Benjamin Damage

Originally from Wales but generally based in Berlin (when he's not busy spinning DJ sets around the globe), Benjamin Damage is a techno artist with roots in several styles of '90s dance music, and an ear for what works on contemporary dancefloors. His tracks almost always feature driving, hypnotic beats as well as simple but expressive melodies. One of the key artists signed to Modeselektor's 50Weapons imprint, Damage released three full-lengths and several singles through the label, including 2012's They!Live (with Doc Daneeka) and 2015's Obsidian. Since the label's closure, Damage has continued releasing well-received material on labels like R&S and Figure.

He first emerged in 2010 as half of duo Venom & Damage, releasing U.K. garage-influenced single "Deeper" on Doc Daneeka's Ten Thousand Yen label. Damage then became one of the first artists signed to Modeselektor's 50Weapons imprint, debuting with a white-label split 10" single with Humanleft. Following Antidote, an EP of pumped-up club tracks on Solva Records, Damage and Daneeka released the slow-burning "Creeper" single on 50Weapons. The track was a dancefloor hit, and set the stage for the pair's full-length They!Live, which appeared in early 2012. Featuring the duo's standard club tracks as well as more shadowy downtempo numbers featuring guest singer Abigail Wyles, the album was critically acclaimed, and Damage moved to Berlin shortly after.

From then on, the majority of Damage's material was composed without Daneeka. Released in 2012, the club-focused "Swarm" was his debut solo single for 50Weapons, and Damage's debut solo full-length, Heliosphere, followed in early 2013. The album had much more of a spacy, atmospheric feel than his singles, owing a lot more to Detroit techno artists such as Robert Hood, who subsequently remixed the album's "Delirium Tremens." Damage closed out 2013 with an EP titled 4600, which was followed by Up/Acid Bath in 2014, at which point Damage had begun playing live concerts using an all-hardware setup. As the 50Weapons label wound to a close in 2015, Damage released its final full-length album, Obsidian, and performed several live dates as part of the label's grand finale tour. He also issued a split single with Truncate, and reunited with Daneeka for a track called "Kansas," released on a split single with Bicep. He then released two singles on legendary Belgian label R&S, Montreal (2017) and Malfunction (2018). He closed out the decade with the Overton Window EP on Figure, as well as the "Boss Rhythm" 12" on Feel My Bicep. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi