Silvan Strauss is back with a new project that takes his musical evolution in a wild new direction. After the dusty, Madlib-soaked beats of his debut FACING and the collaborative live energy of FLUKIN’, the Hamburg-based drummer and producer is diving headfirst into electronic rhythms for his third album, SPRINTING. The record is the culmination of a decade-long fascination with Chicago footwork and pioneers like Traxman. It’s all about taking complex, frenetic drum patterns that usually belong strictly to drum machines and interpreting them entirely live on an acoustic kit.

Instead of booking big studio spaces, Silvan kept things lean and minimalist, often mining a single sample source for every single permutation it could yield. It is also an album deeply connected to global dance culture. Inspired by how footwork was born directly alongside dancers, Silvan has teamed up with movers from Brussels to Bangkok to create visuals for the tracks, using dance as a literal visual translation of his abstract rhythms. He is joined on the record by an international cast of heavy hitters, including Reuben James, Petter Eldh, Anna-Lena Schnabel, Alex Eckert, LIZ and our own Kabul Fire founder FARHOT.

Silvan will be bringing this explosive live energy to the stage this autumn, including a special hometown headline show at the Ernst Deutsch Theater in Hamburg on October 18th. Keep an eye out for the international dance collaborations dropping on his socials soon.