Dial

Have you ever had the feeling that a track speaks so well to your soul and your heart that it is actually you, yourself, translated in a musical language? That's exactly what I feel with a lot of creations coming from Dial. "The Absence Of Blight" (2003), "Diamond Daze" (2004), "The Night Will Last Forever" (2005), "This Bliss" (2007) and "Pawel" (2010) are my five most beloved albums coming from this haunting and poetic society, where mystery, delicacy, romance and innocence are brewed in a timeless aesthetics. Gathering the best from the past while making a constant cutting-edge effort, Dial's timeless mood is powered by a forward-thinking way to build and design music with the clicky, reduced, and computerish sound revolution of early 2000s, but also by all the lo-fi, the dirt and the dust making the label's singularity. Note that everything here is sublimated thanks to a solid and beautiful graphic design that wraps nearly all releases.

Quiet might. Broody light. Dusty purity. Realistic daydream. Cold romance. Cutting-edge classic [...] I could use many other paradoxes to describe Dial. Indeed, its unicity lies here : its skills with contrasts and chiaroscuro are particularly magnificent. Dial is a precise balance powered by a classic (in its most noble definition) good-taste.

These five creations (see above) being litteraly as precious as litterature can be, they are proudly standing in my favourite old wooden bookcase, between Poe, Shakespeare or Novalis. Yes, note how important these CDs are for me.

Without any doubt my most beloved label.

nota bene : "St Denis Bei Licht" by Pantha Du Prince (included in "Diamond Daze") is my absolute favourite 4/4 electronic track of all time. Words are not enough to express how I adore it. If you know nothing about the label and would like to listen to a track to discover a mirror of its usual mood (and a gem made of beautiful contrasts), listen to this one. If you like it, you'll can't get enough of Dial.

nota bene 2 : The label is mainly known for its alternativ 4/4 music, but there's a lot of non-dance music poets here as well. I especially underline Phantom/Ghost in my case. Everything Dirk Von Lowtzow touches seems to be perfection.

nota bene 3 : and, finally, I would also like to hail the photographies made by Anna Möller, used in some Dial's cover arts in the 2000s. This fantastic foggy work helped the music to reach a level of unequalled splendour.

good music, but too few pressings. ya'll should repress roman flugel- sliced africa

Dial is deep techno for flowers.
From the music to the artworks, the global aesthetics of this label is higher than most of electronic music labels. Special respect to Pantha Du Prince, Lawrence and Pawel, my favourite horses of the team, with their exceptional sense of the subtle melody making gentle love to precise rhythmics.
Dial is elegant, Dial is contemplativ, Dial is romantic.

I've always had a soft spot for Dial ever since I got caught into the dark grooves of those early releases by Carsten Jost and Sten, who are both founders of this amazing label.

The usual formula they used at this time was to basically take a set of dark atmospheric pads or strings and mix it with a bunch of simple beats and a very strong bass line, while keeping the whole thing as minimal as possible. Worked great every single time!

If you're into minimal techno with a strong emphasis on melody, I couldn't recommend you more to check these early releases (up to 2003) and why not have a look on the more recent output, because Dial has definitely managed to keep its quality pretty high.

Top quality productions over the years, you can find the best between hypnotic minimal techno, minimal dub, tech house, IDM, and ambient, for homelistening and club. Today DIAL is one of my favourite labels. So if you want to collect all releases of a label completely, you can choose DIAL. Especially my respect to Lawrence, Efdemin, Pawel and Carsten Jost for their productions over the last months. And if you still think Dial would be a label for home-listening, check the last releases with more floor-orientation.