Guest Mix: Heap

09.03.2023
Heap runs the labels Neubau and Wiener Brut »with no coercion, no deadlines and no marketing«. The producer and DJ focuses on casual quality instead of a personality cult. As a sideline, he runs a YouTube channel, which sometimes causes price fluctuations in the record business. Heap recorded a 60 minute mix for us.

Florian Stöffelbauer calls himself Heap and lives in Vienna. He runs a YouTube treasure chest, two labels and an association for cultural mediation. 2022 saw the release of his début album on Isla – a record for which the Gründerzeit groove is wrapped in a vestment of decoration. Concerts have recently taken him to Bristol, Amsterdam and Kaunas. Everything’s going great, you might think. The Neubau and Wiener Brut label boss nevertheless leaves the loud sounds to the club. »I don’t want to impose anything on anyone,« he says. »Self-congratulation influences how opinions are formed in a community.« For Heap, the music therefore stands in the foreground, not the »cult of personality that prevails online«. 

Fanatical record collector 

Almost 20 records have been released so far on Neubau, the label Heap co-founded with a friend in 2015 and which he now runs together with Florian Bocksrucker. The records feature tracks that lie somewhere »between synthwave, dub, cosmic, techno and electro«, as journalist Shilla Strelka writes. Besides releasing its own EPs, the label focuses on networking with other artists. Last year saw the release of records by YNV and Grischerr. »The releases just happen,« Heap tells us, »with no coercion, no deadlines and no marketing«. This method of casualness interests him. It gives the music time to breathe. »No release takes place on Neubau without a soul.« 

Heap, who is a »fanatical record collector«, is also the face behind another label: Wiener Brut. It features music from a time when Marlboro and Maggi were still a duo playing the pub circuit. 2022 saw the release of »Die Minimalisten«, a former school project – Euro House from the Eighties, which Heap has described as »Austrian Mashisa«. With the sub-label, he focuses on the stories behind forgotten projects. Recounting them anew is the element that drives Wiener Brut. The sub-label also allow him to bundle his digger interest. He not only shows this in the mix he recorded for us, but also on YouTube: It is there that Heap is responsible for archaeological digs like this one.