Silent-One

He might be a relative newcomer but DJ and producer Silent-One has had a great first schooling entering the scene. Born in 1992, Benedikt Merkl is one of the founding members of the From Another Mind-collective. Setting up the party in 2014 in his hometown Stuttgart in Germany (and later expanding it to Munich), he got his training through “learning by doing”. In 2016 the party also evolved into a record. Organizing the From Another Mind-club nights was what eventually led him into DJing, debuting in 2015 and shortly thereafter landing residencies at MMA in Munich and Romy S in Stuttgart. When Silent-One DJs he fearlessly goes from more controlled techno into relentless, EBM-tinged productions and all the way into wave-territory. Unafraid of changing the structure of his sets, he peppers rigid tracks with rhythm-focused material, letting playful basslines and drum patterns wash over. All of this set on a backdrop of emotional atmospheric sounds – digging out tracks that rest on an ambient tapestry comes natural for Silent-One. For him ambient goes deep and true. He sees “ambient as reality and techno as an illusion” – a shifted and unusual view of the two genres. Maybe this also ties into his perspective of the From Another Mind- events, where he as a DJ (and organizer) builds a space for the clubbers to escape their daily lives, getting a chance to get lost in music. Mentioning the ambient influences in his DJ-sets brings you directly to the center of his own work as a producer. The often sacral-sounding productions are nothing short of a deeply personal exploration for Silent-One; with the help of visceral sounds he brings the listener to the mind’s dispirited places; not being scared of its less gleeful corners. Hinting this already in the track titles by selecting them as carefully as he composes them. His ambient works are very much an extension of himself and their existence is meaningful to the producer. Silent-One set up his label Intimate Silence already in 2016, which makes him not just an “early bird”, but also a fixture on the currently revived ambient scene. Intimate Silence is his platform solely dedicated to ambient and experimental creations, while the From Another Mind-imprint fulfills his techno desires. Silent- One’s ambitions with the label also resulted as offspring in shape of a monthly radio show for France’s acclaimed Rinse FM. Since 2017 Silent-One invites his favourite DJ’s and producers by asking them to provide ambient mixes. He selects his guests irrespectively of their typical musical output, wanting to shed their first layer to see what their idea of beatless music