Berlin techno label Killekill has carved out a unique space for themselves in a city filled to the brim with techno crews and labels. While offering their own take on club-ready and left-field fare, Killekill has curated a roster of artists as versatile as they are experimental. After five years and 25 releases, Killekill just announced a 3xLP, 12-track "jubilee compilation," entitled Megahits II, featuring faces new and old to the label. Along with their core roster of DJs and producers, like Cassegrain & Tin Man, Lakker, Eomac and Umwelt, Killekill is also home to the video-art duo of Kevin Paschold and Sebastian Kökow, aka the29nov films. The two have been knocking around Berlin for some time now, effectively rising to become the go-to techno music video producers in the city.Primarily using found footage, heavily treated with effects, the duo try to capture the essence of the music while delivering a compelling, and reflective visual representation of the sounds. Grayscale and looping techno tracks get a whole new life once the29nov films has their way with them—their finished videos often bursting with color, the stuttering animations and reimaginations of old films seem to mesh precisely with the music they accompany. For the Killekill compilation, London-based producer Bintus knocked out "Re-clocking Knob," a 140bpm apocalyptic slice acid-drenched techno, and the29nov films matched the energy with a frenetic clip from an old film. Faces blend together, and nothing remains static, instilling the same sense of urgency and anxiety as the track itself.THUMP got in touch with the29nov films, and Killekill label head Nico Deuster to ask them about the future of the label after Megahits II, and how the29nov connects the music to the stories they tell in their videos. Check out the exclusive premiere of "Re-clocking Knob" here, and read the interview below.THUMP: What's the significance of this compilation for both the history and future of Killekill? In terms of both the artists selected and the musical taste?
Nico Deuster: With the Megahits II, the focus is a bit more on the future. First of all, the Killekill project developed from a weekly residency in a Berlin club into much more: we do a lot of events in all sorts of clubs, we run several labels, one big Berlin festival and a booking agency, and after having a lot of funny conversations with random people I have the impression it's getting confusing for people what we actually stand for. So we will now start a whole line of new labels. One for conceptual stuff like albums etc, where the label identity steps into the background. This gives us the opportunity to treat the specific projects more suitably. For example we can then pick a format and artwork that really works best for a release and don't have to match it with any label identity or so. Umwelt and the Detroit Grand Pubahs with their Bottom Feeders alias will be the first artists releasing there. Second, we will have a label exclusively for club tracks which will still be in the daring, left-field Killekill style, but with a clear focus on the dancefloor. This new structure will also give us the opportunity to release more music from more artists. With our own growth our family of artists also has grown immensely and we simply couldn't squeeze them all on one label without getting more and more confusing.**How do you see **the29nov films's work integrating with the vision and aesthetics of the label, both through their videos online and the live presentations of their work?
The29nov films is one of the coolest projects I know. There are so many people around those days whose main focus is on how to become famous. They develop strategies, marketing concepts, contact agencies before they ever created anything of any relevance. And these two guys are the exact opposite: they absolutely love music and have nothing but an urge to create. Most of their videos are not done after getting a call from the labels or artists, but mostly they just pick tracks they like, create videos for them and upload them to their channels. I wouldn't necessarily say it matched with our aesthetics when we started, but the punk approach behind it is very similar to ours. Also they are party animals and it's fun to hang out with them. I would say they have at least partly defined the aesthetics of our label with their very specific visual reinterpretation of our music which was so fitting I was shocked when I saw it. For example when I sent them a track of Affie Yusuf, and they sent back a video using scenes from Beat Street with all breakdancers and hip hop references in it without knowing that Affie used to be a writer and breakdancer before turning to house music.Techno music doesn't necessarily lend itself to be represented through traditional "music videos," what is the advantage of creating these visuals to go along with the tracks?
It's the pleasure of creativity why we do it. It's a great feeling to create all this! To select music, to give it a suitable visual outfit, to get positive feedback to it and see it work. All that! It's just another dimension to what we already do. And of course it raises our visibility as well.How did you go about selecting the visuals to go with the Bintus track "Re-clocking Knob" for the compilation? What was the connection you felt between the music and the story in the video?
Sebastian Kökow: Sometimes I select the visuals in reference to the name, sometimes by the look of the cover artwork, or simply by the aesthetics of the sound. For the track "Re-clocking Knob" by Bintus I used the visuals with 20 times the speed. It was the acid sound and the wackiness that inspired me in this one. The story of the film material is sometimes very important. Most of the times a track inspires me to look for certain content in the film that matches the atmosphere of the track. Other times it's more the aesthetics of the film that is important. Mostly I go along with my first impulse and intuitive connection with the track.
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Nico Deuster: With the Megahits II, the focus is a bit more on the future. First of all, the Killekill project developed from a weekly residency in a Berlin club into much more: we do a lot of events in all sorts of clubs, we run several labels, one big Berlin festival and a booking agency, and after having a lot of funny conversations with random people I have the impression it's getting confusing for people what we actually stand for. So we will now start a whole line of new labels. One for conceptual stuff like albums etc, where the label identity steps into the background. This gives us the opportunity to treat the specific projects more suitably. For example we can then pick a format and artwork that really works best for a release and don't have to match it with any label identity or so. Umwelt and the Detroit Grand Pubahs with their Bottom Feeders alias will be the first artists releasing there. Second, we will have a label exclusively for club tracks which will still be in the daring, left-field Killekill style, but with a clear focus on the dancefloor. This new structure will also give us the opportunity to release more music from more artists. With our own growth our family of artists also has grown immensely and we simply couldn't squeeze them all on one label without getting more and more confusing.**How do you see **the29nov films's work integrating with the vision and aesthetics of the label, both through their videos online and the live presentations of their work?
The29nov films is one of the coolest projects I know. There are so many people around those days whose main focus is on how to become famous. They develop strategies, marketing concepts, contact agencies before they ever created anything of any relevance. And these two guys are the exact opposite: they absolutely love music and have nothing but an urge to create. Most of their videos are not done after getting a call from the labels or artists, but mostly they just pick tracks they like, create videos for them and upload them to their channels. I wouldn't necessarily say it matched with our aesthetics when we started, but the punk approach behind it is very similar to ours. Also they are party animals and it's fun to hang out with them. I would say they have at least partly defined the aesthetics of our label with their very specific visual reinterpretation of our music which was so fitting I was shocked when I saw it. For example when I sent them a track of Affie Yusuf, and they sent back a video using scenes from Beat Street with all breakdancers and hip hop references in it without knowing that Affie used to be a writer and breakdancer before turning to house music.Techno music doesn't necessarily lend itself to be represented through traditional "music videos," what is the advantage of creating these visuals to go along with the tracks?
It's the pleasure of creativity why we do it. It's a great feeling to create all this! To select music, to give it a suitable visual outfit, to get positive feedback to it and see it work. All that! It's just another dimension to what we already do. And of course it raises our visibility as well.How did you go about selecting the visuals to go with the Bintus track "Re-clocking Knob" for the compilation? What was the connection you felt between the music and the story in the video?
Sebastian Kökow: Sometimes I select the visuals in reference to the name, sometimes by the look of the cover artwork, or simply by the aesthetics of the sound. For the track "Re-clocking Knob" by Bintus I used the visuals with 20 times the speed. It was the acid sound and the wackiness that inspired me in this one. The story of the film material is sometimes very important. Most of the times a track inspires me to look for certain content in the film that matches the atmosphere of the track. Other times it's more the aesthetics of the film that is important. Mostly I go along with my first impulse and intuitive connection with the track.