Berlin has a sound that doesn’t get talked about enough. Not the techno the city built its reputation on, but something looser and warmer — house and disco made by people who grew up on jazz records and still think the Rhodes piano is the greatest instrument ever put in a studio. That’s Toy Tonics.
Founded by Mathias Modica, the label has spent over a decade doing things the hard way: live bass, real chord progressions, musicians in the room together. No samples, no shortcuts. The sound pulls from American house, Balearic vibes, Italo disco, New York punk funk — but what ties it all together is musicianship. These are DJs who are also players, producers who understand that the best dance records feel the way they do because a human being was feeling something when they made them. Moodymann has opened his sets with Toy Tonics tracks. DJ Harvey spent a whole summer playing their records. That kind of co-sign doesn’t come from anywhere but the music itself.
The label releases one EP a month and has built an extended family of artists across Berlin, London, Paris, and beyond. But just as important as the records are the parties. The Toy Tonics Jams started small in Berlin and have since sold out Phonox and Jazz Café in London, Badaboum in Paris, Nitsa in Barcelona and Apollo in Milan. They are not club nights in the conventional sense. They move — through disco, soul, funk, and house — and they don’t stop moving. The crowd always knows it.
Alongside them are two names firmly embedded in the Toy Tonics world. Arpy Brown is a producer and multi-instrumentalist based between Berlin and London — the kind of DJ whose sets feel like they’re being written in real time, pulling from house, soul, and indie with an ease that only comes from years of actually playing instruments. Gee Lane grew up in Caracas, fell in love with house music in New York at the Body & Soul parties, and has spent the last two decades digging records everywhere in between. Based in Barcelona now, she plays with an eclecticism and a warmth that DJ Mag recognised well — naming her one of eight emerging artists you need to hear.
One of Berlin’s best nights, at one of Singapore’s best venues, supported. Come ready.
