Grace Dahl Interview: "We don’t have to place ourselves in boxes all the time"

Grace Dahl is a name being mentioned more and more in the modern techno scene - but not in the headline-grabbing, hype-cycle kind of way. Based in Amsterdam, born in Budapest to Finnish and Hungarian parents, she’s spent the past few years building something much quieter and more enduring: a reputation. 

A Vault Sessions resident, label founder, and recent Beatport Next: Class of 2025 pick, she’s become known for the kind of sets that don’t just hit hard - they speak.

The clearest example arrived last November: her Boiler Room debut in Lisbon. The set marked the “cherry on the top” of a run that included Berghain and ADE - a breakout year by anyone’s standards. 

Yet, Boiler Room sets live forever. They get rewatched, reanalysed, and passed around like gospel. This was no news to Grace; this set was clearly about planting her flag.

“I was very prepared for Boiler Room, it wasn’t like a regular set where I’m following the crowd that much,” she tells me. “As it was the first time… and knowing it's one hour, knowing it's recorded, I just really wanted to make a set where everything I love is in one place.”

From the off, the set zigzags between pressure and playfulness - tight techno grooves give way to a sudden 20-second dubstep detour in the form of Danny Wabbit and Theo Nasa’s ‘Elements’. Blink and you’ll miss it, but that’s kind of the point.

“I just had to put in a little bit of a dubstep reference since I love dubstep, drum and bass,” she says. “I think I only played it for like 20 seconds or so… but that's where my early days of partying started. So I just had to incorporate it.”

We also get ‘The Green Room’, one of Grace’s newer tracks, released on Vault Sessions for their 10th anniversary. And then there’s the Baile Funk-inspired bomb from Longeez, ‘Perc Crack.’ 

I tell her I’ve already nicked it.

She smiles. “That's also one of my favourites because I specifically selected it for Lisbon. It’s obviously Baile Funk inspired, which you know, Brazil roots and Lisbon… and Lisbon is one of my favourite cities ever… I wouldn't probably play that anywhere else.”

Another track from the set I was excited to chat to Grace about was ‘King of Snakes’ by Underworld. Not just for my love for all things Underworld, but for her history with the track, too. 

“It's been a staple track in my sets for many, many years now,” she says. “But I only play it on very specific, special moments and only when the timing is right.” 

“I knew I was going to close with that one.”

Yet on the night, the presenter introducing the next DJ, Rene Wise, was late. Having to extend her set, the DJ's instincts took over, all with a little help from her unreleased catalogue. 

“You can see me looking at my watch at a certain point quite often, and I had to suddenly think of the next one. I was like, sh*t, what am I going to now play after this iconic track? How can you follow up on that?

“I'm actually really happy that happened because then I was able to play my track, 'I Want To Dance,' which has my vocals on, and is coming out on my label at the end of this month, 28th of May, on my birthday."

“My parents have influenced literally everything I do and listen to, and… I quite literally became a DJ because of them."

But ‘King of Snake’ isn’t just a fixture in Grace’s sets; it’s part of the soundtrack she was raised on. Long before it was her closer on special occasions, it was coming through the walls of her family home, introduced to her by parents deeply embedded in the European rave scene. 

‘They are pretty much like the whole foundation of my DNA. It's such a privilege to be able to have grown up that way. I feel very, very lucky to have had and have the parents I have,” she says.

“My parents have influenced literally everything I do and listen to, and… I quite literally became a DJ because of them. So it's my entire DNA”

That influence isn’t just something Grace looks back on either. I remarked on a track her father had made recently, one which Grace had posted to her story, and how he still seemed to be a proper head. 

“Oh yeah, he definitely is,” said Grace. “Like, the collection he has as well… We were just actually going through it yesterday because we’re going to record a vinyl set together for my YouTube.

“He unfortunately sold like a huge amount of his records because - I think it was like 15 years ago or 10 years ago - he thought vinyl was kind of over, and I don't even want to know the gems he sold… But luckily, he still has a good amount.”

They’re planning a collaborative EP too - a natural step, not a novelty. 

“When he sent me that track, I was just like, damn, he’s still got it, you know? We're gonna have to do something with this, for sure.”

For all the influence that came from home, Grace’s sound has also been shaped by the DJs and producers who’ve pushed boundaries in their own ways.

“DJ Rush, I think he influenced my mixing style and also the style of my music, but mostly his style of mixing,” she says. “A bit more raw, more risk-taking, not too flimsy. He just bangs it in, and he trusts his decisions, which is something that always really inspired me.”

“Ben Sims, I would say, sound-wise, was always a huge influence.”

And then there’s Amelie Lens, someone whose presence in Grace’s journey runs deep.

“A big influence personality-wise, and I would say also music-wise, especially in her earlier years, is Amelie Lens,” she says. “It might be a bit unexpected. But I was following her already when she was just kind of starting to pop off a bit. Just her as a person, and her drive, and her being such a strong woman in the scene, was always a huge inspiration to me.”

She’s just as quick to champion the newer names, too; “Quelza, for me, is just an absolute genius. I call him the Bach of techno. We were hanging out a few weeks ago, and he was just showing me some of his unreleased things… It’s just crazy… the ideas he has behind it. Everything is thought out, everything has a reason for why it's placed where. It was such an inspiration to hang out with him and speak with him.”

Alarico is another to receive high praise; “I love him as a producer, but I love him even more as a DJ. I think he's so diverse and so playful when he does longer sets.”

“One time at BRET, Alarico just dropped a grime track mid-set, you know? I love that. I love it when DJs do something unexpected.”

“Blasha & Allatt too. Queens. Absolutely iconic.”

“One time at BRET, Alarico just dropped a grime track mid-set, you know? I love that. I love it when DJs do something unexpected.”

Something that constantly comes across when speaking to Grace is just how much of a student of techno, and electronic music in general, she is. Something seen only in her sets, but in the labels she’s released on...

RAW, EXHALE, Smile Sessions, Transition, Vault Sessions. It’s an impressive spread, but for Grace, each one has felt more like a shared passion than a scary release on a big label. “The nice thing about all of these things is that it has always been very friendly,” she says. “From the outside, they're very professional labels, but the actual internal communication has been super casual. It's just like friends basically, planning a release.”

The EXHALE release in particular stands out, not least because it nearly didn’t happen. “It was actually because I was supposed to play for an EXHALE event during ADE, but then the pandemic happened, so then Amelie was like, ‘okay, should we do a release instead?’” Grace explains. 

And the track itself?

“A funny backstory, which Amelie doesn't even know, is that the track that she wanted to release… I wasn’t a fan of it,” she laughs. “I had listened to it so many times, and I had made it quite a long time ago. I tried to make all kinds of adjustments to it, and she was like, ‘Grace, I just want the first version, please.’”

Her relationship with Vault Sessions, though, runs deepest. 

What began at one of their nights in Amsterdam’s Shelter, with Under Black Helmet playing, led to cold mix submissions and a quiet determination that has grown into something lasting, both professionally and personally. 

“The Under Black Helmets set really stuck with me, and I was there with my partner, and I remember also telling him, if I get to play for them one day, that would just be crazy, that would be amazing.

“I was just delusionally ambitious, but it worked out for me so great.” 

After an early guest radio set and the sending of an unreleased track, she was offered a chance to close out a local extra room at their warehouse. A moment that, after we all dealt with a pandemic, snowballed into more bookings (including on a truck during the Unmute Us demonstration in Amsterdam), a residency, and a real friendship.

“They saw something in me really early on,” she says. “And that we're still connected so strongly, it's just really nice. They're really like my safe space within the scene.”

That connection came full circle last year when she contributed The Green Room to their tenth anniversary VA, alongside artists like RØDHÅD, Oscar Mulero, Cleric, and Alarico. “I spent a lot of time on that track,” she says. “I wanted to make sure it was something well worthy of being in between all those names.”

Vault gave her space to try things, to take risks, to grow in public. And for someone wired to keep learning, that kind of platform mattered.

“Especially around production, I'm still kind of gaining confidence,” she admits. “As a DJ, I can 100% say my skill is undeniable, but as a producer, I don't have that confidence yet.”

However, her inclusion in this year’s Beatport Next: Class of 2025 has helped start to shift that mindset. 

“It was a very nice confirmation of, yeah, you do belong here as a producer as well, not only as a DJ,” she says. “So that was nice, and it has definitely motivated me to invest more time, energy, finances, everything, into my label and really take myself seriously as a producer too.”

Grace’s label, Serial Disc Touchers (SDT), came out of a recognisable shift in the scene against the status quo. It’s a reaction to the pressure she saw, and sometimes felt, to stick to a sound, to stay in line.

“I saw many DJs always creating aliases for different styles,” she says. “And I was like, ‘why can I not just do different things under Grace Dahl? Why?’”

“Of course, I love techno, it's clear that that's my main focus. But I also love house, I love drum and bass, I love singing. Why can I not just do that under one umbrella?”

“I just really wanted to have a place where I can release what I want to release. I know so many producers who have all kinds of genres that they're releasing, and they just never see the light of day. And that's basically the main reason. I just wanted there to be a platform where there's complete creative freedom.”

“There's no pressure really in any way. There's no pressure for a type of genre, there's no pressure that there's like five releases per year. It’s just whenever something feels like it fits or it's supposed to come out, that's when I'll release it.”

And things are coming out. We’ve mentioned ‘I Want to Dance’: “Proper house with my own voice, just exactly how I like it,” which lands May 28th. There’s a release from Michael Ius with a Lobster remix: “Just pure techno, no doubts about it.” And a collaborative EP with her dad is taking shape: “Which can literally be anything because we both love all kinds of genres.”

"It's becoming again, I think, a bit more of a playful field, and that's also a term I use a lot because that's something that I love and look for in life."

Whether it’s slipping a dubstep drop into Boiler Room, spinning classics like Underworld from her dad's collection, or starting a label with no fixed genre in mind, Grace Dahl has always made space for the different, the playful, the funny, the unexpected.

Lately, she’s started to see the scene do the same.

“What really excites me about the scene is that I'm noticing a lot more freedom,” she says. “I'm seeing much more, for example, Blasha & Allatt house set, or whatever, like different kinds of sets. Like DVS1 recently did an electro set at Ratherlost.”

“So it's becoming again, I think, a bit more of a playful field, and that's also a term I use a lot because that's something that I love and look for in life.

“It’s supposed to be fun. We’re supposed to be having fun here, actually.

“And we don’t have to place ourselves in boxes all the time.”

Check out our What's On Guide to discover even more rowdy raves and sweaty gigs taking place over the coming weeks and months. For festivals, lifestyle events and more, head on over to our Things To Do page or be inspired by the event selections on our Inspire Me page.