Roman Flügel

The Playhouse garage and the rave lesson

In a humid summer, with a crate of beer and an improvised studio in a garage, Playhouse was born: the label that would define European house with Isolée, LoSoul, and Ricardo Villalobos. Roman Flügel was at the center of that operation, alongside Jörn Elling Wuttke and the axis of Ongaku Musik and Klang Elektronik that Ata and Heiko MSO opened from the Delirium shop in Frankfurt. He was not a one-trick producer. He was a classically trained pianist and drummer, raised in Darmstadt, who abandoned musicology because church sonatas couldn't compete with the bass of LFO at Sven Väth's Omen.

Alias, Rocker and the bleep that crossed borders

With Wuttke, he signed Alter Ego, Acid Jesus, Holy Garage, and Sensorama; solo, he traversed Roman IV, Soylent Green, Eight Miles High, and Ro 70, from acid to ambient. Alter Ego entered the German and British charts with Rocker (2004). The same year, Geht's Noch? was released on Cocoon Recordings and became a club hit that influenced Dutch house. He remixed Daft Punk, Kylie Minogue, Pet Shop Boys, The Human League, and Primal Scream. In the booth, his historic home is Robert Johnson in Offenbach, where he is a long-standing resident; he is also a regular presence at Panorama Bar. Gerd Janson compares him to a chameleon: each set changes according to the room, the time, and the dancefloor, and each record has time to breathe before the next crossover.

Dial, Running Back and the Berlin chapter

Since 2009, he has focused on his own name. On Dial, he released Fatty Folders (2011), Happiness Is Happening (2014), and All The Right Noises (2016). Then came Black Acid (Phonica, 2017), the Fabric 95 mix, the drone of Themes (ESP Institute, 2018), and, on Running Back, Eating Darkness (2021), Mega (2022), Lucky Charm (2023), and Dusty Jukebox (2026), as well as Balmy Evening (2022) on Mule Musiq. In 2016, he launched the Sister Midnight parties. After moving from Frankfurt to Berlin in 2018, he continues to tour clubs and festivals—with sessions for Rinse FM and recordings at Club Space in Miami—and in 2025 he celebrated two decades of Geht's Noch? with an anniversary edition. His place in the scene is that of a DJ-producer who treats acid, house, techno, and melody as a single language, always one step away from surprising.