Berlin’s relationship with its industrial landscape is foundational. The city’s clubbing heritage is practically written into its concrete, and for a long time, the music has matched that austerity. But recently, adifferent kind of energy has been building around the city and beyond. Without trying to replace the monochromatic grit we all love from German grounds, the Polyamor crew has emerged with something else in mind.
Rising through the post-pandemic haze, Polyamor is the brainchild of producers Mika Heggemann and Jonas Purrucker. Despite a name that might suggest certain relationship dynamics, the idea here seems to point toward something broader: a sonic openness to inclusivity, across genres, moods, people, and whatever else the word can stretch into. They’ve effectively carved out a colourful niche in Germany’s newer rave landscape, now packing rooms around the world with a sound that is unapologetically fast, bouncy, and, for lack of a better word, alive.
To paint a brief picture, when a Polyamor takeover lands in a space, like RSO or OST, it takes the bones of whatever setting it finds (industrial warehouse or open-air spot on the beach, tends to vary) and rewires the atmosphere inside into something of a tongue-in-cheek attitude. The Y2K aesthetic they’ve been championing — Oakley frames, vintage jerseys, and a general obsession with early-2000s sportswear — seems to be a logical extension of the underground rather than a departure from it.
The sound they move through sits on a similar line, finding that high-tempo register shaped by hardgroove foundations, but constantly pulled outward into traces of trance, eurodance, and rave nostalgia. Having built their language with a candid touch, they’re greeting names DJ Swisherman, Aerea, Øtta, Serafina, MCR-T, Fumi and the likes, contributing to an impossibly contagious energy.
Along the way, they’ve been linking up with more artists and crews across the arena, pulling in different corners of the scene without losing their own identity. With further collaborations in the works and a steady run of events coming up (on the 13th May in Nuremberg, you can catch Mika Heggemann doing his thing), their presence is becoming harder to miss across it all — and it seems like they’re not about to slow down anytime soon.
