Sometimes things unfold fast, very fast. In autumn 2011 Jacob Dilßner aka Wankelmut was a young 24-year old student and part-time dj who had just relocated to his hometown Berlin to study philosophy and political science. Then one night he started playing around with one of his favourite songs in Ableton Live, cutting, filtering and adding a simple 4/4 groove until Asaf Avidan & The Mojos’ bitter-sweet folk song „One Day/Reckoning Song“ turned into what has now... Read more
Sometimes things unfold fast, very fast. In autumn 2011 Jacob Dilßner aka Wankelmut was a young 24-year old student and part-time dj who had just relocated to his hometown Berlin to study philosophy and political science. Then one night he started playing around with one of his favourite songs in Ableton Live, cutting, filtering and adding a simple 4/4 groove until Asaf Avidan & The Mojos’ bitter-sweet folk song „One Day/Reckoning Song“ turned into what has now become one of house music’s biggest anthems of 2012. But back then, Jacob was totally unaware of the impact his groundbreaking remix would have.
He uploaded the track to his Soundcloud account, marked as unsigned and within weeks it went viral, resulting in thousands of plays and causing a huge excitement in the blogosphere. Suddenly Wankelmut found himself in the midst of a full-blown internet hype. At that point few people outside Berlin actually knew who Wankelmut was. Sure, he had already been djing for a while in small Berlin undergound clubs like Sisyphos and M.I.K.Z. being his favorite haunting grounds. After his remix started to sweep through the internet, people began to investigate who was behind it. Inquiries and booking requests kept piling up in Wankelmut’s inbox. Without even being properly released, the track slowly but surely became an anthem. It’s perfect balance between folk’s melancholy and house music’s mesmerizing groove and starry-eyed ecstacy had hit a nerve. Wherever you turned, in whatever club you went, you would hear the track at some point of the night.
Various small labels approached him, wanting to release the track, but stayed away from the task of clearing the sample. The quest to legally clear the sample began in spring 2012 and after various bureaucratic obstacles were succesfully put out of the way, „One Day/Reckoning Song“ finally got an official remix release via Four Music who hold the rights to the original song by Asaf Avidan & the Mojos.
From here the Cinderella story continued. Only eight months after Wankelmut unassumingly uploaded the song, the Berlin-based dj and producer got irrevocably catapulted from mere obscurity into full-on popstardom, topping the charts in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands and various other european countries. In Germany „One Day/Reckoning Song“ managed to simultaneously hit the #1 spot in the national charts, the itunes charts and on Beatport. This happend fort he first time in history, leading to platinum sales status.
Since then, Wankelmut’s schedule got busier every day, taking him on dj gigs all over Europe. There hasn’t been much time to relax. His studies are on hold for now. And while the official video accompanying „One Day/Reckoning Song“ has already exceeded 18 million views, Jacob is working on various remixes and his first proper solo-release. Knowing that people’s expectations are constantly growing he is taking it slow, sharpening his skills as a producer without letting the pressure get the best of him. Until then the track that fast-tracked his career will most likely conquer the rest of the world. And we can be pretty sure that we will hear a lot more of Wankelmut in the years to come.
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