Berlin After Dark
A conversation on survival, sound, and the spaces between
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Ben Klock with Lucas Stein
Ben Klock's second appearance in our interview series comes at a moment of transition. After nearly two decades as a Berghain resident, he has been spending more time in the studio, working on material that he describes as the most personal of his career. The sets are getting longer, the records are getting stranger, and the man himself seems, if anything, more focused than ever.
This conversation took place over two sessions — the first in Berlin, the second via video call from a studio in an undisclosed location where he was finishing a record he has been working on for three years. He is not in a hurry. He never has been.
What emerges from these conversations is a portrait of an artist who has found a way to remain genuinely curious after decades of work. He talks about music the way a scientist talks about a problem they have not yet solved — with a combination of frustration and excitement that suggests the work is still alive for him in a way that it is not for many of his contemporaries.
The Berghain residency, which has defined his public identity for so long, comes up only obliquely. He is more interested in talking about the records he is listening to, the synthesizers he has been experimenting with, the structural questions he is trying to answer in the studio. The club is a context, not a destination. The music is the thing.
Every record I make starts with a question I can't answer. The production process is just me trying to find the answer in sound.
- Ben Klock
In Conversation
I usually start with a rhythm — not a full drum pattern, just a single element. A kick, or a hi-hat, or a piece of noise. I let that loop for a long time, sometimes hours, until I understand what it wants to become. The rhythm tells me everything else.
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