Gabber Eleganza to launch Never Sleep label with new mixtape and book

Gabber Eleganza Alberto Guerrini

Gabber Eleganza has announced that he’ll be launching a new label called Never Sleep.

The aim of the label is, according to the press release, to connect “the sonic landscape and aesthetic side of Hardcore and post-rave cultures, and the contemporary culture of music and art.” Never Sleep will be launched with a new book and mixtape, entitled Hardcore Soul, on 16 May. Created in collaboration with photographer Ewen Spencer, the book will also be presented at Berlin Art Week, in Kreuzberg, on 26 April.

“We met for the first time in London in 2017 and spent the night at a Dalston pub talking about Northern Soul and Hardcore-Gabber, both fascinated by our different backgrounds,” Gabber Eleganza, otherwise known as Alberto Guerrini, said on his collaboration with Spencer. “Having seen his series on Northern Soul weekenders and Hardcore raves, shot over period of several years, the idea to create something together came very naturally, emerging out of these two seemingly dissimilar scenes.” [sic]

“This is how Hardcore Soul was born – a publication that explores the analogies between two worlds, appearing as they do entirely at odds with one another, yet through a shared devotion, rhythmic frenzy and euphoria, both offering on-lookers a key to understanding them.”

“Choosing to publish the images in a non-chronological order is an attempt to create the impression that everything is happening in the same moment, in the same space, fixing them at an indefinite place in time,” he added.

The accompanying mixtape has been described as “a never-ending euphoria journey with positive melodic stabs and infinite digital pianos.” Guerrini elaborates, “No Kickdrum, but a pursuit of happyness into the soul of the happy hardcore sound from the 90s.”

Head here to pre-order the book, and listen to the Hardcore Soul mixtape below.