Berlin-based label Tarnac is doing exactly what we need right now – putting out cutting-edge electronic music on vinyl. With a minimal online presence, their work is obviously all about the artform. With an anonymous front, they operate behind the scenes – for all we know it could be a shell company. With four releases behind them, we posted a virtual letter to them, demanding answers that could shed some light on their ghostly operation. We got the following reply from Truthspeaker.
Tarnac is my favourite new label of 2026, in a time when no one seems to care about traditional record labels. What function can a label fill today, when most artists focus on playlist inclusions?
I think a lot of artists in this scene came together over a certain position toward contemporary dance music and club culture. Tarnac is a common ground. I like to think about it as anti-club music.
I personally put a lot of value into the sincerity and timelessness music acquires as soon as it becomes a physical medium, too. Cosmic entities brought into being… Much of the established industry around physical music distribution can be rather traditionally aligned, though. Especially with dance music, there seems to be a conformed logic for genre and function, which I don’t see as the inquiry for Tarnac as much. This friction is also a reason I wanted to do this project.
You’ve been involved with several label projects before, what sets Tarnac apart from these?
Post Hoc, I co-run. Tourizm and i2 would function as platforms that would focus primarily on my own music. I started Tarnac out of some kind of nostalgia for the future… Practically, it focuses more on dance music, and otherwise also less on my own music.
Your new release is a record by Reinhaudt, a local Berlin artist. How important is personal relationships for you when it comes to production/releases?
Yes, it’s a lot about sharing a similar attitude and ideas, expressed through music. Likewise with Leolo (Reinhaudt) and many others – having connected through music in the first place and becoming friends. His new release is a good example of excessive force that transgresses its own form, or something like that.
I hate the term post-genre, but how would you describe the state grassroots electronic music is in currently, where you live? From an outside perspective there are many projects that are more focused on community rather than genres or dance/non-dance music.
To me, Berlin sometimes feels confined in its own economy and image at times, especially since counterculture has itself become a mainstream of culture and economy so much, making it harder for anything new to emerge.
I believe that operating outside of established industries and institutions is a means to preserve the socially intuitive force underground culture can have, instead of the hamster-wheel economics of state-funded events.
I think electronic music is generally very scattered right now, with many co-existing understandings, streams, and discourses. There have been some refreshing projects emerging in Berlin lately, though, that sort of place the cybernetics of online and mediated culture within the real world and communities in interesting ways.
You also have a practice in fine arts and obviously the world of Tarnac is shaped by your vision, conceptually and visually. Is minimalism a positive connotation to you, or does it provoke you?
Tarnac’s visual and symbolic language might just function as setting the focus on what is heard rather than what is seen. In a way, I’d like to let the music speak for itself. Music may express the unrepresentable. That might also somehow be where that connection to my artistic practice is established again.
What are some other labels (or curational projects) that have inspired you, or that you simply think have done things well?
There’s a global underground that is, and hopefully remains, pretty well connected. For example, Dust in NYC was influential for many people, including me; it feels like a lot of things emerged from it. The first time playing a truthspeaker set was on their stream in NYC, where we also played a World Experience Center live set at their party Nausea. I’ve been in exchange a lot with friends who used to co-run it, and their current individual projects (like PUPPY, Rank+File, Vial), which has been inspiring.
Besides many others to mention, the uncompromising and genuine events put on by v23 and examine archive have felt like home for me, and lately I’ve been excited about some projects emerging in Berlin and also globally, such as Club [8], (c)rave, or ASID, or the ever-illicit events by Desire Production…
How do you feel about releasing your own productions on Tarnac? Would you rather work with an established label?
I think it‘s more about giving things the right space and time to sustain themselves. I prefer releasing where I feel the music belonging and fitting, over trying to assimilate into existing structures too much. At the same time I believe that DIY culture; labels, venues, etc., shouldn’t necessarily imply a sense of carelessness, but instead, propose alternatives, their own worlds.
What does the future look like for Tarnac?
It looks bright, no end in sight.
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Photos and artwork by Tarnac
