RW021

Recycling Wax hit 10k.

Robin Tasi
November 20, 2025

In partnership with

Hey there,

Hard to believe, but we just keep growing.

Hitting 10k followers on Instagram is absolutely crazy. That’s why in today’s “Behind the Booth” I want to tell you how all of this actually started.

If you happen to be reading this newsletter on Thursday between 6 and 8 PM CET, let me tell you that I’m currently live with the first Recycling Wax Radio Show on YouTube for the Mono Listening Café @ Black Plastic Dortmund.

Just click here to check it out. If not, let’s begin with:

Recent Cuts - Fresh vinyl and digital releases worth checking out.
Essential Oldschool - Records from the 90s and early 2000s that still matter today.
Behind the Booth - Personal stories, lessons, and perspectives from life as a DJ.
Top 5 by DJ Klosing - A handpicked selection, carefully curated each week by DJs.
Community Pick of the Week by Eddie - One favorite from the community.

1. Recent Cuts - Fresh vinyl and digital releases worth checking out.

#1 Various Artists - Structure Series 1: When I stumbled across this release and saw “Molecular Recordings,” I immediately thought, “Wait, you know this one!”, and boom, it becomes clear in the title. The label is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Wow. Incredible. According to Discogs, Marco Lenzi and Marco D’Arcangelo are the two founders. You can only congratulate them for such a consistently strong label. Their Various Artists compilations usually only feature heavy hitters like Jeroen Search, Inigo Kennedy, Decoder, and many more. Great drive in the tracks, beautifully bleepy, simply good and timeless techno. The track that really got me is “Linear System – Fourt Thirty”. Relentless, timeless, endless because it just loops forever. A MUST-HAVE!

#2 Aztec Mystic aka DJ Rolando - Knights Of The Jaguar: Speaking of timeless, Aztec Mystic aka DJ Rolando – Jaguar is one of the most iconic tracks in techno history. The original pressing was always insanely expensive, and we just couldn’t afford it. The fact that it’s been repressed multiple times just shows how important preserving the culture is. Perfect closing track. And don’t forget Ascension, a fantastic track that really lives in Jaguar’s shadow.

BANDCAMP
CLONE
DEEJAY

DECKS

#3 Artem Xio - Kak By To Ni Bylo: Artem Xio, never heard of him before, apparently from Moscow, shows on this beautiful album how wonderful deep house can be, especially when you think about how commercialized the genre became in the early 2010s. Oh man, do you know the show The Bachelor? In the German version, several women compete for the bachelor’s attention, usually some slick guy with supposedly good manners. Whether that true? No idea. But Paul Janke, one of the bachelors in 2012, eventually started DJing “deep house”. From that point on, at least in Germany, the magic was gone. Of course, this is just my subjective experience, but once it went mainstream, nobody cared anymore. And just like SSIO breathed life back into German rap, Artem Xio brings light back into a treasure chest that’s been closed for years. Every single track is a poem. Absolutely incredible work. Bring deep house back to life!

DECKS
HHV
JUNO

2. Essential Oldschool - Records from the 90s and early 2000s that still matter today.

#1 Richie Hawtin - 005: Richie Hawtin absolutely dominated back in the day. Whether he appeared as Richie, F.U.S.E., or the legendary Plastikman, there was always something amazing in the mix. What I find insanely good is the minimal character of the tracks on the 005 record. Three beautiful and very stripped-down tracks. A clear must-buy!

#2 Oliver Ho - Awakening The Sentient: I recently got this record from my buddy Desroi. Somehow, he can’t find any use for it anymore, but I definitely can. And Oliver Ho on Blueprint is always a sure shot. No matter which release, it bangs every single time! This record is exactly the Oliver Ho style as well: uncompromising, yet somehow dreamy and simply beautiful.

DISCOGS

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DISCOGS

#3 Gecko - Secret Pleasure: “Gecko – Just Close Your Eyes” is one of my all-time favorites. But Gecko, also known as Wolf Jörg Henze, is a project that could deliver great tribal, too. And that Reese bass makes it obvious: there’s groove in the house. Just a great record on a very strong label.

#4 Funk D’Void & Percy X Presents X-Funk - Voyager EP: Last but not least, we have the Voyager EP by Funk D’Void and Percy X. I recently had the luck of finding and listening to half a crate full of Soma releases at Black Plastic in Dortmund. That’s where I pulled out this release, and of course kept it. They always say, “You work at the shop, so you’re not supposed to cherry-pick the best stuff.” I know, I know… but sometimes it’s just impossible! :-D sorry not sorry.

DISCOGS

3. Behind the Booth - Personal stories, lessons, and perspectives from life as a DJ.

Two years ago, more precisely on December 16, 2023, I started Recycling Wax. Back then, I talked with a friend, Tobi Hacker aka Aitch, about possible names. I explained to him what exactly I wanted to do with this page. So let’s go back a few years. In the early 2010s, the scene was still small, but also deeply divided when it came to formats. Since 2009, it has been possible to play with USB sticks. Vinyl and CDs were considered outdated. Or so people thought. In clubs, people were already walking around wearing T-shirts that said “Vinyl kills MP3”. Being able to play vinyl? That was an absolute must for a DJ. If you couldn’t, you had a hard time being seen as “real”. No joke, controllers were banned. DJs using Serato? Nope, go play your chart music somewhere else. That’s really how it was: zero tolerance. And I sadly can’t pretend I wasn’t part of that mindset. In my early 20s, I was simply extremely dumb.

What made things even harder was the condition of the turntables in many clubs. I remember pushing crates of records behind me again and then seeing turntables placed on four tiny air cushions. If you touched one side, the whole thing tilted by 20–30 degrees. It was terrible, and I just didn’t want to deal with that anymore. Sometimes we had to literally lift the turntable while it was playing so the needle wouldn’t skip from the vibrations. Of course, it wasn’t always that bad, but far too often in the places where I played. At some point, I’d had enough and switched from burning CDs and playing vinyl to USB sticks. I was worried at first and didn’t trust anything digital. With CDs, I could at least check for scratches. But it was extremely convenient to just bring a small USB stick, even if it felt strange in the beginning. Travelling with records was always exhausting.

Then I eventually moved to downtown Dortmund, onto the shopping street, 5th floor, no elevator. I didn’t even want to imagine carrying my records up and down, especially after a night out with a few drinks. No way. Moving in was already stressful enough. Because of that, my Discogs account basically shows a memory gap between 2019 and 2022, with almost no orders at all. At some point, I simply stopped taking care of my vinyl. They were there, but I didn’t use them. And eventually, I even forgot which records I owned and what was actually on them.

So I thought: why not create an archive where I can quickly look through my collection and maybe rediscover bangers I didn’t appreciate 2–3 years earlier? And that’s exactly what happened: many records I had bought for completely different tracks suddenly revealed hidden gems I had never noticed before. So yes, Recycling Wax also started for selfish reasons.

But I never liked the secrecy that some people have around tracks. Sure, digging takes time, and when you find an underrated gem that hardly anyone plays, you might not want it to become widely known. But I started to feel that gatekeeping was arrogant. After all, I only found the music; I didn’t make it. The person who produced the record deserves far more recognition than the DJ who discovered and played it.

Today, some DJs are celebrated like rock stars for playing tracks, while the producers who helped make those DJs big often don’t get a single crumb of that attention. I always felt that was unfair. Producers are the heart of a club, a dancefloor, a DJ, and an audience. Without them, there would be no music, no special moments.

So I wanted to make my experience, everything I bought and dug for over the years, accessible to others. Discogs can be exhausting: for example, the ads still play through YouTube even if you have YouTube Premium. In Germany, the “Wir kaufen dein Auto Punkt DE” ads with Ralf Schumacher have become meme-level iconic because they play SO often. So having a clean, organized Instagram page feels great, something that makes it easier for people to find music and hopefully makes them happy. It’s just a wonderful feeling to see that music connects people.

That this account grew so much and reached up to 1 million people in the last 30 days on Instagram, I never expected that. It’s surreal and honestly feels amazing. Not just because it does something for my ego and gives me a sense of success, but also because it shows that vinyl is alive, the scene is alive, and people genuinely enjoy rediscovering music they have been looking for.

So: thank you all so, so much for making Recycling Wax and the idea behind it so big and for supporting it.

Vinyl lives. The scene lives.

Music 🤝 People

4. Top 5 by DJ Klosing - A handpicked selection, carefully curated each week.

Even though North Rhine-Westphalia is Germany’s most populous state, the scene was always pleasantly small before COVID-19. That’s why you somehow knew everyone, somewhere, at some point, and that’s exactly how it is with Lukas and me. DJ Klosing is from Cologne, and we’ve known each other for a few years now. I think we first met at Artheater and had a quick chat. The last thing I heard from Lukas was that he apparently played one of the nastiest closing sets as a resident of a Cologne collective called Lust Klub. Supposedly, it was legendary, right, Lukas? Sadly, I wasn’t there, but DJ Klosing has been a staple in the NRW scene for years. So, of course, I had to ask him for a Top 5. I’ll hand things over to Lukas:

A label that pulled me in early on is Downwards. Founded in the early ’90s in Birmingham by Regis and Female, it was one of the labels that shaped the city’s raw, direct techno sound. I’ve always been fascinated by that analog, loop-driven character, a sound that doesn’t rely on flashy effects and is all the more powerful because of it. Over the years, Downwards has stayed true to its approach: clear attitude, uncompromising style, and a focus on the essentials. Anyone interested in vinyl with history that still sounds timeless will find a true constant here.

#1 Hostage - Consumer Device: is one of those records that perfectly reflects Downwards’ history. It was released in 1993, the founding year of the label, under the alias Hostage, which is actually none other than the two founders themselves: Regis (Karl O’Connor) and Female (Peter Sutton). The sound is as direct and raw as you’d expect from that early era: hard, analog loops, reduced, driving, with zero detours. “Consumer Device” feels almost like a manifesto of the Birmingham approach: dark, industrial, and completely uncompromising. For me, this 12″ holds a special kind of fascination because it presents Downwards in its purest form. A label that knew exactly what it stood for from day one, and nailed it here.

#2 Female - Red Light District: The sound of Female – Red Light District from 1997 has a spatial, almost cinematic atmosphere. Behind the project is Peter Sutton, one of the defining figures of Birmingham techno. The tracks named after cities feel like nighttime snapshots of different places, but without melodic decoration. Instead, they’re driven by loops, metallic textures, and a stripped-down, focused rhythm that creates a dense, abstract ambience.

DISCOGS

#3 Surgeon - Pet 2000: is a 12″ from 1995 by Surgeon (Anthony Child). In the track “Badger Bite,” Surgeon delivers an absolute peak-time banger, my clear favorite. The EP title Pet 2000 has become pretty legendary, and anyone who’s heard Rod’s set from Unpolished 2019 knows how devastating that track can be when used at the right moment. Surgeon is one of my favorite producers because he creates such a pure, powerful techno sound with a uniquely futuristic-mechanical aesthetic.

#4 Regis We Said No / Allies: This two-track record from 1997 by Karl O’Connor is an effective masterpiece. “Allies” may be fairly short, but it’s super bouncy and just fun, the kind of playful groove you don’t forget quickly. “We Said No”, on the other hand, brings an unforgettable hypnotic synth line that etches itself into your memory.

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DISCOGS

#5 Various Artists - Hard Education 1931: is a double-12″ compilation on Downwards from 1997. It brings together many of the label’s early key artists, from Surgeon to Regis to Female and Portion Reform. The compilation shows a great range of what defines the classic Downwards sound: from more minimalist, slowly building tracks to high-energy cuts, perfect if you want something in your record bag that works as a multi-tool.

DISCOGS

5. Community Pick of the Week by Eddie - One favorite from the community.

JB³ - The Selected Dub Plates: Eddie has delivered another great record. This time it’s a Joey Beltram release on Bush. The stuff he did with the record company STX Records is real delicacy as well, lovely house vibes that still keep a techno edge.

Eddie shared the release with me directly via the Discogs app. Funny enough, I had no idea you could even do that. But apparently, the record hit him so hard that right after adding it to his wantlist, he immediately pushed this two-vinyl banger straight into his collection and forwarded it to me.

Once again, thank you so much, Eddie, for the submission!

DISCOGS

Crazy, I’ve never finished a newsletter this early before. It’s Monday again, and it’s only 8:12 PM. Normally, after work, I need at least until 11 PM to get the newsletter done. Now I actually have time to sit in front of the Switch and turn my brain off. I hope you enjoyed the newsletter. See you for RW022.

And don’t forget: keep sending me your favorite track or record. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the one curating the next pick in the Community section.

Simply reply to this email or comment here with a link to your favorite E.P.

Catch you next week! Be ready to drop the needle on my next picks.

Keep it spinning,
Robin Tasi @ Recycling Wax

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