Thales Boutroumlis represents the fresh new guard of tech house. The teenager from Cologne follows up his debut of last year on EIN2 with a two tracker for the venerable Poker Flat Recordings. For one so young, Boutroumlis shows a great deal of maturity in his productions. To promote this new work on Poker Flat he is here with us and dropped us a housy mix and talked us through the release. Enjoy.
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A few rapid-fire questions with Thales Boutroumlis
What’s new on the horizon? Any upcoming releases you want to tell us about?
A lot of things are happening right now that I never thought were possible. This definitely includes my release on Steve Bugs’ Poker Flat Recordings which I am very happy about. It is one of the highlights of my discography so far. I’m sure more interesting releases will follow in the near future, but it’s worth talking about this one in particular. On the one hand, I feel very honoured to be the second young artist on this label next to Tim Engelhardt and on the other hand, this release is very special in terms of its creation.
The title track of the EP doesn’t correspond to the sound which one knows of me and that’s what makes the release so extraordinary. It is characterized by a shuffling groove and a strong sense of dance floor dynamics.
‘Aether’, which has been produced alongside my close friend Tantum, heads in a deeper and darker direction. There is no song of mine that focuses on such a hypnotic moment and creates such an unreal atmosphere through an acid bassline. Together these two tracks create a dynamic mood that still reflects sensitivity and sensibility.
How is your near future going to look like? Any nice gigs that are planned out for you?
In the near future, most of my time will be spent in the studio working on exciting and refreshing projects and my live set. The time in the studio has become so precious for me, because it gives me great joy and I discover new sides to myself every time. Of course, I still like to play my gigs, because the time in the club and especially in summer at festivals or open airs are the reward for my time I spend in the studio and the effort I put into it. The people, the mood and the esteem you get are priceless.
There are some gigs at locations that I always wanted to see and or together with artists that I really appreciate, but these gigs are still secret. But I am sure there will be more information to see and read soon.
How is Cologne these days? We love the city and know there are always a lot of things happening.
Cologne is always on the move and the scene here is constantly changing. There are many great new parties, new DJs conquer the scene and the audience always changes.
Unfortunately, it is the case in Cologne at the moment that, for example, clubs that are important for the scene and the culture has to close in Ehrenfeld. Admittedly, I took a break at the beginning of the year to work on my releases, so I didn’t really follow the latest developments.
What can we expect from the mix you made us?
In my eyes, it’s important in a mix to focus on a story, a journey. And from my point of view the story in this mix is very individual and personal to each listener.
The mix contains many groovy and above all housy elements. Nevertheless, it is able to awaken various emotions, such as cheerful but also thoughtful ones. The nice thing about music is that it depends on you what you want to feel and what you don’t want to feel. And that’s how it is with this mix.
Finally, the songs in the mix are special in their way and incredibly beautiful e. g. resist by Stefan Braatz who has also been published on Pokerflat and is still one of my all time favourites. I am always very surprised and at the same time glad how much good music there is in the electronic music scene. The standards that are set by such songs as “Resist” by Stefan Braatz or by such artists as Tim Engelhardt are in my opinion very important for the quality of the future music and as a DJ and music fan I am looking forward to a lot of new music from the different genres which are part of this scene. All in all the electronic music scene is like a big carpet consisting of a lot of small and different patterns and that is what makes this carpet so unique and beautiful.
Thank you!