Dekmantel Podcast 011 - Steffen Bennemann

As we head into our 11th podcast, we take a turn into a much more relaxed world. Before now we’ve offered you kaleidoscopic mixes, techno workouts, freaky house sessions and lots more besides, but here we ask you to cast your worries aside for three hours of absorbing ambient from Steffen Bennemann. Bennemann is a post-techno DJ, producer and label boss from Leipzig who co-founded the Holger label and who curates the Nachdigital festival. Often preferring to play long and extended sets that reach for kraut, IDM and plenty of celestial melodies, he is an expert in dark ambient, moody soundscapes and otherworldly recordings and in fact occasionally plays parties where people turn up with sleeping bags and lay down on the dance floor to relax. Steffen says many times people actually fall asleep and he plays to them for hours. And that’s just what you get on his immersive two hour podcast, which starts with a dreamy monologue, frog sounds and harmonic bell notes. As the session unfolds, it transports listens into dark, ominous worlds, blissed out and heavenly places that could be from the afterlife and plenty more emotionally swollen pockets of atmospheric sound. Combining the organic with the synthetic, modern classical with balearic chords, it’s a veritable trip.