INTONAL: Afterhours

There ain’t no afterparty like an Intonal afterparty—where endurance meets euphoria and the night rewrites itself in rhythm. After an 11-year silence, Sandwell District return, not as an echo of the past but as a force renewed. Regis and Function, architects of techno’s most elusive and influential chapter, step back into the shadows, wielding their signature blend of raw minimalism and hypnotic propulsion. With them, Assyouti threads Cairo’s frenetic pulse through Berlin’s bass-heavy underbelly, pushing sound into uncharted territory. A night of reckoning, release, and the relentless pull of the dancefloor—no pretense, no compromise, just movement. Sandwell District One of techno’s most formidable alliances, Regis and Function have long operated at the vanguard of uncompromising sound. As Sandwell District, they reshaped the genre’s landscape, pushing beyond functionalism into something more abstract, immersive, and deeply psychological. Now, following the untimely passing of their third counterpart, Juan Mendez (Silent Servant), in January 2024, the duo returns with a new chapter – End Beginnings, an album that marks both a continuation and a reckoning. Individually, Regis (Karl O’Connor) and Function (Dave Sumner) are architects of modern techno’s darker mutations, each wielding a distinct yet complementary sonic language. Together, their output has been as elusive as it is influential, dissolving boundaries between raw industrialism, hypnotic minimalism, and cinematic atmospherics. Their legacy is not just written in records but in the spaces they’ve transformed – be it the dimly lit basements of Berlin or cavernous festival stages worldwide. With End Beginnings, Regis and Function step back into the fray in new company—not as a return to form, but as a testament to evolution, resilience, and the unrelenting pull of sound that exists beyond time, place, and even life itself. Assyouti Born and raised in Egypt’s crowded and disordered capital Cairo, Assyouti is among his generation’s most distinct DJs and producers. Juggling hypermodern bass mutations, warped dancefloor snaps and percussive club experiments, he draws energy from the chaotic stimulus he grew up engulfed by, routing it into refined productions and elegant selections. Since 2021 he’s been based in Berlin and has quickly gained local traction, appearing at venues like the legendary club Tresor, RSO, OHM, and Trauma Bar. He has also performed at renowned music festivals like Berlin’s CTM and Uganda’s Nyege Nyege. In 2024 he also founded the No_Stone event series that he runs with Barcelona based DJ/Selector Jehia. His debut EP Shakhrama was released in 2022 on High Digital, and highlights his wide-eyed and borderless musical interests, followed by an even stronger second EP on Shepard Tone, in which he explores his own take on jungle and breakbeat mayhem. Noisy and at times aggressive, his productions melt visceral but challenging rhythms with distorted vocal and drum samples, processed beyond recognition into buzzsaw post-punk sonics. The 2025 SHAPE+ participant brings his DJ set to Intonal, balancing his love of the hardcore continuum with sounds from the world’s furthest recesses, and is equally eager to build supercharged freneticism to energized dancers as he is guiding them through an introspective emotional hypnosis fueled by collective energy.