Hans Nieswandt

Hans Nieswandt is a DJ, music producer and author. After studying American Studies at the University of Hamburg, he began working professionally as a DJ and music journalist. From 1990 to 1993, he worked as an editor for the Cologne-based music and pop culture magazine »Spex«" which was devoted in particular to subcultural artists and phenomena. In addition, Nieswandt organized numerous club nights in Cologne in the early 1990s, including the »Whirlpool« series. This gave rise to the music project Whirlpool Productions, with which he recorded four albums and landed the worldwide hit »From Disco to Disco« in 1997. In 1998, his first solo album »Lazer Muzik« was released. This was followed by the solo records »The True Sound Center« (2006), »Hans Is Playing House« (2010), »12 Remixes for Hildegard Knef« (2012) and »Flower Hans« (2023).

Since the mid-1990s, Nieswandt has been an internationally sought-after disco, house and techno DJ. Starting in 1994, the Goethe-Institut sent him on extensive lecture, workshop and performance tours as an ambassador for German electronic music culture to countries including the Near, Middle, Far, Northern and Southern East, Central and Latin America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, as well as numerous European countries.

In 2001, his first book »Plusminus Acht - DJ Tage, DJ Nächte« was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, followed by »Disko Ramallah« (2004) and »DJ Dionysos - Geschichten aus der Diskowelt« (2010). In his books, he focuses primarily on the pop-cultural and technological developments of the international DJ world.

In 2017, Nieswandt was the winner of the International Music Journalism Award for the best music journalistic work of the year. In 2022, the city of Cologne awarded him the Holger Czukay Honorary Prize for »services to pop from Cologne, house music from Germany, and the establishment of queer lifestyles«.

From 2014 to 2019, he served as artistic director of the newly founded Institute for Pop Music at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany. Since 2019, Hans Nieswandt has been living in Seoul, South Korea, where he is working on new music productions. In addition, he is currently writing a book on K-Pop and continues to perform as a DJ.