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Charlotte de Witte Dives Into Primordial Darkness on ‘Damage Control’

There’s no acknowledged direct connection between George Sand, the pseudonym of French Romantic author Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, and Raving George, the alias of a concrete-cratering Belgian techno DJ Charlotte de Witte — but both were motivated to change their names as a way to be heard in the respective male-dominated arts they practice. “Raving George was a name I chose when I was just 16,” she recently explained, shortly after announcing she was dropping the pseudonym to release her Weltschmerz EP, five tracks of punishing chain-linked beats pounding as hard and insistently as the walls of Berlin club Berghain. “I wanted to be a serious DJ and play proper hard, dark, underground techno but at the time I felt like there were a lot of negative stereotypes about female DJs. So when I got my first gig I chose a somewhat ambiguous name to hide behind.”

On Weltschmerz‘s primordial “Damage Control,” flashes of heat sweep through de Witte’s ticking, subterranean pulse like bats through a cave, as she pulls her sinewy layers even tauter with fizzling hi-hats and an almost abrasively repetitive, stalking bass movement. She hangs back just once, filling with  — before picking it back up again, in perfect time with your aching feet. Listen here.

Weltschmerz is out December 11 via Tiga’s Turbo Recordings.