08/11/2024
WE CONGRAT SVEN VÄTH TO HIS CULTURAL AWARD!
BAMBI in the Culture category goes to techno legend Sven Väth
For 43 years, he has been turning nights into day with his techno beats and making people all over the world sweat in front of his mixing desk: Sven Väth is considered one of the most successful German DJs and, as one of the most popular representatives of the genre, played a key role in turning techno into a cult. Four decades after the social movement he triggered with his art, Sven Väth will receive the BAMBI 2024 in the ‘Culture’ category tonight.
From the dance club to the techno clubs
Sven Väth was born in Offenbach am Main (Hesse) in 1964. He began his career as a DJ at the age of 17 in the ‘Queens Pub’, his parents' dance club. He was soon playing in various Frankfurt clubs, including the nationally renowned ‘Dorian Gray’ under Frankfurt Airport.
The release of his track ‘Electrica Salsa’ as part of the musical project OFF (Organisation for Fun) in 1986 was his first success in the international charts. Väth goes on tour as a DJ and works in Ibiza, where he later becomes resident DJ of the club ‘Amnesia’ for over 20 years. With the COCOON party series, Sven Väth changes the sound on the island and celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
In Frankfurt, he becomes a club operator himself and opens ‘Omen’ with partners, which is now regarded as the birthplace of techno in Hesse. At the beginning of the 1990s, the now 60-year-old founded the music labels ‘Eye Q Records’, ‘Harthouse’ and ‘Recycle or Die’. At the end of the 1990s, Väth signed a contract with the ‘Virgin’ label and launched the ‘Cocoon Clubbing’ series, with which he toured Europe.
In 2004, he opened the ‘Cocoon Club’ in Frankfurt, which was characterised by its sound system specially tailored to techno. With the label ‘Cocoon Recordings’, Väth creates a platform for young DJs and producers.
Väth is an advocate of music released on vinyl because it sounds better than anything else. He has released more than a dozen albums and almost 40 singles and EPs. In 2015, he is honoured with the Goethe Plaque of the City of Frankfurt for his services to electronic music. In 2024, the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Federal States and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media decide to elevate Berlin's techno culture to the status of a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.
BAMBI Jury:
"Sven Väth is the pioneer of the techno sound who, by founding a series of music labels and clubs, ensured the rapid spread and further development of the sound he created. It is as if Väth had turned the tempo control of life, which goes up to 10, to 11. The undisputed father of techno turned the club sound into a culture of its own, carried it out into the world and gave it a future by consistently promoting young talent."
Sven Väth
