Niklas Wandt is a drummer/percussionist, producer and DJ living in Berlin. Originally from a diverse self-taught background of Free Jazz, Rap and Psychedelic Rock and matured at Düsseldorf's Salon des Amateurs, he pushed more and more into electronic territory as part of two surprisingly well-received releases in 2018. One is Wolf Müller & Niklas Wandt’s “Instrumentalmusik von der Mitte der World” (on Basso’s Growing Bin Records), a contemporary fusion of dub, organic percussion, New Age vibes and Italo House infused with just a mild goofiness, perceived by many (not only by us here at lodown) as album of the year 2018.

The other is the debut seven inch of his German Wave duo Neuzeitliche Bodenbeläge (Themes For Great Cities).

On top of new EP of the latter band due in March 2019, Niklas has already kickstarted 2019 with a collaborative release with Sascha Funke on Multi Culti. More releases lined up this year include collaborative efforts with Cass., Alek Lee and Kris Baha.

As an instrumentalist on the drum-set, congas, frame-drum and more, Niklas feels strong ties to his roots in Jazz and Fusion as well as to Middle Eastern and West African drumming. Improvising within the archetypal framework of tension and release, Niklas explores the slow variations of a musical sequence from scratch to catharsis, from the barely audible to the hard-hitting. Gongs, bells and random everyday objects frequently become preparations on skin and metal and produce a haunting ghost vocabulary of wonks, wails and drones.

A Niklas Wandt DJ set reflects his diversity of interests with as little care for genre and imposed boundaries as possible. Fringe dance musics from percussion and library records, spiritual jazz, Balearic pop, pumping Wave and Industrial, far out Tribal House and Kosmische synth excursions dubbed and blended in a natural flow. Don’t expect dead-serious four-to-the-floor. Stretches of hypnotic repetition easily detour and resolve into mildly goofy moments to make you smile. So does his Monday Mixtape contribution.

Follow Niklas on Soundcloud 

and Wolf Müller & Niklas Wandt on Facebook

pic by Jan Schulte