This piece appears as part of “BERLIN, BERLIN” — a weekend-long virtual celebration of the city. Head here to see the full series.
Who wouldn’t want to teleport to a beach rave right now and dissociate? This winter, you actually could — by transporting into Grand Theft Auto’s free online update, The Cayo Perico Heist, set in the fictional Cayo Perico islands. To soundtrack the game’s boozy beach parties and nightclubs, GTA invited some of the world’s top-shelf DJs, including German DJ-trio Keinemusik, who performed exclusive motion-captured sets only accessible in gameplay — until now.
For Highsnobiety, Keinemusik is releasing their GTA beach mix online for the first time outside of the game, to kick off our virtual BERLIN, BERLIN launch party.
The mix, made entirely by music either produced, remixed, or edited by Keinemusik, combines smooth tropical house with breezy falsetto vocals. At the front of the DJ booth, the Keinemusik DJs appear in their virtual-reality avatars. The three of them sway in front of the booth, wearing VR swag from fashionable friends: a cap and tee from the Berlin skater brand Civilist, a shirt from the rave-punk outfitters MISBHV.
Keinemusik was asked to play GTA by Sam Houser—president of Rockstar Games, which creates GTA — whom the DJs met after spending “a few fun nights together” at Circoloco in Ibiza. Also on the GTA lineup are world-famous DJs like Tale of Us, Flying Lotus, and The Blessed Madonna, with whom Rockstar proudly takes credit for introducing hundreds of thousands of players to some of the best electronic music artists. (Apparently, they’ve exposed users to 75 billion minutes of music since Grand Theft Auto V debuted in 2013.)
For Cayo Perico, Keinemusik decided to recreate the Ibiza vibe. “The picture we had in mind was a sunrise set and what we would be playing in a scenario like this,” Keinemusik says. “Doing this in a motion capture studio in mo-cap suits with 82 cameras in your face is obviously a bit of a different story, lol.”
Check out the video mix above.
