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It was Friday night, and the clubgoers at the Sputnikhalle nightclub in M\u00fcnster, Germany, were primed to go hard. Decked out in black clothes and sunglasses, despite the dim light, the young crowd chanted the name of H\u00e9ctor Oaks<\/a>, a Spanish D.J., as he began playing his signature muscular, fast techno. Standing on top of the club\u2019s risers, the crowd barely tried to keep up with the beat. Instead of moving their legs, many just oscillated their hips.<\/p>\n Neele Hoyer, 21, a college student attending the event, explained that most other German techno fans of her age had developed affinity for such breathless music. \u201cIt\u2019s gone totally mainstream,\u201d she said. Dancing to such a fast beat could sometimes be strenuous, she added, but \u201cthis is what\u2019s normal to us.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent years, Oaks, 32, has become a prominent figure in a broader trend in electronic music. While conventional techno is often played at around 120 to 130 beats per minute, Oaks and other D.J.s often play at 145 or above. The resulting hard-charging, breakneck sound has become the defining sound of Europe\u2019s dance floors since the lockdown phase of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Although fast electronic music is not new, its broader dominance is. A data analysis by the German public broadcaster RBB<\/a> this summer found that the top electronic music tracks of 2022 had much faster tempos than similar songs in 2016. Specialist dance music publications like Mixmag<\/a> and Beatportal<\/a> have noted the trend, and many of the buzzy D.J.s of the moment, like Ukraine\u2019s Daria Kolosova and the Polish D.J. VTSS, are known for cranking up the speed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI see it everywhere,\u201d said Casper Tielrooij, the founder of Dekmantel, a label and annual electronic music festival in Amsterdam. \u201cIt\u2019s not only techno, but jungle and trance and drum and bass.\u201d He argued that although the zeitgeist had started to change before Covid, the faster, harder genre of techno had \u201cexploded during the pandemic\u201d and tastes were partly being shaped by young people who had spent their late teens or early twenties in lockdown.<\/p>\n Luigi Di Venere<\/a>, a techno and house D.J. who often plays at Berghain, the Berlin techno club, said that \u201cthere\u2019s this idea that they need to speed things up to make up for it, and in case it happens again.\u201d He added that the less \u201corganic\u201d and more \u201crobotic\u201d fast music suited a generation of clubgoers more connected to online culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He argued that the brisk sound is partly sustained by a kind of feedback loop: As some D.J.s play faster, their co-headliners imitate their style to keep up the energy in the club. \u201cYou can\u2019t just be a grandma and go, \u2018Tra-la-la, 120 B.P.M.,\u2019\u201d he said, adding that he believed the trend still hasn\u2019t reached its peak.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In an interview, Oaks said that he began developing his sound in 2013, by melding traditional techno sets with other genres, including trance. Music played at a higher speed, he said, causes dancers\u2019 hips, rather than their feet, to resonate, fostering a movement more akin to hovering than dancing. \u201cI\u2019ve thought about this a lot,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He recalled that the music he played was an outlier on the European club scene a decade ago. But he partly grew a following at Herrensauna, a Berlin-based queer party known for its harder sound. The Herrensauna D.J.s\u2019 2018 appearance on the influential Boiler Room platform, which hosts livestreamed sets, was a \u201cturning point\u201d for his kind of music, he said. \u201cAfter that, you could see everything switched.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The style\u2019s success was likely fueled by other developments, including the proliferation of online D.J. streams, like H\u00f6r, during the pandemic\u2019s lockdowns. According to Di Venere, because these streams were often shorter than normal club sets, D.J.s were pushed to squeeze in as much energy as possible, and the high-octane results became a staple at Europe\u2019s illegal pandemic-era raves<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since coronavirus-prevention measures were relaxed last year, the sound has now transitioned to the continent\u2019s clubs, including in smaller cities like M\u00fcnster, which has a population of around 300,000. Oaks is now regularly booked at venues in Ibiza, for instance, which were previously known for their softer, warmer sound.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n