Rave Classic Returns | Marmion - Schöneberg 30th Anniversary Remixes

Rave Classic Returns | Marmion – Schöneberg 30th Anniversary Remixes

Words: Mike Mode

April 25, 2023

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Marmion’s seminal classic Schöneberg, Superstition Records are releasing a new 21-track collection of the best remixes over the last three decades, including two brand new versions from DJ T. and Chris Zippel. If there were to be a compilation celebrating the golden era of Euro-pean techno, Schöneberg would arguably be the opening track. The most famous cut that came out of Mijk van Dijk and Marcos López’s project Marmion, Schöneberg is perhaps the purest form of what the clubs and raves of Berlin sounded like in the early 90s, and stands as one of the most revered and fondly remembered tracks of all time.

Mijk van Djik and Marcos Lopez formed Marmion after meeting while studying at the FU Berlin, and began DJing together at clubs across the city. It was from their sets that the seed for Schöneberg was sown, as they tried to find a balance between the techno and trance sounds that dominated the clubs. It was an era ripe for experimentation, and for cross-pollination between genres, as van Djik recalls:

“Coldcut was doing pop, Kevin Saunderson was playing up and down all the floors, everything fit. I didn’t feel like I had to limit myself or focus on one style”. Van Dijk and López first worked together on the remix of van Dijk’s High On Hope, which proved to be the beginning of a fruitful partner-ship.

Van Dijk was the producer – with releases on Low Spirit, MFS and Bash – while López was more focussed on DJing. Their first official collaboration was T-Dancer, a tribute to the Sunday tea dance at the Metropol on Nollendorfplatz. “Whoever survived the Whale would hit it again there around 7 p.m. on Sunday. Frankie Goes To Hollywood would have enjoyed this hedonism” López recalls. Schöneberg was recorded in a single session, and though they retur-ned to it several times afterwards, they never felt they improved on that first creative burst. Released as part of the Berlin E.P. back in 1993, it was heavily championed by influential figures like Tony De Vit and be-came of the defining anthems of the 90s.

“It always went like this: I sat at the Atari, Marcos screwed on the machines,” says van Dijk. And this was the process that led to Schöneberg. “I had little to no idea about the technical side of things, but just a feeling for what I wanted. And Mijk was able to do it exactly,” adds López. Over the years Schöneberg has been remixed a huge number of times, by a wide range of artists.

Now, to celebrate 30 years since its original release, Superstition have collected the best of the remixes – from artists like DJ Hell, John Acquaviva, Der Dritte Raum, Tim Engelhart and Donnacha Costello – presented here with two brand new remixes from DJ T. and Chris Zippel, both of whom do a sterling job of putting their own unique spin one this stone-cold classic. 2857