Darwin

Among the countless DJ figures that inhabit Berlin, few have shifted the city’s centre of gravity quite like Darwin since her arrival in the early 2010s. Shaped by London’s club ecosystem, she stands as one of the faces that brought UK bass and dubstep to the capital town of techno, right up to Berghain’s four-four temple. If such a move deserved official honours, the Canadian DJ instead settled for becoming a defining reference point for broken rhythms and soundsystem logic worldwide.

Through her SPE:C and Biofield labels, alongside the long-running REEF and ABYSS parties, Darwin has persistently opened space for bass mutations to breathe inside techno territory, favouring restraint, low-slung propulsion and a sci-fi austerity over easy catharsis. Always festive, never cartoonish, her approach treats bass music less as a spectacle than as a shared, embodied condition: felt in the chest, absorbed over time, and remembered long after the room empties.