Producer & DJ · Berlin, Germany
Mollono.Bass
Mollono.Bass, Ronny Mollenhauer, has spent three decades in German tech house, from founding Kombinat100 to running Acker Records and 3000° Records.
Mollono.Bass, known to friends and collaborators as Molle, has been making tech house since 1995, long enough to have watched an entire regional scene grow up around him in Germany's northeast. Born Ronny Mollenhauer in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and now based in Berlin, he has built a career on warm, dub-inflected production, a genuine live show rather than a laptop set, and two record labels that have carried his own sound out into the wider German house and techno underground.
From Mecklenburg to Kombinat100
Mollono.Bass started producing electronic music in 1995, working out of Germany's sparsely populated northeastern state before the country's tech house scene had fully coalesced around Berlin. He became a founding member of Kombinat100, a four-piece live outfit alongside Henry Dieckmann, Marc Vogler and Jens Lembke, built around hardware sequencers, drum machines and live-played melodica and organ rather than a conventional DJ set. Kombinat100 has been an annual fixture on Fusion Festival's Seebühne, the lakeside stage at the long-running, famously commercial-free festival in Lärz, since the group's first appearance there in 2001, a booking streak that has made them one of the stage's most recognizable regular acts.
Acker Records and 3000° Records
Mollono.Bass's label footprint runs alongside his production career. He founded Acker Records in 2006 as an outlet for playful, dancefloor-minded electronic experiments, and followed it in 2008 with 3000° Records, the imprint most closely tied to his own solo material and to Kombinat100 releases. Between the two labels and his outside projects, including Rundfunk3000 and a joint venture with Jens Lembke billed as Eulenhaupt & Mollenhauer, Mollono.Bass has spent nearly two decades building the kind of small, self-sufficient label infrastructure that keeps a producer's catalogue entirely in their own hands.
Sound and Style
Behind the decks and in his live sets, Mollono.Bass works in a minimal, bass-heavy strain of tech house built for the dancefloor: rolling, driving drum programming layered with dubby, harmonic textures and warm, emotive melodic touches rather than stripped-back functionality. It's a sound that translates equally well to club-sized rooms and to the outdoor, festival-scale stage he has returned to with Kombinat100 for over two decades.
Live at RTS.FM
Mollono.Bass's RTS.FM appearance came as part of a showcase for 3000°, the same label imprint he had launched two years earlier, a neat overlap between his own label history and the archive set itself.
FAQ
What is Mollono.Bass's real name?
Ronny Mollenhauer. He performs and produces under the name Mollono.Bass, and is also known by the nickname Molle.
What is Kombinat100?
Kombinat100 is the live, hardware-driven act Mollono.Bass co-founded with Henry Dieckmann, Marc Vogler and Jens Lembke, best known for its long-running annual appearances on the Seebühne stage at Fusion Festival since 2001.
What labels does Mollono.Bass run?
He founded Acker Records in 2006 and 3000° Records in 2008, the latter closely tied to his own solo releases and to Kombinat100's output.
Has Mollono.Bass performed at RTS.FM?
Yes. RTS.FM's archive includes a DJ set he recorded as part of a 3000° label showcase on November 21, 2010.
How long has Mollono.Bass been producing music?
Since 1995, making him one of the longer-running names to come out of Germany's northeastern tech house scene.