Berlin, DE · techno

Ellen Allien

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BPitch Control founder and a foundational voice in Berlin techno since the ’90s — raw, futurist productions from a scene she helped build.

Ellen Allien was born Ellen Fraatz in 1968 and grew up in West Berlin. A stint living in London in 1989 brought her first contact with electronic music, and when she returned to a newly reunified Berlin she became a resident DJ at the Bunker, Tresor and E-Werk clubs in 1992.

She hosted a radio show and ran a label, both called Braincandy, before distribution problems forced her to give the label up in 1997. She then began throwing parties under the name Pitch Control, which led to the founding of BPitch Control in 1999, where she released her own albums alongside Modeselektor and Paul Kalkbrenner. She later started a second label, Ufo Inc.

Her albums trace a steady arc: Stadtkind (2001), dedicated to Berlin itself, followed by Berlinette (2003), Thrills (2005), a collaboration with Apparat called Orchestra of Bubbles (2006), the minimal Sool (2008) and Dust (2010). Across these records her sound moves between electro, IDM and harder, faster techno.

Beyond music, she launched a fashion line in 2006, appeared in the documentary Speaking in Code, and scored the dance piece Drama Per Musica, which premiered in Paris in 2011, later releasing the album LISm and, after that, Nost. She holds residencies at Nitsa in Barcelona and Circoloco at DC10 in Ibiza, and has run the rave night We Are Not Alone since 2019, moving it to RSO.berlin after its original venue closed.

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