GehLekTek.
Follow the energy.
GehLekTek on LOVE and RAGE, kicks with their own character and live sets that take shape in the moment.
In conversation with GehLekTek
A sound takes the lead, a button pressed by accident opens a new direction, and a melody sung by someone in the crowd later finds its way into a live set. For GehLekTek, the studio and dancefloor continually feed into each other. The Vienna producer talks about turning open-ended ideas into music, why love and anger belong together, and the encounters that turn a scene into a place for shared work.
GehLekTek is the musical project of Vienna’s Jonas Eigenschink, working between acid, tekno, mental, tribe and trance. LOVE arrived in 2025, followed by RAGE in July 2026; the GehLekKickPack makes his own sounds available for others to work with. Five questions by email, lightly edited and translated from German.
When a sound takes the lead.
In one of your studio clips, a dubby passage moves into driving tribe. How does a transition like that happen for you: do you find your way there while jamming, or do you already have the progression in mind? Take us through a particular moment.
The way ideas come together is very different each time. Sometimes I have a very clear idea of what I want to do; sometimes I just start producing. Even when there’s a concrete idea at the beginning, a particular sound will often take over and send the project in a completely different direction, which I then like better than the original idea.
That’s why I prefer loose parameters to a specific goal set in stone. That was the case with the clip you mentioned, too: I simply wanted to combine dub and tribe somehow. I left the melody and the mood that might emerge completely open.
Putting love and anger into motion.
LOVE was followed by RAGE in 2026. Looking back at making the two albums, what did you do differently, or allow yourself to do, on RAGE? Which track tells that story best?
The two albums are meant to represent opposite poles of what is essentially the same thing. The difference often isn’t that easy to judge. But what particularly shaped RAGE was a very prolonged depressive period, much of it also marked by health problems. A lot of anguish about the world and anger built up during that time, and found their way into “Revolute”, the album’s almost-title track.
Another major inspiration was taking part in the Riot Over River Festival in Prague. In particular, seeing Stage Bottles perform motivated me to put “I Am Only A Pacifist As Long As You Are Not A Nazi” on the album as its only punk track.
For me, LOVE was a celebration of love and RAGE a celebration of anger. What matters is that both gather those respective energies and put them to constructive use. It’s essential to be able to feel and process everything; it can’t always be all “happy bappy”.
There’s some pretty wild stuff happening in the world today. Processing frustration is just as important as remembering what we’re actually fighting for. Both albums are meant to give strength to everyone who listens.
I just dance along with people while I’m performing and press the buttons according to where the energy is pulling me.
A set takes shape between people.
When you perform your music live, what do you deliberately leave open so the night can take a different direction? Can you recall a moment when the audience gave you an idea that later stayed with you in the studio?
With my live sets, I want to strike a balance between adaptability and recognisability. It should be something built specifically for live performance, while still containing the melodies and motifs of favourite tracks. That’s why almost every track of mine has an alternative live version, made up of loops stripped down to the essentials and designed to be as tweakable as possible.
What I mainly leave open, and what makes the biggest difference to the energy, is how often the breaks happen, or how long the kick and bass keep running continuously. The more “ravey” the event is, at free parties for example, the longer the kick tends to keep going without stopping. That creates a more hypnotic, trance-inducing effect, which is good for letting go. In smaller clubs and shorter sets, there are more breaks, buildups and “flashy” moments, which makes things more full-on and gives people a chance to really let off steam.
I draw on the same catalogue for every set. But which parts I might skip, how long I play each one and how I arrange them is always decided completely in the moment. It doesn’t really happen consciously: I just dance along with people while I’m performing and press the buttons according to where the energy is pulling me. Depending on the place, time of day, length and mood, a completely individual set emerges almost by itself.
Pressing the wrong button has often created moments that I later turned into new tracks, which then found their way back into the live set in another altered form. Everything is part of an interlocking, never-ending process.
A little story about that: last summer I played a live set at a Czech teknival. When I reached the live version of “Shiko”, someone walked past behind me during the break, singing the melody from DJ-Arne’s track “Assimilation”. Anyone who knows my more recent live set will know that I currently like playing a mashup of “Shiko” and “Assimilation”. That was inspired by that exact moment.
A kick with a mood of its own.
With the GehLekKickPack, you give other producers your own kicks to work with. What makes a really good kick for you, and does your perspective change when that sound also needs to work in someone else’s tracks?
All the kicks in the sample pack come from tracks I’ve produced either as GehLekTek or as part of a side project. Some are from released tracks; others are from unfinished material.
Because I always make my own kicks, their sound often changes drastically during production and goes through a very long period of trial and error. In tekno especially, you can give a kick an enormous amount of tonal character, which is why I really like kicks with more complex textures.
For me, a kick is good when it almost sets the mood for the rest of the track by itself. So the sample pack contains sounds that have definitely worked in my tracks. I think anyone who enjoys my music and picks up the sample pack for that reason will be able to get good use out of it.
What grows out of an encounter.
Elli and Christoph from CATS.R.qL told us about working with you and recommended you for this conversation. Which encounters or shared projects have particularly helped you along the way? What grows out of those connections beyond a single show or release?
I’ll start at the very beginning: without VazDaz and TakaTuka, I wouldn’t even have thought of producing tekno. Exchanging ideas with those two and getting an insight into how they work was my biggest source of inspiration, particularly when I was releasing my first few tracks as GehLekTek.
The fact that “Shiko”, my collaboration with TakaTuka released years later, is by far my most successful track to date brings that full circle for me. Our working methods go together really well because our respective kinds of chaos fit together. That’s why the back-to-back sets have always worked so well, too.
Later, through my first collaboration, I got to know the FTS people, particularly DokTek and Gönnhard. Through that connection, at Arythmia in 2018 I heard one of my kicks through a proper wall of speakers for the first time. I quickly realised how well connected the Vienna scene is, and how everyone knows each other somehow.
That also became clear through my first appearances at fluc, which came about through an FTS recommendation. My first performance there was supposed to have been at an FTS event on the first weekend of the first COVID lockdown. Instead, I actually played there for the first time in July, two years later.
Then, a few years ago, I got to know Elli and Christoph. I’d already been following Phat Otiz for a long time and had always thought his success was only a matter of time. So it doesn’t surprise me that Chris is doing so well now. His productions are incredibly cohesive and always inspire me.
The moods of our music work well together, which led to us often being booked together or for the same event. Through frequent backstage conversations, we got to know each other better, and collaborating on merchandise became a very natural next step.
But generally, I have to say that the tekno scene here offers a wonderful exchange between artists. I very regularly come away from conversations with all kinds of artists with fresh perspectives and ideas, whether that’s backstage or on Instagram.
GehLekTek
Interview by email · Editorial and image art direction: SCENE:ID. © Lena Hummelsberger · SCENE:ID Bildgestaltung · CASSSEVEN NUMERIQUE · SCENE:ID Bildgestaltung