Launching its partnership with Berlin music label Keinemusik with a lavish party at the Bürgenstock resort in the Swiss alps, Audemars Piguet pulled out all the stops
For a watch company, Audemars Piguet (AP) sure know how to get lost in the moment. “The funicular will be waiting for you,” said the captain of the catamaran from Luzern to Switzerland’s exclusive Bürgenstock resort as I tried to wrap my head around how I’d make it to the Keinemusik party in time. Later, atop the historic Nidwalden mountains above the clouds, time seemed similarly elusive. Keinemusik DJ Rampa’s shuffling rhythms – one part tech-house, one part amapiano – looped round inexorably, mirroring the clockwork-like rails that encircled the stage. “Time is relative when you’re having fun,” read AP’s slogan for the event.
This sense of being lost in time defined the journey of Rampa himself. The Berlin-based DJ-producer has had a meteoric rise over the last year, selling out shows across the globe – including performances at Mexico’s ancient Mayan settlement of Tulum and the pyramids of Giza in Egypt – as well as producing for international afrobeats star Burna Boy and Drake, but it hasn’t always been that way. “A lot of people think we blew up fast, but actually we slept on promoters’ couches for years,” Rampa announces in the mini-documentary chronicling his partnership with AP. “We shared hotel rooms and a lot of pesto pasta, that was actually the time we learned the most.”
German for “no music”, the Keinemusik label was founded by Rampa in 2009 alongside fellow DJs &ME and Adam Port. Speaking before the event, Rampa described their growth since then as “slow time”, comparing their careful and meticulous process of creating tracks to the craftsmanship of an AP watch itself. “There’s no better feeling than when all the parts come together like clockwork,” he says.
AP’s hosting of the Keinemusik event continues a long line of cultural collaborations for the luxury brand. Many rap fans will remember AP’s groundbreaking partnership with hip hop’s first billionaire Jay Z back in 2001 sparking an alliance with the culture that has been referenced in countless rap lyrics since. The craft manufacturer also paired up with Montreux Jazz Festival in 2019, welcoming the world’s best jazz musicians to the shores of Lake Léman near Geneva in AP’s home country of Switzerland. These collaborations speak to the brand's oversized cultural impact; they’re proud of the fact that, when Switzerland played Germany in the Euros earlier this year, the majority of both teams were clients of the brand.
The misty mountains surrounding Bürgenstock were a fitting home away from home for Keinemusik, whose logo is a cloudy peace sign. The event was opened by the First Lady of amapiano herself: Swazi-born, South African-based DJ-producer Uncle Waffles, whose debut single “Tanzania” (certified seven times platinum in South Africa) had seen a remix by Rampa released that same day. Later, as the Keinemusik party reached its peak, a fleet of drones took to the sky to assemble the AP logo, soon morphing into a Keinemusik peace sign as flares attached to the hovering robots rained down on the lake below. It was a lavish announcement of the collaboration between the two, and time was certainly becoming relative at that point.
The next morning, as the Keinemusik crew shuffled off to Madrid to continue yet another international tour, time slowly began to whir into motion once more. The funicular and catamaran combination still worked at a leisurely yet prompt pace, but public transport certainly didn’t. Lost in the relativity of time up in the alps, I almost missed my connecting train.