I will always remember the first techno record I got—it was Techno Grooves – Mach 3 by R. El Lungo. I got it as a present from Dutch DJs who were traveling Lithuania just after the fall of the iron curtain in 1992 or so. They met us, mostly 17-19 year olds, totally crazy about electronic dance music, hungry for the sound of the future.
The story continues in my hometown Klaipėda, at least 30 years ago. I was 20 years old back then—you can calculate easily how old I am. I would travel to Berlin every year, and from my explorations I would bring back souvenirs, important artifacts of techno culture—records. We couldn’t afford synthesizers but we could afford some records, not enough for DJing but enough for inspiration. Sounds of Berlin, Detroit, Chicago, Sheffield, Rotterdam and many other important cities of techno culture. We would be listening to those records and CDs on repeat in the studio, trying to recreate the sounds, trying to make our own sound.
Sometimes I would bring a demo cassette and later a recorded CD that I would hand to some label or a DJ. I remember when I found out that one of the originators of techno music, Juan Atkins, was supposed to play at Tresor club. I arrived early and asked if I could leave something for Mr. Atkins. The confused security brought me backstage where some young DJs were hanging out. I told them I had a cassette tape for Mr. Atkins. They looked surprised, amused. After a moment, one asked: “Would you like to give it to him yourself when he arrives?” I said, “Oh no, I can’t stay. I have no time.” They laughed. The truth was—I was terrified. The club looked scary, the people looked scary. And how would I even get home that late?
We would dream about a day where suddenly a miracle happens and we would be discovered by a Western label, when our music would finally be heard by the people beyond our country. I would imagine coming to a club in Berlin and suddenly hearing our track, and coming to the DJ and saying—I made it! (That actually happened for real in 2022, when a French DJ played a track by Exem at Arkaoda club. Do you think I did what I wanted back in the 90s? Of course! The guy was shocked. You don’t expect an author of an obscure Eastern European 90s track to pop up in front of you just after you drop it.)
The reality was that nothing happened. No record scout ever emerged. All our demos would dissipate into the void.
We kept on working, recording albums, producing other artists. We became known and respected in the small pond of the Lithuanian music scene, and that was it. At the turn of the century I moved to Berlin. My colleague Cross continued with producing and occasional media jobs in Lithuania.
I gave up on music, went into technology, IT. Never forgot about my dreams though, just put them aside. Some years later when Eric Wahlforss asked me if I wanted to join a startup to help musicians share their music better, I immediately said yes. I mean, it made sense to me—someone in Indonesia or Bulgaria could make a track and just send it to another DJ or producer somewhere else, in New York or Berlin? This was what we dreamed about back in 1995!
Here’s the thing though—I was helping build the tool I wished I’d had, but by then I’d already given up on my own music. SoundCloud succeeded in opening up the world for young musicians, and I was genuinely happy for them. But I was also, to be honest, a bit envious. They could reach the people they wanted and more. The world was finally open—just a decade too late for us.
At some point electronic music started coming back into my life. Not only as memory, but more like therapy, inspiration, daily and weekly practice. Some of those findings and ideas I compiled into a book called The Joy of Electronic Music—maybe some of you have encountered it somewhere.
Fast forward to 2023. Some former fans of ours, nowadays known promoters in Lithuania, decided to re-release our old album on vinyl. I was presenting it in Lithuania, and afterwards I met with Artūras, one of the designers of my book, at a café in Kaunas. We started talking—is this the time maybe to publish more music ourselves? Not just from the 90s but from today? Make new records?
I think it’s important to say that records mean something different now. It’s not about access—you can hear anything instantly. What’s missing is weight, permanence. When you remove your AirPods, does the music still exist? A vinyl record says: this matters enough to exist as a physical object, to take up space in your life.
The concept was born in that café. Vinyl records, 5-7 tracks on a record. Cover art by real artists. Preferably by Lithuanian artists, women. At first I thought it was just for my music, as I have hundreds of unreleased tracks, and they’re not getting fewer. What I surprisingly found out later was that so many other producers and musicians have archives of tracks just lying on hard drives, waiting to be heard, but no one was asking them to. Quality music, really good stuff, not just for the moment. So the concept evolved.
We left that café excited, energized. I didn’t know yet how much time we would need. It would take me six months just to come up with the name for the label alone. Dangė—it was the name of a river in Klaipėda where I used to play as a child. The river was renamed to Danė back in 1990, but Dangė remained in my memory, carrying something from before, something that once flowed through my hometown and through me.
I discovered the music of Viktoras—Teatre—during preparations for a radio show at Refuge Worldwide. I was looking for new Lithuanian producers and suddenly these majestic, melancholic soundscapes emerged. My first impression was—if I were 25 today, this is probably who I would want to sound like. It was like Exem reincarnated today in some sense (even if I don’t know if Viktoras is comfortable with that comparison). It is music of cities at night, dark waters, office lights. After listening to the album so many times, it has imprinted in my memory as the sound of those moments around us.
The album is here, digitally out since a few weeks. The vinyl is being packed at the factory today—sadly too late to be delivered tonight, but coming to pre-orders early next week.
Today we are presenting the first release from Dangė—Overtime by Teatre.
Thank you reading. Please order the record on Bandcamp if you like the music and the idea behind Dangė Records. Get in touch with us via Instagram or email at info@dange-records.com. More to come next year!