Icey Planet brings handpan-driven hybrid set to Else in Berlin

Icey Planet’s return to Else is being framed less like a standard DJ booking and more like a test of what minimal techno can become when the booth is only part of the story. Else x KEYI Magazine lands on Thursday, May 28, 2026, from 17:00 to 08:00 at Else, An den Treptowers 10, 12435 Berlin, with Icey Planet listed as a hybrid live performer alongside Ancient Methods, Bloody Mary, Berlin Bunny b2b Ludmila Houben, CMR-A b2b Miro Von, Franz Scala b2b Eyesdice, Mar/us, Shakti (KR) b2b Lokier, and Casey Spooner / Fischerspooner.

What makes the booking worth paying attention to is the format. KEYI’s lineup announcement says the night runs from the open-air area to the inside area, with a designer market, an exhibition and art performances unfolding through the night, and 10 selected Berlin-based designers showing work at the market. That changes the frame around Icey Planet’s set. Instead of a clean club-to-crowd exchange, the audience gets a staged environment where sound, light, movement and browsing all bleed into the same night.

Icey Planet fits that setting because her language already sits between disciplines. Resident Advisor describes her as a Berlin-based DJ and producer who merges techno, ambient and handpan rhythms into immersive soundscapes, while her public bio places her between Athens and Berlin and originally from Shanghai. Her profile also points to a mix that pulls from deep house, breakbeats, melodic techno, ambient and liquid drum and bass. In other words, she is not being booked to decorate a minimal groove with a live flourish. The handpan is part of the structure, a melodic and rhythmic voice that can redirect pacing instead of merely coloring it.

That is the real question hanging over this Else date: what does minimal techno feel like when it is not only mixed, but built in real time, with live percussion, cinematic design and a room that shifts from outside to inside? In a scene that prizes precision, Icey Planet’s hybrid approach suggests the next move is not bigger, but more elastic, with the groove stretched into a longer, stranger, more physical kind of immersion.