Sexual assault allegations, leaked screenshots, suspended artists and festival cancellations: within days, Europe’s hard techno elite has been thrust into a reckoning.
What many in the scene are now referring to as the 'Techno Files' has placed several headline DJs formerly linked to French artist management and booking agency Steer Management at the centre of the storm, alongside a whistleblower who says the culture of silence is over.
The names involved sit at the very summit of hard techno: French figurehead Shlømo, Basswell, Franco-American DJ Fantasm, Carv and Brussels-based Odymel.
The allegations surfaced through an Instagram account run by a former employee of Steer Management, who shared screenshots of private conversations and testimonies. What began as social media posts quickly escalated into a structural crisis for the scene.
From Antwerp, Belgian global superstar DJ Amelie Lens delivered one of the most widely shared responses on Instagram.
"The dancefloor is our home and the backstage is our workplace, but neither feels safe for us," she wrote, arguing that safety has long been treated as a women’s burden.
"This conversation is not an attack on men as a whole. It is about accountability," she added, challenging the culture of silence that protects harmful behaviour.
Lens also revealed she once went to the police with hundreds of threatening messages detailing plans to kidnap and rape her, only to be told they "couldn’t do...
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