Chris Liebing

About

Also known as: CL, CL2, Chris Leibing, Chris Liebings, Chris Liebling, Christoph Liebing

Chris Liebing built his reputation as one of techno's hardest hitting DJs out of the Frankfurt scene in the early 1990s, where he ran the Spinclub techno club and worked at Eye Q Records before launching his own labels. His sound sits at the heavy end of the spectrum: pounding rhythms, raw textures and the kind of industrial edge associated with schranz. His 2004 album Evolution took two years to make and was memorably described by CMJ New Music Report as "a techno album to go to war with". A collaboration with Speedy J on Collabs 3000: Metalism earned similar praise from Billboard as one of the year's best electronic releases. Beyond the club circuit, Liebing has long had a radio and podcast presence. His CLR Podcast ran weekly from 2009 to 2015 and pulled in guests including Depeche Mode's Martin Gore, before being replaced by his am/fm show focusing on his own mixes. His 2018 album Burn Slow on Mute Records pushed into darker, more vocal territory, featuring Gary Numan and Polly Scattergood, with album art drawn from a painting by Jan Brueghel the Younger. He has since done a remix for Depeche Mode's Ghosts Again and released a second original album also titled Burn Slow.