Savas Pascalidis

Born in 1970 in Stuttgart, Germany, Pascalidis produces music that sits at an equal remove from both techno and disco. His father, a Greek disc jockey, along with disco and early 80s recordings, sparked his interest, leading him to begin performing dance sets in 1985. Five years afterward he launched the city’s first recurring weekly techno events. By 1995, after receiving foundational instruction in electronic production from Megahertz’ Goran Besoy, he started issuing his own material, including the EPs and 12-inch singles ‘The Power Of Music’ and ‘Masterblaster’ on Affie Yussuf’s 909 Pervertions imprint, ‘Helter Skelter’ on Loriz Sounds, and ‘Sugarland Express’, ‘Cosmic Dancer’ and ‘Sexomatic’ on Kurbel.

He founded the Lasergun label in 1999, later putting out tracks by Water Lilly, Mr. Lovelace, Sneak Thief, Neon Man and others; the label’s science-fiction motif resurfaced in the title of his 2003 debut album on DJ Hell’s International Deejay Gigolos label, Galactic Gigolo. Pascalidis conceived the record as a concept album whose “main idea was to make tracks for a techno science fiction movie.” Its sound explicitly referenced incidental scoring from science-fiction films, early 80s computer-game music, techno and disco. A cover of ‘Love Makes You Crazy’ from Zero Zero, the Mike Batt-penned musical, supplied an unexpected touchstone, and the track ‘System 605’ took its name from the same production. He also recorded a version of the Visage song ‘Tar’ and titled another piece ‘She Blinded Me With Sciene’, adapting the title—by dropping one letter—from the Thomas Dolby electro-pop recording whose elements he sampled. Additional remix work includes credits for Agoria, Richard Bartz, Sexual Harrassment, Club MCM, Binge And Purge, and Water Lilly.