Home › Guides › Melodic Techno Like Kevin De Vries
Hear it now
Press play.
This is BALIMORE — written, produced and mixed by Steven Ran Cohen. Full tracks, no sign-up, no download. Four minutes is enough to know whether this is your sound.
- Lane
- Festival melodic techno
- Tempo
- 124 – 130 BPM
- Signature
- Bright sixteenth-note arpeggios
- Vocals
- Rare
Two things stated plainly before anything else. This page is not affiliated with the artist it discusses, is not endorsed by them, and sells nothing — no tickets, no merchandise. For shows and tickets, go to that artist’s own official site or their announced ticketing partner and nowhere else. And my information has a cutoff: labels, line-ups and rosters move, so read every name here as a direction to search in rather than a current fact.
Why it reads as euphoric
The arpeggio sits high. Same sixteenth-note figure as the rest of the lane — one note every 115 milliseconds at 130 BPM — but voiced an octave or two above where the melancholic end puts it. High and bright reads as uplift; the same notes played low read as dread.
Open high-frequency content. Minimal shelving above 8 kHz, long bright reverbs, hats left crisp. Nothing is rolled off, so the record sounds like daylight rather than a basement.
Harmony that resolves. The progression returns home. The melancholic end of the lane avoids that resolution deliberately; this end leans into it.
Built for scale. The arrangement assumes a long sightline and a big system: elements enter one at a time over four minutes so the change is readable from the back of a field.
Where the lane continues
ARTBAT, Massano, Argy and Agents Of Time for comparable scale. Stephan Bodzin for arpeggios written on hardware. Tale of Us and Mind Against for the same technique turned dark.
What to search instead of the name
Uplifting melodic techno, melodic techno 128 BPM, festival melodic techno mix, arpeggio techno.
And, in the interest of being straight with you
BALIMORE is my own project — I write, produce and mix all of it myself as Steven Ran Cohen. I am not going to claim it belongs beside the name at the top of this page; that artist has spent years in rooms I have not played. What I will say is that it is built in the same lane with the same arrangement logic, the player above is free, and four minutes will tell you more than any comparison I could write.
BALIMORE sets
Continuous 20–80 minute mixes, written, produced and mixed by Steven Ran Cohen.
- Best Hits Psytrance 2027 — The Last Light1:20 · psytrance
- No Borders After Darkafro & latin
- Techno House Best Mix 2026 — Project Xpeak time
- Tech House Mix — Time To Shine Againtech house
- YouTubeplaylist
Questions people actually ask
What genre is Kevin de Vries?
The bright, festival-sized end of melodic techno — roughly 124 to 130 BPM, led by high-register sixteenth-note arpeggios, with open high frequencies and harmony that resolves.
Why does some melodic techno sound uplifting and some sound dark?
Mostly register and brightness, not notes. The same arpeggio voiced high with open high frequencies reads as euphoric; voiced low and rolled off, it reads as dread.
What is an arpeggio in techno?
A chord played one note at a time in sequence, usually at sixteenth-note speed — about 115 milliseconds per note at 130 BPM. Fast enough to read as one moving texture, slow enough to hear each note land.
What artists sound like Kevin de Vries?
ARTBAT, Massano, Argy, Agents Of Time and Stephan Bodzin all work at comparable scale or with similar arpeggio writing.