The Zenker Brothers are timekeepers of a slower, deeper groove that resists the clock speed of modern dance culture. Dario’s journey began in the late ’90s, seduced by dub and the hip-hop swagger before being swept into Munich’s Goa scene. He got his first turntables at fifteen and began mixing soon after, first in bedrooms, then in basements, and finally in clubs. Marco, five years younger and a skateboarder with headphones full of Madlib and Lee “Scratch” Perry, caught the techno virus at a Dario gig in 2006. One life-changing night later, the Zenker axis snapped into place.
In 2007, they co-founded Ilian Tape, a label forged by patience, texture, long-term trust, and family (many of its hand-painted covers done by the brothers’ mother). From the outset, Ilian Tape operated like a pirate signal: dub techno with a breakbeat backbone, techno that rippled outward. Over the years, Ilian Tape has become one of the most respected labels in the underground, home to a genre-agnostic roster including Skee Mask, Stenny, Andrea, and Katatonic Silentio. Its identity is forged not by hype but by patience, texture, and long-term trust.
The Zenker Brothers’ early EPs, such as Berg 10 (2011), The Schyren (2017), and Spiritual Priority (2019), solidified Ilian Tape’s DNA with rugged percussion and the unmistakable swing of dubwise grooves. In 2015, they released their debut LP, Immersion. Its hazy breakbeats and submerged melodies made it a masterclass in Zenkerian tempo control. Their second LP, Cosmic Transmission (2020), was written during lockdown. As a result, it was a sparse, techno inner monologue that leaned to ambience and ritualistic pacing. The same pacing can be heard on releases outside of Ilian Tape, including on Tresor and Marcel Fengler’s IMF imprint.
If The Zenker Brothers' work as a duo forms Ilian Tape’s backbone, their solo releases illuminate its veins. Marco’s Channel Balance (2022) filtered his love for skeletal drum programming and off-grid sample culture into a release straddling techno and beat science. Dario’s Reflection (2023) followed with a more melodic, melancholic edge, shaped by ambient motifs and soft-focus club architecture.
Their DJ sets, active since 2012, are exercises in conversational tension. Dario brings depth and architecture; Marco brings surprise and mischief. Together, they draw from techno, electro, broken beat, jungle, IDM, and ambient, crafting long thematic arcs that hover just outside genre. Their music is not so much about control but about feeling. The result? Crowds don’t erupt as much as they dissolve into rhythms that push forward and collapse in equal measure. This same sense of narrative and restraint runs through their featured mixes, from their Resident Advisor podcast (RA.348), an all-original live jam of unreleased material, to their Groove Podcast and Mixmag’s In Session series. Their 90th episode for the Bassiani Podcast was raw, pensive, and built with slow patience.
But if DJing is a fluid exchange, their recent shift into live performance is more of a high-wire act. In 2024, the Zenker Brothers unveiled a fully hardware-based live show—no computers or safety nets, just two Octatracks, analog filters, stereo delay units, and an SSL mixer. Each show is built from re-edited stems of their own tracks in real-time.
Ilian Tape itself continues to function as an ecosystem rather than an enterprise. It hosts a constellation of long-term collaborators and emerging talents held together by intentionality and independence. Skee Mask’s Compro (2018) was a cultural moment, fusing techno propulsion with ambient tenderness and IDM intricacy with breakbeat swagger. Stenny’s Upsurge (2019) followed with cinematic breadth and clubwise force. Andrea’s Ritorno (2020) played like a scrapbook of ghostly and intimate rave memories. More recently, Laksa’s Voices (2024) and Forest Drive West’s Masking (2025) continued the label's volatile, dub-laced, rhythmically wild sound.
The Zenker Brothers move like shadows and smoke in a scene increasingly governed by speed and visibility. What they offer is something rare in modern club culture: a sense of time that expands, deepens, and refuses to collapse.