Who is STL, and why does a triple album matter?
STL is Stephan Laubner, and he has spent close to two decades releasing almost nothing anywhere except his own Something label, which he runs himself from the Harz highlands of northern Germany. That is the context that makes Take Me To Your Leader land the way it does. Sixteen tracks across three clear 12-inch records, six sides of transparent vinyl, self-issued as SOMETHING Vinyl Series 33. A man who guards his output this carefully does not press a triple album by accident.
Sixteen tracks, six sides, one label, one pair of hands. This is a record built to be lived with, not scrolled past.
What does it actually sound like?
Eerie, extended, and unbothered by the clock. This is leftfield house shadowed by X-Files atmospherics, threaded through with acid, dub techno and a raw, psychedelic groove. The grooves stay warm even when the mood turns cold, which is the STL trick: music that feels haunted and inviting at the same time. It opens with So Bin Ich Dem Leben Naeher and closes on Standard Fried Stir, both carrying that unhurried conviction he has made his own.
How is it built for DJs?
Spread across the long compositions are four loops, marked A, B, C and E, and they work as connective tissue. They are the tools: tight, DJ-friendly stretches you can ride to bridge the bigger pieces, or lean on to build a set out of the album alone. It is a producer thinking about the floor while writing for the headphones.
