{{unreferenced, date=June 2015 Hard Wax is a

record shop A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...

located in the

Kreuzberg Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in 1990 it ha ...

borough of

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It was founded in December 1989 by Mark Ernestus at the ground floor of a Reichenberger Straße’s building. It is specialized in

techno Techno is a Music genre, genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally music production, produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central Drum beat, rhythm is typ ...

music,

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

, dub and

dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken be ...

. Hard Wax also serves as a distributor for several Berlin-based record labels linked to the

Basic Channel Basic Channel is a German music duo and record label, composed of Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, that originated in Berlin in 1993. The duo have also worked under other names, including Rhythm & Sound and Maurizio, and have founded offshoo ...

aesthetic. Some members (or former members) of its staff are prominent DJs like

DJ Hell Helmut Josef Geier (born 6 September 1962), known professionally as DJ Hell, is a German DJ. Biography 1970s and 1980s DJ Hell described his musical beginnings in an interview with '' The European'', telling them “I was socialized with ...

, Gernot Bronsert of Modeselektor, Marcel Dettmann, DJ Rok, Gabriele „Mo“ Loschelder or

Electric Indigo Indigo is a deep color close to the Shades of blue#Blue (RGB) (X11 blue), color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the indigo dye, ancient dye of the same name. The word " ...

( Susanne Kirchmayr) who was in charge of sales from 1993 to 1996. The shop sets place a mail order system through its website (which represented 50% of the sales in 2009). In 1996 Hard Wax moved to the third floor of an old factory in Paul-Lincke-Ufer 44a sharing its premises with the

record label and the Dubplates and Mastering studio. It’s one of the oldest record stores in electronic music in Berlin. Playing the role of an important hub for the

community in the world, the shop helped extensively the development of this burgeoning scene in the 90s. Furthermore, as with Tresor club in

, it shares a privileged relationship with the musicians of

Detroit techno Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mil ...

in the so-called "Berlin-Detroit axis".

External links

Killasan and Hard Wax
Music in Berlin 1989 establishments in Germany Techno Dub music Reggae culture Dubstep