Amelie Lens Pushes Boundaries With EXHALE VA007 Compilation

Prestigious Techno DJ and producer Amelie Lens marks 5 years of EXHALE with explosive new track ’Activate’ and the seventh edition of the label’s boundary-pushing compilation series. EXHALE VA007 follows EXHALE’s huge label showcase at ADE 2025.

EXHALE

For five years, EXHALE has been at the cutting edge of underground club culture. It has rewritten the rule book of future techno, powered by shared love of uncompromising rave culture. A dynamic, community-driven label, platform, and event series bridges the gap between DIY warehouse culture and mainstage sonics. EXHALE has grown exponentially from its early seeds on the legendary dancefloor of Labyrinth Club in Hasselt.

The brainchild of then-resident Amelie Lens, whose talent for curating unreal line-ups, including artists such as Marcel Dettmann, BenKlock, Ellen Allien, Rødhåd, and Kobosil, helped build the foundation of the EXHALE ethos. They unearthed raw talent and helped it grow by platforming alongside bigger names. Since those early days in 2020, Lens has brought EXHALE to some of the world’s most respected dancefloors, with showcases in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, Paris, Athens, Istanbul, as well as colossal stage hosting for Awakenings ADE, Creamfields UK, Tomorrowland, and many more.

In just half a decade, EXHALE’s unique brand of boundary-pushing, futuristic electronic music has marked them out as one of techno’s all-time greats. They bring together rising artists with heavyweight international names like no one else. This is evidenced succinctly on their highly impressive VA series, now on its seventh release. The compilations are a testament to the brilliance of Lens’ curatorial skill and the remarkable pool of talent in her orbit. These elements make waves in techno’s global underground.

EXHALE VA007

Across thirteen tracks, Exhale VA007 is a magnificent taster menu of some of the best in the game right now. It features several familiar faces from the EXHALE roster, including Flour, fresh from his recent Visitors EP on the label. It also has previous VA returnees GALLØ and FLKN, and EXHALE regular AIROD. Fittingly, 5th birthday celebrations are opened here by the label boss herself with the incredible ‘Activate’. The track is everything you could want from Amelie Lens: pummeling kick, flawless, high-impact production, trancy bigroom arps, and a gargantuan drop that will put you in spin mode.

EXHALE fave, Italian producer Flour, follows with aptly titled ‘Love It’. Replete with driving intensity, melodic vocals add contrast to the pounding techno tranceosphere. ‘Like a song you wanna play on repeat. ’ It’s got earworm status in spades. Next up is Spanish DJ and producer Blondex with ‘Zor’. He delivers the crisp, thumping kicks and darkly urgent synths. ‘Raving til we fall’ is dynamic, trancey, and epic.

Trippy and Trancey

Hot on their heels is French artist FLKN with ‘The Light’. Here, hard techno and a punk sensibility are in. Emotive vocals lead us straight to dance. Here, we’re met with distorted lazery synths that erupt into behemoth trancey 303s.

Glaswegian producer via Berlin, AISHA, delivers trippy euphoria with ‘Pill Crusher’. It gives notes of ’90s eurodance in the addictive synth horn melody loop. Breathy samples make this fresh cut feel like coming up for air deep in the rave. The first of two more returning EXHALE faces, Parisian AIROD, is next dropping some ‘LSD’. With more trippiness via gated vox, pumping intensity, bounce, and wonk, these come in the shape of innovative Scottish producer GALLØ and his track ‘Vul Dica’. Forecast? signature pounding rhythms and squelchy acid lines, offset with an emotive lightness of touch courtesy of hauntingly diaphanous synth melodies and vocal loops.

Future Techno Through EXHALEVA007

Emerging from Berlin’s underground, rising star Ellen Trenn’s ‘Regulate’ gives us searing pump mode from her cross-genre palette. She fuses tough electrobreak with spades of metallic techno futurism. Young Palestinian artist from Gaza, Jomaa, makes his debut with the movingly titled ‘Free Bird’. It is a reflection of the longing for freedom, delivered through driving rhythms, urgent sonics, and the implicit sound of resilience, hope, and humanity. ‘Turning silence into something that can be felt around the world’ is a compilation highlight from this talented newcomer. It’s all eyes on promising French Techno producer Carla Schmitt with her track ‘Look At Me’. It is progressive and groovy. Her background as a dancer reveals itself through the track’s dark, sensual energy and irresistible thump.

For ‘Just A Friend’, Canadian Alexa Borzyk gives us a panned synth and dubby detailing. This reveals an almost underwater feel as we dive deep into the night for this pearl of a track. The penultimate track comes from Dutch DJ and producer VE/RA with ‘No One Else’. She takes us to transcendent places with relentless rhythms and soaring choir-like vox.

Closing us out is Kurdish artist Lawyn, inspired by the rich electronic music culture of his now home, Germany. On ‘Nami’, he delivers a dramatic finale to Exhale VA007 with ‘Tubular Bells’ adjacent melodies, gothic beauty, and driving intensity. This is the perfect sign-off for a compilation that brims with raw energy, exciting talent, and encapsulates EXHALE’s dynamic techno universe with aplomb. As essential as the label itself, here’s to the next five years and many more to come.