VA - 25 Years of DiN (2024)

This is certainly a milestone release for the DiN label as it celebrates its 25th anniversary. Needless to say, this is quite an achievement for a niche, independent label that has relentlessly ploughed its own path for quarter of a century. Its catalogue and release schedule has been carefully curated over all these years by label boss Ian Boddy, who launched the imprint way back in the spring of 1999. It is perhaps a reflection of his own musical identity which, whilst grounded in the Berlin School of the 1970s, has continued to evolve and grow to cover ever widening areas of electronic music, where sub-genres can be mixed and matched at will.

There have been plenty of compilation albums released on the DiN label in the past, most notably the iNDEX sampler albums, of which there have been eight to date. These cover tracks from existing albums and are certainly a great showcase for the label. However, this double album is different, in that Boddy invited the majority of the musicians who have previously been released on the main DiN catalogue to compose new pieces. Spread across two discs, this amounts to 142 minutes of sublime, varied and thoroughly original music. Ranging from beautifully ambient to dark brooding soundscapes, via cinematic electronica through to old school Berlin School sequencer workouts, “25 Years of DiN” is a wonderful distillation of the DiN label.

Presented in a stunning six panel fold out Digipak double CD package with 8-page booklet featuring an essay by Neil Mason (Moonbuilding), this release is a must-have for collectors of the DiN labels output.