterdam institution Trouw and were regular headline attractions at now Defunct Paris hot-spot Concrete. Naturally, the duo also released music on the famed French club’s offshoot label, Concrete Music. And now continues to be a regular DJ at key Amsterdam venue De School.
Their fame spread further following the 2011 launch of Indigo Aera, a label dedicated to showcasing techno music with soul. Wolff continues to co-handle A&R for the label, offering up a mixture of new material from the likes of Stephen Brown, Marcel Dettmann, Louis Haiman, Private Press as well as previously unheard archive material from artists who’ve inspired them (think Kirk Degiorgio, Don Williams, Makam, Ø [Phase], Rush Hour co-founder Antal, Sterac and Joris Voorn). Wolff was also integral in the launch of Indigo Aera sub-label Æx, an imprint dedicated to offering up compilation-style EPs featuring ‘timeless music’ from befriended and like-minded artists old and new.
In many ways, Wolff is going back to his roots, delivering solo sets of raw, energetic and soul-powered machine music and productions, just as he did during the formative years of his career.
https://soundcloud.com/jasperwolff
www.indigoaera.com
