Reka Zalan
DJ | Producer | Promoter | Hard Wax Staff
Record shops are both a blessing and a curse. As a blessing, you can go in and spend hours looking through the store’s selection and find a plethora of old and new releases by artists from all over the world. You can make friends with the person working behind the counter. You can meet like-minded heads having a browse in the shop. It’s a curse when you spend far too much money than intended, or leave the store with a sense of regret for not caving in to that €200 Woody McBride and Freddie Fresh 12”.
Reka Zalan works in Hardwax, the prolific record store in Kreuzberg, Berlin and it’s here that she has met all kinds of vinyl collectors, DJs, producers and music lovers. Working in a record store can be monotonous at times - the hours are long, you’re on your feet all day, and there’s usually a tedious filing system to stay on top of. None of this fazes Reka who has been working in the store for 1.5 years now, building up a considerable vinyl collection along the way.
Initially strongly influenced by the sub and club culture scene in Bremen, the environment ‘where it all started’, Reka found her way into the local club scene after moving to the capital, where she built up a network over the years and became more visible as an artist. DJing on the Berlin circuit, Reka earned a residency first at Mensch Meier's former Kurz vor Weißensee series and later at ://about blank's ://elements, an in-house format which she runs with fellow DJ THNTS and friend Marc. Outside of ://about blank, she has also played Tresor, Zur Klappe or Institut für Zukunft (IFZ) in Leipzig to name a few. Besides that, she has enjoyed a few international appearances in Georgia, Poland, Belgium and Kosovo.
Reka’s sound is a palpable blend of cosmic and driving Techno which she pulls off with precision, luring her listeners further down the rabbit hole and allowing her to share line-ups with Ancient Methods, Adiel, Introversion and more.
Off the dancefloor, Reka is heavily involved behind the scenes of Berlin’s club culture. After three inspiring years working at the Berlin Music Commission, Reka decided to focus more on her club activities and in 2018, Reka joined the booking team of ://about blank where manages external promoters and events. Along with her colleagues, Reka approves line-ups and ensures a balanced gender quota throughout every bill, but for now, Reka’s work is based in Hardwax while the space remains shut for the rest of the year.
Reka is one of the lucky ones who has retained her job throughout the pandemic. While this year has been challenging, she has remained active as an artist with streams on HÖR, BE-AT.TV, Monument and gigs in ://about blank’s outdoor space - ://about sektgarten. The below memory comes from her workplace, a place very close to heart, and she also shares how her connection to music remains intact at the moment...
Photo: Amelie Geyer
Where was this photo taken and why did you choose it?
The photo was recently taken in the record store Hard Wax (Kreuzberg) where I've been working since last year. I especially like it because it’s an unstaged natural snapshot where I'm digging through the news section. Besides the fact that this place is a very inspiring environment itself, working at the store has also given me a lot of support and stability in this crisis-ridden year, since my other jobs (booking and co-hosting at :// about blank and DJing) were suddenly put on hold.
How have you been over the last few months and what is life currently like in Berlin?
I myself - like most people I suppose - have personally and professionally gone through various processes in the last months. The whole year was obviously intense on so many levels - not only the fact that we’re living through a pandemic, but also the many outrageous political events that had been taken place all over the world. People are hopefully now altogether more alert to educate and to work proactively on themselves (including me), to critically question existing structures and to create conditions to help shaping a more diverse scene and being mindful with each other.
I think that here in Berlin we have experienced a very mild version of the lockdown and the Corona crisis in general. New platforms, formats and models of coming together and sharing have emerged; a certain energy and cohesion has developed to make the best of the current circumstances. This hopefully helps to get back even stronger, to create new practices and adapt them to the changed normality.
You're currently a resident of the ://elements event series at ://about blank. What's been going on at the club over the summer and do you have any plans for the event to take place in winter - now that there are so many new rules because of Covid?
After celebrating ://about blank's tenth birthday digitally in April, the collective was working on replacement formats and bridging strategies for the summer, in order to stay in touch with the club’s community and to keep ://about blank as the sociocultural and political place that it is.
On the one hand, ://about sektgarten was established, where people could swing by for a drink from Friday to Sunday and hang out in our wonderful garden paradise under consideration of the hygiene rules and accompanied by a diverse musical program of DJ/ live sets or small concerts provided by befriended crews, artists and Blank Residents. In addition there were lovely collaborations with close people from our network hosting outdoor performances, small exhibitions, lectures, panel discussions, workshops or the annual open-air cinema.
On the other hand, the so-called ‘autonomous summer blank’ has been set up, a self-managed DIY structure that could use our outdoor space during the week for the summer months. Here, for example, small groups from politics, music, art and culture would come together and use the garden as a meeting place for joint projects or plenary sessions.
Within the scope of ://elements, the three of us - Basti, Marc and myself - took things slowly after our plans for this year were put on hold, including a very special project that we had planned for our third anniversary in November. In any case we had a lovely time curating a Sunday at Sektgarten in July and being together at Tarmac Festival where Basti aka THNTS and myself played under our B2B alias No Life Signal. We’ve got no certain plans for winter now but continue our podcast series, stay connected to our network / community and reflect on how a modified ://elements concept in 2021 could look like.
Additionally I‘m very excited to mention that in the meantime I‘ve also become an ://about blank resident, which had a slightly unfortunate timing in spring. However, we’re all extremely motivated to tackle any obstacles laying ahead of us and continue to come up with creative and safe solutions for a possible future of club culture.
What about your connection to music, especially techno - has your connection to the genre remained the same this year or have you extended your collection with more downtempo records or completely different genres?
Exploring electronic music is of huge importance to me, a process that is constantly evolving. I always come across new artists and sound directions that inspire me and shape my own sound in some way. Although my sets are very much influenced by deep, trippy techno, I also do love its more fast-paced, groovier and toolier sides or the rather stepping, industrial-tinged spheres. In the last months I've been engaging more intensely with my love for UK Bass and Breaks, discovered my interest for New/Dark Wave-infused Electro (check L.F.T.’s album on Osàre!) and some experimental stuff like the rhythm compositions of Mohammad Reza Mortazavi.
Besides that I enjoy coming across new artists through the likes of HÖR where I appreciate their afford to make more female* artists and the LGBTQIA+ / BIPoC community visible in the electronic music scene.
I’ve also finally started to engage a little with producing music myself although I‘m in its very early stages and still have a lot to learn.
As an artist, how do you feel about the future at the moment?
Right now I just try to be patient and confident as much as possible. I think my own process of coming to terms with who I am as a DJ, where I am right now, where I see myself in the future and what I identify with, started before Corona and is still in full swing - I try to find out what I actually want and what is possible within the current situation.
On a meta-level, I‘m worried that club culture could become very exclusive due to limited capacities and ticket prices. I hope that somehow positive structural changes will take place in the scene, that newcomers, locals and FLINT/BIPoC/queer DJs will be booked more often and that headliner booking fees will not become even higher but rather more modest again.
What has been a source of calm or comfort for you throughout 2020 so far?
I always say: humour is the most important resource in (my) life 😊…but independently of this, I’m embedded in a loving network of friends for which I‘m very grateful and which makes it easier to endure challenging phases.
All in all, a more decelerated lifestyle, going jogging (which I hadn’t overcome myself to do for sooo long), using the time for small renovation works in my apartment, enjoying vitamin boosts of my new juicer and finding opportunities to relax - be it playing or listening to music and conversation podcasts or watching series - it all has been very good for me. Also the fact that I’m still having an enriching job and some kind of structure during the week means a lot to me.
Listen to Reka’s latest mix on HÖR here and follow her below: