Since their early releases on Playhouse in the 2000s, Rework has carved out a distinctive space in electronic music, blending house, electro, and new wave with a stark, minimalist touch. Their music thrives on restraint—pared-back grooves, clipped vocal hooks, and a mechanical precision that owes as much to Kraftwerk as it does to classic club culture.
Now, with their latest EP, Disco Love, they refine that approach even further. Released via their own label, exlove records, the two-tracker leans into acid house’s hypnotic pulse but keeps a studied distance—cool, controlled, and deliberate. It’s dance music with a detached elegance, where every element serves a purpose.
In this interview, Rework reflects on the process behind Disco Love, the cyclical nature of club culture, and the ethos driving their label. They also touch on the tension between machine funk and emotional detachment, and why, after two decades, they’re still searching for something new.
How much of ‘Disco Love’ was about distillation?
Kind of. We always love to work with a reduced setting in our studio and try to remain only the essential parts and feelings out of our tracks. Sometimes we are surprised about our finished piece.
Your sound has always thrived on restraint, but here, everything feels even more dialled-in—was there a conscious effort to strip things down further, or did it happen naturally?
As we work on many projects at the same time, we love to reduce ourselves in the production process, concerning all the technical and studio aspects. We like to finish our tracks fast without repeating and hearing them too many times and get bored of them. But I think it happens more naturally, almost subconscious. We’re trying to think about what makes sense for our track and the dancefloor.
The title track leans into acid house, but the mood is far from hedonistic. There’s a sense of distance, a studied coolness that keeps everything locked in place. What drew you to that particular tension between machine funk and detachment?
That tension about coolness and distance is what we like in “Disco Love”. This also reflects what we feel and see on the dancefloor, how people behave and sometimes also in our private relationships. There’s always been this mechanical hypnosis to Acid House. The coldness isn’t accidental; it amplifies the pulse, makes every shift feel deliberate. You move, but you’re held in place. It’s the beauty of repetition—not just rhythmically, but emotionally, thats what we always loved in club tracks or in early Krautrock music.
‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ builds in a way that feels almost claustrophobic, pushing deeper into low-end pressure while keeping things sparse. What was the driving idea behind that track, and how did you approach the contrast between the two sides of the EP?
We often try to come back to the aesthetics of our first tracks out of our “Playhouse” era. We like to use the same bass sound, drums and minimal percussions to give our tracks a kind of dark techno wave feeling. The driving idea was that feeling of waiting in vain for a call or a reaction from someone you like. As we said it all happens very subconsciously, when you are in the studio wearing your headphones, you feel like you are entering a different world with some references to your real life. Think both tracks from our “Disco Love” EP have a similar mood, so for us the contrast is not that high. Sorry we never produced happy house or melodic techno!
Your work has always existed at the intersection of house, electro, and new wave, but ‘Disco Love’ feels particularly pointed in its references. Were there any specific influences—musical or otherwise—that shaped the atmosphere of these tracks?
We always love this german mechanical coldness of Kraftwerk even if we are far away from their brilliance they are for sure a big influence for our work. That was also the reason we covered their song “Telephone Call” on our last album. We also love the early work of New Order, Movement, Power, Corruption & Lies. We have a wide range of influences and inspirations, some newer projects we like are Boy Harsher, Coatie Pop, Catherine Moan. But for sure a lot of music made with synths.
Over the years, your music has been remixed by some major names—Trentemøller, Roman Flügel, Andrew Weatherall. Do you hear echoes of your own aesthetic in the newer wave of producers who have absorbed those sounds?
Absolutely. Sounds mutate, but you can hear the DNA. Young producers have access to all the musical ideas in a much faster way then we had it when we started to produce music and everything kind of repeats in a newer guise.
Your catalog stretches back more than two decades, and yet there’s still a sense of forward motion in what you do. What keeps you engaged after all this time? Is there a particular sonic space you feel like you haven’t explored yet?
Thats a question we sometimes ask ourself. Why are we still active and engaged in this difficult music business. Guess we still love music, synthesizers and our studio that much that we cant stop it. Now with our new label exlove records and the wide range of projects we produce ourself, that makes it really exciting to create something new even if you are constantly annoyed that others do it better! But that is this kind of healthy competition we all have in us and what keeps us going on and proceed in our lives.
There’s a thread running through your discography that ties electroclash’s stark futurism to the deeper strains of minimal house. How do you see your own role in that lineage? Does it feel like club culture has finally caught up to some of those ideas?
t’s all cycles. Electroclash borrowed from early ‘80s synth minimalism, which was already channeling something older. Now we’re seeing that stripped-down aesthetic return. Club culture always swings between excess and precision. We never saw ourself as an electroclash band or be a part or role model of that scene. We also prefer to see and find a more eclectic way in the club culture. Its so nice that you can hear so many Styles and Genres in the club culture.
exlove records has given you space to push beyond dance music’s usual constraints, blending everything from post-punk to synthwave to indie electronics. Do you approach label curation differently from your own productions?
Yeah. The label is about possibilities, while my own work is about refining a vision. Warhols Factory was a space for ideas to clash. Exlove is that, too. The goal is to build a world, not just release tracks. We would probably be more successful with our label if we only release techno or dark wave, but that would be far less exciting for us to be pinned down to one style.
You’ve released on some of electronic music’s most respected labels—Playhouse, Get Physical, My Favorite Robot—each of which has a distinct identity. What does Exlove represent for you in that lineage?
It’s a statement of intent. exlove is about stripping things back to raw emotion, like a Factory Records for the club generation. But for sure we are not so close to the labels we usually release our music. But we are also older now and club life no longer has the importance in our lives that it had 20 years ago.
In an era of maximalism, ‘Disco Love’ keeps things ruthlessly focused. Do you think dance music benefits from that kind of reductionism, or do you see it as more of a personal choice in how you approach sound design?
Less is more. Always. Space is just as important as sound. Dance music thrives when it gives the listener room to step inside the track. It’s not about nostalgia, it’s about clarity. But for us it’s also a personal choice and we wont “travel” too far away from our Rework original sound we started in the early 2000s. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy club music that is different and more complex than our own productions,
Disco Love is out now on exlove records
The post “exlove is about stripping things back to raw emotion” Rework interview appeared first on Magnetic Magazine.