Throughout June, RA is hosting four mixes on BBC Radio 1, airing Friday nights after the Essential Mix. Following mixes from AceMoMA and Deena Abdelwahed, next up is Munich artist Skee Mask. Listen to his mix now.

The German state of Bavaria, home to cities like Munich and Nuremberg, was the worst hit by coronavirus in the country. On March 21st, 13 million people suddenly found themselves confined to their homes. This dramatic shift affected people's lives differently. For Bryan Müller, AKA Skee Mask, who lives in Munich, nothing much changed. With DJing on pause, he could now spend even more time at home doing what he loves: listening to and making electronic music.

This is good news for the scene. In the past six years, Müller has emerged as a DJ and producer with prodigious talent. Across two albums and several EPs, all of them for the beloved Munich label Ilian Tape, he has honed a singular sound, rich with rhythm and feeling. Many consider him a techno artist, but the tag does him a disservice—as well as broken bangers, he excels at gloopy IDM, sinister ambient and thundering amen breaks. For my money, there aren't many better producers around right now.

Müller is also a voracious record digger and a thrilling DJ. He has a keen ear for rhythm and a total disregard for homogeneity, which you'll hear on his 60-minute mix for BBC Radio 1 Dance. Grime, UK garage, Jeff Mills—nothing is off limits. Listen out for two of his own tracks, including one unreleased gem. The left turns come thick and fast. 140 BPM beats abound. This music isn't for the faint of heart.

How was the lockdown? I read that Bavaria, where you live, was the worst-hit region in Germany.

Although it was a strange time and Bavaria was the region with the most strict rules in terms of going out and so on, nothing really changed for me personally. Just stayed at home even more and tried not to read the (same) news every single day.

Did you find it easy to fill the days?

Definitely, it gave me time to check through old projects and finish / arrange loads of things. And online digging, of course. Just doing the stuff that I do daily even more and trying to make the best out of the situation.

Did you spend much time in the studio? Was making music a welcome distraction?

To be honest I wouldn't call making music a distraction. There hasn't been a single day without making music for 10 years basically, so this phase didn't change anything for me in terms of making music. Like I mentioned before, I have a ton of unfinished stuff in waiting, so I was using the time to delete everything that doesn't make me wanna dance or smoke a joint within five seconds after I hit play for the first time.

Was it strange making club music when all clubs are closed?

Not really, most of my production isn't club-oriented anyway, even if I'm happy that some DJs play my tracks in clubs. When it comes to me trying to do clubby stuff though, I gain most inspiration from bumping mainly old techno releases or recent grime / garage mixes.

You've got two EPs coming out on Ilian Tape later this month, one of which is beatless. How does removing the drums affect the production process?

It just gives the tempo / BPM a new meaning, because it's kind of non-existent then. It still can have something like a subliminal groove to it so I wouldn't even say I'm removing drums. It's more about shaping them into a sound where they're not perceived as drums anymore. Approaching tracks like this and not having a dance floor in mind speeds up the production process and always gives me much more freedom to do unusual things. Basically the one rule is that there are no rules.

Most of your recent club tracks hover around 140 BPM. What is it about this tempo?

To be fair I can't find an exact reason. It probably has something to do with the variety of music that's made around 140, and it also makes more sense to me combining different genres when it's "that" fast. I equally love doing 160-200ish BPM stuff too and of course I'm also into "slow jams" but I avoid labelling music like this. Some track that might sound slow to you might sound double tempo to another listener. Overall 140 BPM just gives me a wider range of possibilities to start the track with.

The most striking thing about this BBC Radio 1 mix is the breadth of styles and rhythms. Have you been doing a lot of digging in lockdown? What are your methods?

I'm just investing a lot of time in digging in general. But yeah, the lockdown even gave me more time to dig through Bandcamp, Discogs, YouTube and so on. I don't really have methods, just trying to forget about any promos I may have in my inbox for the moment and fully concentrate on discovering something I somehow haven't heard before. The downside is that you'll rarely get that exact thing you're looking for, but you'll always find loads of incredible pieces on the sideway of this path. Not caring about documenting everything I do on social media also plays a big role.

You've been tweeting about the Black Lives Matter movement. What must the electronic music scene do better?

Well, I'm not sure if I'm the right person to tell the "electronic music scene" what to do better. I mean I'm white, a male and from Bavaria, which is one of the most protected places in Germany. Even if I experienced some racist / inhuman shit here towards other people, I'm not the one to talk about the real intensity of this matter. I think we all should listen to the people who suffer racism / discrimination and try to make their situation better in general.

In terms of producing music we really need to admit, where we all get our inspiration from: mainly black artists. As I said, I wouldn't even make music without black musicians, starting from the bebop-legends to funk, soul, hip-hop, dance music in general, the list goes on and on. For me that means, sharing a lot of my inspiration online and pointing out where this is coming from, buying music from contemporary producers straight or somehow using the possibility that there are people following me on Twitter to point out injustices, like only white male DJs getting featured in rankings for instance.

The future of dance music remains in a precarious position. How are you feeling about it?

I don't think that dance music itself could ever get in a precarious position, it's the club culture. Due to Corona I can't make a living out of DJing, and sadly also a lot of clubs are fighting for their existence at this point, but dance music existed through time and will continue to stay with human beings.

Listen to the mix /
Skee Mask's mix for RA on Radio 1

Other episodes /
Deena Abdelwahed
AceMoMA
Arca