biography

Techno has always been about imagining the future and experiencing the excitement of change and discovery. If anyone has lived up to this aspiration in recent years it would be Stefan Goldmann. With every release and project he has brought a new edge to the table, with several of his tracks having served as genre-shifting blueprints. Utilising an evolutionary approach which takes nothing for granted he is continuously infusing variation into the formal core of techno – from shifting meters to designing tuning systems to re-imagining the technological base of recorded music. Radical yet playful innovation has consequently also become the criterion of Macro, the label he operates with Finn Johannsen.

Stefan Goldmann performs regularly throughout Europe, Asia, the Americas and Australia. In addition he has expanded his artistic reach through a wide array of extraordinary projects outside of club culture, while maintaining an approach that remains essentially techno: investigating grid rhythm, sampling, vinyl culture or digitisation down to their cores.

In addition to regular appearances as a DJ, he has developed special formats for a range of sites and institutions. These encounters range from an intimate solo performance at Kyoto’s iconic Honen-in Temple to performing the first ever electronic concert at Philharmonie Berlin‘s Grand Hall, in addition to curating Strom Festival for the eminent classical music institution. Commissions include the large-scale music theatre composition ‘alif‘, site-specific concert formats for the LACMA museum in Los Angeles, MAXXI in Rome and CCK of Buenos Aires, collaborations with Ensemble Modern, scoring the award-winning documentary ‘A1‘ and a ballet for Nationaltheater Mannheim. 

A special relationship has grown between Stefan Goldmann and Berlin’s Berghain. DJing at the club since 2006, he also conceived the Elektroakustischer Salon nights, opening up the venue to experimental music, and wrote a popular column for the Berghain program flyer. He has also published the book ‘Presets‘ and has written extensively on the aesthetics of electronic music. In short: Few other artists have expanded techno’s formal range farther while simultaneously pushing the envelope of dance music.

(for the long biography, click here).