Telekom Electronic Beats
A photo of Leopold Faeberbrock, booker at PAL and co-founder of TILT.

This Is TILT, The New Label Launched By Hamburg’s Renowned PAL Nightclub

Hamburg’s cultural impact stretches far beyond the Beatles and the Reeperbahn, encompassing everything from militant left-wing politics to a particular take on techno and electronic music.

One of the port city’s main platforms for forward-thinking dance music is the club PAL, whose awesome space and forward-thinking bookings made it an obvious choice for our Telekom Electronic Beats Clubnight party series at venues across Germany.

And now, its Berlin-based booker, Leo Faerberboeck, is starting a new label called TILT in partnership with the club.

The imprint has its roots in hip-hop just as much as it does techno, and it’s providing a crucial platform for artists to present electronic music without aesthetic constraint. The first EP, 070717—a reference to last year’s G20 summit that was held just behind the club—is coming from the label boss himself under the moniker Faerber.

He told us that he already has a more few heavy-hitting releases stacked up for the future. We sat down with him to find out more.

YouTube

By loading the video, you agree to YouTube's privacy policy.
Learn more

Load video

What was the idea behind starting TILT?

I’m doing the bookings for PAL. We had the idea of doing a label for a long time, although it took some time to develop the idea. The whole concept—including the first single—was actually ready last summer, but then we had some struggles since the G20 summit was held just behind the building. We had four months of heavy police presence in front of the club while this was happening, and people stopped wanting to come. So we didn’t really have a lot of money, and we had a lot of issues to solve before we started the label.

A few months ago, I had the idea to present the idea to my friend Shiran, so now we’re doing the label between us and one other person. I would like to point out, though, that the label shouldn’t be seen as only the club’s label.

So TILT isn’t going to be a “Hamburg” label?

No, not at all.

Is TILT a platform for the artists associated with the club?

It’s a mixture. But it’s a platform for music that fits our tastes. It’s not necessarily a techno label or a house label, but a label that represents a certain sound aesthetic. In my case, I listen to a lot more hip-hop than techno, even though I’m a techno DJ. I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but I could see us releasing a hip-hop record at some stage.

What’s more important than the genre is the style, which needs to have a certain roughness, an edge. I don’t like music that’s too clean. This could be a rhythm, though, as much as it could be a sound. Some very well-produced music still feels very rough, in a way.

By loading the content from Soundcloud, you agree to Soundcloud's privacy policy.
Learn more

Load content

How are you presenting the first record? Is there a release party?

We have a release party on September 1 at PAL with Henning Baer, myself and two guys from the label—Tecture and Pineal Navigation.

Can you tell me some more about those guys?

Tecture is a young guy from Berlin who has a super advanced sound. He’s a real musical mind, a proper nerd about finding the right sound. He thinks before he acts. Niall, the guy behind Pineal Navigation, is the exact opposite! He has a rougher, more ’90’s sound which I really enjoy. I guess you could say the music I DJ represents both of those ideas, and that’s something I really want to show with the label. There’s going to be all kinds of stuff being represented as long as it feels right.

So these guys have releases coming up on the label?

Yes, the second release is from Tecture and the third from Pineal Navigation. There will also be some guest releases—maybe every fourth of fifth release—by slightly bigger artists. We don’t want to just get big names in for remixes on the first EP, because otherwise it will overshadow the other artists. I want the label to have its own sound, its own artists and feeling. That being said, I don’t want to exclude anybody. I’m just not a fan of remix EPs.

Is TILT always going to be a singles label?

Well, I don’t want to talk about big things that are coming that aren’t yet confirmed. At some stage I’m sure we will think about releasing an album, but first we need to build a foundation. And that foundation is to release singles.

To find out more about the TILT release party on September 1, visit the event page here.

Published August 24, 2018.