Nothing trains a DJ more than a long lasting residency. A truism that the Cologne based musician and DJ Lena Willikens always proves when she spins her vinyl. Since more then five years, she has been in charge of long and sweaty Friday night parties at Düsseldorf’s free-spirited club/bar Salon Des Amateurs.

She is also a dedicated member of the Cómeme records tribe and all its missions: her name is frequently on the label’s party bills and she runs globally famed the monthly radio show “Sentimental Flashback” for Radio Cómeme, that UK-based Juno records elected to the best podcast/mix of 2014. As a DJ, radio broadcaster and producer, Lena is never committed to one style, all is welcome as long as it is twisted the in a one-of-a-kind way. As a producer she arranged a very special ghost wave track “High Holes“, that was released by the Düsseldorf based label Slowboy Records via the vinyl only sampler "Kingii” in 2012. Early 2015 she released her first solo EP “Phantom Delia” on Cómeme. Therefore she produced six mystique tracks between droning EBM, ghost-house and no-wavish outernational grooves.

The same sonic approach to music is significant for Lenas live performances in the name of film, a thing she recently added to her artistic catalogue. As a debut she prepared an impressive soundtrack to the Japanese movie “Japanese Girls from the Harbour” for the LiveSoundtrack Festival in Barcelona. Generated with a set-up of Theremin (trained in her former band Titanoboa) effects, loop pedal and turntables, the result was a partly spooky, partly melancholic atmosphere, fitting the dramatic and depressing aethetic of the movie. Definitly a thing we will see more often from Lena Willikens in the future.

Coming from this spirit Lena rushed into 2016 with a constant stream of new “Sentimental Flashback” radioshows, reflecting most of all her latest tour in Asia, remixes for Aksak Maboul (to be released on Crammed Discs), Oklo Gabon and rRoxymore (coming out on Huntleys + Palmers in June) and the brand new audio-visuell “Phantom Kino Ballett” project together with Cologne based artist Sarah Szczesny (who is also the creative force behind the artwork of the “Phantom Delia” EP and the videoclips to the six tracks of the EP). “Phantom Kino Ballett” is, as the artists describe themselves: “Sound fragment and painting, stroboscop and arpeggiated anime, dance music, kinetic costum and smog machine.”

Not only in her productions, also when she spins records Lena likes to let her self go in the name of dance and free thought. Her unforeseeable selections are pooling obscure proto-techno, jacking spirits, industrial boogie, synthesized disco, raw house and other outernational rhythms. So far she cheered clubs like Golden Pudel/Hamburg, Corsica Studios/London, Panoramabar/ Berlin, festivals like Nachtdigital or Nuits Sonores and toured through UK, Spain, East Europe, South and recently Mexico, North America as well as Japan and South Corea. Wherever she performed she surprised the folks and left them amazed about how expanded a crowd can let go and how far a DJ can move a dancefloor into unknown and bizarre spheres that stay catchy, while being edgy.