29/07/2022
        Luna Semara / Stephan Bodzin

        05
        May

        Luna Semara

        What does it take to stand out in contemporary dance music? It is not enough to be a regular face in the globalised music scene: producer and DJ and vocalist Luna Semara understands the listener’s inbuilt need for love and flair in the beats, sounds and textures that feel organic.

        The overarching production of the Bremen-based artist’s work is indeed organic, with a thrilling unease laced through for contrast. But Semara is not rooted: “I was born in France and raised in the French Alps, but my roots are ‘berbers’, which means outlanders in Ancient Egyptian” she told The Partae back in 2018. It makes sense then that Luna Semara feels at home slinking through boundaries of electronic music as a DJ, producer, composer and vocalist. DJing to sold out audiences over the world including at Electric Brixton and Printworks in London, Harry Klein in Munich and [ipsə] in Berlin or Rex in Paris, Semara is a relaxed yet energising performer, uniting crowds with her upbeat spirit.

        Despite her warm, easy stage presence as a DJ, through her own art Luna Semara seeks a challenge, and her latest project — a one hour live vocal-based set — is just that. Relishing in contradiction, the industrious producer admitted to Electronic Groove that she prefers techno without vocals but regardless her aim was to “develop a live set that would suit [her] capabilities and also involve [her] voice.”

        STEPHAN BODZIN

        At this stage, Stephan Bodzin is very much his own man. He knows his own mind and he goes his own way. What
        he has achieved in the past doesn’t matter to him. When in the studio these days, he is on a mission to interest
        and surprise himself, to find new musical avenues and explore different perspectives. “There is no recipe,” he
        says. As such, he continues to look forward to serve up the most thrilling live show in techno. This year, that live
        show is taken up a level with double the amount of gear as he takes his latest album, Boavista, out on the road.
        The new album is a further statement of authenticity from Bodzin. It finds the German artist continue to explore
        new melodic realms, as he always has. He pushes himself throughout, all with the simple aim of telling stories
        with each track and painting musical pictures that conjure up very real emotions in the listener. It’s an album that
        operates in its own world, like Stephan himself, who has never followed trends. Instead he makes his own.

        The music on Boavista is bright and colourful. It can get you in a daze or blow your mind. It’s stuffed with the
        trademark synth sounds that have long defined Bodzin’s output, mostly on his own Herzblut Recordings label, but
        also more recently Afterlife. Each track starts with a feeling, rather than being carefully constructed in the studio. It
        is always an epic melody, a melancholic chord or a cosmic pad that gets him started. From there he jams in the
        studio and eventually crafts different worlds and alternative realities through sound.

        The live show will find Stephan playing on an array of synths and music machine machines, playing melodies live
        and serving up interpretations of the new album at each show. Mesmeric new visuals have been developed for
        the show. They take their cues from the digitised album cover, the blurred lines between different tones and
        abstract beauty therein. All this makes the next chapter in Stephan’s long and accomplished career the most
        exciting yet.