We welcome Dark Arps, Savaggio and Kostiya!

We are releasing our first ep with the artist collective Dark Arps, Savaggio and Kostiya, which might not mean much to you, but every single artist has been active in the Vancouver electronic scene and beyond. They have spread their music in cities from Berlin to New York to Hong Kong to build up an international reputation.

Jo Bierman runs under the name of Dark Arps when it come to music. The 40-year-old British/Canadian living in Vancouver, BC is a media production generalist and technical artist with a very broad skill set, deeply immersed in the style and aesthetic of futuristic electronic music. He can tackle almost anything related to audiovisual production, compositing, animated graphic design, 3D modeling and PBR rendering and much more. Throughout the 2000’s he spent eight years producing, engineering, touring and performing with one of the UK’s first truly live DnB-breakbeat acts, Keiretsu, rocking dance floors all across Britain, from Edinburgh to Brighton. As Dark Arps, he is known for his dynamic and exciting dj and live sets often eccentric and wild. Apart from this he has released in various constellation on various labels. The second member is Moscow-born, Hong Kong-raised producer DJ Kostiya. He kicked off his career in Vancouver, Canada. He is renown for his versatile palette of sounds, spanning from deep tech to melodic house. With releases on labels like Magician On Duty, Random Collective and appearances alongside industry heavyweights like Matthias Meyer and Edu Imbernon, he's been moving floors internationally for 8 years now. Lately he has been gaining traction in and around South East Asia, namely in Hong Kong, where he is pushing quality sound at various venues and his own parties hosted under his label Beatsolow.

The third member is Toni Savaggio. The nomad. The wandering minstrel. He brings strings from the deeps to the floor. He started in Berlin where he performed at Kater Blau, Ritter Butzke and continued to spread his music in various countries. He now lives in Cornwall. Toni’s sounds were hosted on labels like Magician On Duty, Suprematic, ThreeRecords, Submarine Vibes, Suckmusic and Natura Viva.

This release takes us away from the comfort zone we have established on Traum. But be sure our comfort zone always, has cracks through which we look into another world, smaller ones and bigger ones. Dark Arp, Savaggio and Kostiya belong to the second category. The Canadian collective works with improvisation of analog gear that creates a field of energy in which everything is possible. So expect the unexpected. Their music features beautiful moments but you have to be patient but we swear it is worthwhile. This is rocking music with lot of flavor in the process. Sure passages have to be crossed and danger sites passed in order to get the beautiful melody and deep moments. This is music for travelers, for people that know life is an ongoing process that never ends.


The ep opens with a track called "April" recorded and played by Dark Arps in a Savaggio mix. This is definitely one of the deepest tracks with a slow motion feeling and a lot of continuation and passage in which the track collects the energy to then spit it out in funky sequences.


The second track "Stumbling" is by Dark Arps and is from the start a funky groove monster with notes flying free like sparks of a log fire. The track is in constant motion only to keep you going on the dance floor and the weird sounds in the background are up to your fantasy what you make out of them. This is maybe what we would call a classic Dark Arps track as he could play this live at any party.


The Kostiya remix of "Stumbling" is more mild, atmospheric and coherent and placed a comfort zone in the center.


"Tambalea Ornata" was recorded by all three of them and takes its place in the world of deep, spiritual slow beat music with very deep moments that have some very nice mood changes showing altogether greatness.


"Staggering" is a deep, percussive slow beat piece of music featuring the violin of Savaggio who is famous for his violin playing in combination with electronic music. This is a moody affair and feels like a hallucination or rather a trip while constantly changing its appearance.




Release Date:                                                                 20. October 2023