Elias Doré is a talented German artist whose feel-good style of melodic house has been a feature of labels such as Rebellion der Träumer and Acker Records.

A skilled musician, he comes from a background of performing for numerous bands. He blends his knowledge of playing instruments with sequenced beats, to create a trippy style that fuses techy elements with textures, both organic and digital.

His DJ skills have taken him all over the world, and he has performed in front of adoring fans who have traveled from far and wide to hear and see him play. Wanting to learn more about the man behind the music, we get to know Elias Doré…

– Have you ever been to Australia before, and if so… what are your impressions of events like Rainbow Serpent and Subsonic Festival, as in recent years those attracted many European-based artists?

Yes, I have been to Australia in 2011/12 and have had some encounters with electronic music there.. was at Rainbow Serpent Festival 2012 and absolutely loved it. The overwhelmingly positive vibe and incredibly warm atmosphere and attitude of thepeople there and in Melbourne really touched me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hadn’t been that much into electronic music before that in Berlin, but after my time in Oz, I directly got into the scene once back in Berlin.. and never left since.

– You have attended gatherings like Burning Man, AfrikaBurn and KiezBurn in recent years.How did you find your way into the Burner community, and what resonates with you compared to more ‘conventional’ rave and festival scenes?

Attending Burning Man had always been a dream of mine, so it was only a matter of time before I finally managed to get there in 2017.. but a few months before that, Ialso travelled to Afrika Burn – which was my first burn ever. I can not say what exactly drew me in, but the creative, colourful and so other worldly looking pictures from BM certainly played a part. I also found the 10 (now 11)principles very intriguing and always wondered if they’re really adhered to on the grounds (which they truly almost always are!). They are also what maybe resonates most with me, compared to more conventional raves.. especially the fact that everyone contributes to a burn in any way they can and thats its such a fascinating sum of all its small(er) parts. It leads to the most hilarious little moments and encounters which I rarely – if ever – get in such form at regular festivals.

-How do you find the dynamics of the regional burner gatherings like Kiez Burn compared to the ‘Big Mama’ Burn in Black Rock City?

It’s much more intimate at such smaller burns and I really enjoy that.. meeting the same people and being able to create little narratives and almost meme-like jokes on a festival. I vividly remember things like an Anti-Downbeat-Demonstration which protested for faster music on one dancefloor or another revolutionary like procession that aimed at getting back a manequin puppet from a camp that had”stolen” it from the Saloon.. Those things also happen in some forms at BM of course, but Kiezburn has an intimacy that’s really beautiful and unique to me.

– What role do you think the Burning Man Community has played in recent years in the expansion of the deep & melodic house genre with more organic stylings?

I think it played quite a huge role.. probably cant be overstated. Bedouin’s Robot Heart sets or Viken Arman, Acid Pauli, Sainte Vie on Mayan Warrior.. all those soundscapes and styles have profoundly shaped the more organic stylings of electronic music. By now even Beatport has such a genre in its charts.

– Which of the Burning Man principles resonates most with you, in particular in your daily life?

Hard to choose one. Would be Radical Self Reliance and Decommodification.. but also communal effort.

– In one of your recently released tracks (Asura, produced with Acado) there is a beautiful hang drum/hand pan featured. Did you play those parts, and if so, how long have you been playing?

Thank you -yes, I played it. I’ve been playing on & off for a few years now.. was probably quite good at some point, but then again let it slide for a while, so now a days again I feel a bit like a beginner sometimes 🙂

– What other musical instruments do you enjoy playing?

I often sit down at my piano to play some tunes or sing a song.. bit of guitar here and there, and many years ago also the alto sax, but that one hasn’t been played for a long time.

– How did the concept of the Rebellion der Träumer Collective and the Bucht der Träumer Festival originate?

Rebellion der Träumer was started by the two DJs Schmeckefuchs and Baba the Knife in 2012/13.. combining conscious raves with political discussions in the beginning, focusing on melodic techno as a main style. I was always in the crowd back then.. towards 2016/17, they wanted to get more people on board and make it a collective, so I joined alongside some others, and by now we’ve become a label, booking agency/community, event organizers and group of friends. Some sort of hybrid that is hard to put into a box.

The Bucht der Träumer festival is a bit of a different story.. some of us wanted to start a festival, while others from the Berlin scene such as the owners of the club Rummelsbucht and other crews, had similar ideas.. so they decided to join forces and found the beautiful location at Helenesee.. and the rest is history as they say.

– How is the Bucht der Träumer Festival going to take place (differently) this year under COVID-19 regulations?

The festival is not taking place, like all the other cancelled events. Instead there is a small holiday camping event for 14 days on the same grounds. There are workshops that are held, yoga, lectures, discussions, and quiet music at a bar.. nothing like a ‘real’ festival, but more like holidays with friends. It makes us super sad that it can’t take place this year, but this is what was agreed on to be responsibly feasible in these challenging times.

– Besides having your tour schedule get cancelled this year since the spring, what has been the biggest impact/challenge on you personally as a result of COVID-19?

This cancelling of the tour schedule definitely is the biggest impact.. but what really is missing for me besides that is the electronic music scene itself. I miss going for a few hours to a Berlin club, have a little boogie and go home..not even the huge nights (although they’re also missed) but just a kind of small night out. The clubs are incredible social hubs for meeting friends and all kinds of people – that are now just gone. The hole in the social fabric of the city that this has torn is really big and I’m not sure what to make of this.. I just hope we will find ways to soon get together in safe ways – Switzerland can be an inspiration here.

– Many people seem to have taken up some kind of home renovation or cooking project since we entered the ‘Coronaverse’, so what have you managed to hammer, nail, grow or bake in the last few months?

Haha, it’s true… everyones been on that sourdough or renovation project. I painted awall and pimped my balcony to very green and lush extremes. But my main projectover the past months has probably been to work very heavily on my voice and practice singing. It has given me a lot of energy and joy in what were sometimes quite dark days in the lockdown.

– Berlin has seen a rise in the number of illegal parties and raves taking place recently, drawing some criticism that it is hurting the scene in its fight for survival. What are your views on this?

Well.. lets just say people are always gonna find ways to rave, to party, to get wasted in some way or other.. and it would be smarter to offer a framework for it, in which you can have contact tracing, checking that everyone has the app on their phone, urge people to wear masks etc. And where you can have that – is of course in a more or less “controlled” club environment. So in my opinion, the policy makers should be much quicker and more creative in formulating new legislature that allows clubs to open differently and in the current circumstances. Otherwise more illegal raves are gonna happen and in winter probably inside – where the contagious risk is even greater than outdoors.

Support the artist and discover more of his music HERE