The Daily Swarm

Kosovo has the youngest population in Europe – 60% of Kosovars are under 25 – and also one of the continent’s most unexpectedly progressive and dynamic electronic music scenes, thanks to a small, cosmopolitan group of music producers and promoters. Spray Club, the focal point of techno in Pristina, was included in DJ magazine’s top 100 clubs in the world, and records made by Kosovar producers get played by internationally known DJs such as Richie Hawtin. The scene is so close-knit that if you meet one DJ on a Friday night, by Sunday you’ll have clinked bottles with all of them. Promoters call each other at all hours of the night to borrow leads, cables, lights – whatever has just blown and needs immediate replacement. Small bars in the city play dubstep and techno, and bootleg white labels that haven’t reached the rest of Europe.

It all started with one song. In 1995, Josh Wink’s Higher State of Consciousness turned a generation of Kosovar punk kids on to techno. There was no money to buy equipment to replicate the song’s rush, so people improvised and assembled their own drums, amps and speakers, while putting money aside to buy proper mixing decks. They held parties in squats and abandoned buildings – parties at which drugs were rife, given the country’s position astride the supply routes between Africa, Asia and Europe. The stories go that one in four people in Pristina dropped acid during the 90s.