Christian Löffler

Electronic/techno producer Christian Löffler specializes in emotive, melancholic music that feels isolated yet strangely relatable. He co-founded Ki Records and began releasing melodic techno EPs in 2009, making his full-length debut with 2012′s A Forest. He incorporated more acoustic instrumentation and vocals on subsequent albums like Mare (2016) and Lys (2020), and merged techno with modern classical on 2021′s Parallel: Shellac Reworks. He refined his sound with 2024′s A Life, which contains some of his most immediate, accessible material. Löffler started taking an interest in music at age 14, although instead of picking up a guitar, as his friends did, he dove straight into programming and arranging music on his computer. A lot of his sound takes its flavor of the area he was brought up in, and where he spends most of his time: the Darß peninsula in Germany. Inside his relatively isolated studio, Löffler taught himself to use a variety of programs and instruments, as well as develop his photography skills and collect a huge sound bank of field recordings. For the most part, Löffler created music simply because he enjoyed expressing himself. That all changed in 2008 when a long-time friend approached him with the idea of starting a label. Together they founded Ki Records, launching it with Löffler’s debut EP, Heights. Löffler would continue to release an EP on his own label on an almost annual basis; a notable exception was made in 2015 when he released the New York EP on U.K.-based label 20:20 Vision. Löffler also released his debut album on Ki Records, 2012′s A Forest, which featured Danish singer Gry Bagøien and German singer Mohna, the latter of whom would regularly join Löffler when he played live. His second full-length album, Mare, followed in 2016, and took a more organic approach, featuring more self-recorded instruments and field recordings instead of the sample-based approach he took on his debut. Mare (Club Mixes) and Mare Reworks both appeared in 2017, and the mini-album Graal (Prologue) arrived in 2019. The wintry full-length Lys was issued in 2020, followed by the heavily streamed non-album track “Ronda.” Parallels: Shellac Reworks, featuring interpretations of pieces by classical composers including Beethoven and Chopin, was released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2021. Löffler returned to Ki Records with his 2022 single “Solo,” which was followed by “Fjäll” (featuring Fejká) and “New Fires” (with Henry Green). Several more refined, accessible tracks arrived, including 2023′s “Envy” (with Mogli) and 2024′s “Ease,” preceding the full-length A Life. ~ Liam Martin & Paul Simpson