Stone Techno Festival through five key performances

Backdropped by a dramatic post-industrial site in the Ruhr Area, Stone Techno 2024 honoured the festival’s local history while looking to the future of electronic music

The site for Stone Techno is like no other. Held at the Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site in Essen – a space that repurposes the infrastructure of a historical coal mining site – the festival is a match made in heaven for geology and architecture nerds as much as techno heads.

The Kokerei, Werks-Schwimmbad, Eisbahn and Salzlager stages take their names from the parts of the coal mine where they’re housed, and this year were accompanied by cinematic floating visuals suspended above the crowds. With a museum on-site to learn about everything from the visuals depicted to the area’s history, the festival fulfilled its pledge to both honour its local heritage and champion progressive music and culture.

It’s never easy selecting highlight sets from a dense and sprawling line-up, but after making pages of notes – and whimsical musings that made sense at the time – here are five standout performances from 2024.

  • Job Jobse © Angelina Nikolayeva

  • Dr. Rubinsein b2b Roi Perez © Angelina Nikolayeva

  • SPFDJ © Angelina Nikolayeva

Job Jobse

It wasn’t all techno all weekend. Job Jobse played a selection of house, garage and trance too, prompting singalongs for La Bouche’s Be My Lover and NewTone’s 6 Million Ways To Die. As the sun set and the smoke machines started, a Charli xcx trance remix reminded us it’s still summer.

Dr. Rubinstein b2b Roi Perez

A festival isn’t complete without a huge hands-in-the-air moment, and Dr. Rubinstein and Roi Perez provided this and more. Kickdrums were abandoned for string melodies, hi-hats, epic breakdowns and instantly recognisable dancefloor moments, forming one of those sets that has you singing the lyrics without remembering the exact track. As one of the more light and playful performances of the weekend, the pairing was all about making the crowd move.

SPFDJ

SPFDJ’s style lends itself to a variety of spaces – from sweaty clubs to huge festival stages – and she pulled every trick out of the bag for her closing Saturday night show at Kokerei. Mixing techno into breakbeat and back again before bringing her set to a peak with Brutalismus 3000’s Blade, you could barely catch your breath. If I had Megan Thee Stallion’s knees I would have gone harder.

  • © Sander van de Ven

  • Yazzus © Angelina Nikolayeva

  • © Sander van de Ven

  • Hyperaktivist © Angelina Nikolayeva

Yazzus

The last day of a festival is always a chance to go all out, and Mala Junta resident Yazzus showed us how it’s done with a sweaty, eclectic set punctuated with twists and turns. Guiding the crowd from a glitchy vocal blend of Anetha’s How Would They Know through to a techno edit of Kelis’ Milkshake before closing with Bristol producer georg-i’s Change, she never settled on one genre or let the energy slip.

Anetha b2b Vel

Late on Sunday night, Anetha joined Vel for a masterclass in how to close a festival. The pair played a range of sounds under the techno and trance umbrellas, including Harbour Concept’s Charged (Kuss) and a 150 BPM edit of Sean Paul’s Temperature. Anthea’s Sorry For Being So Sexy marked another stand-out moment, and across the whole weekend, the producer felt like the most-played artist overall. The crowd’s energy hit a peak when the duo dropped Canelle Doublekick’s Bewitched right near the end of their set, with the vocal sample “ecstasy” being shouted from every direction.