Berlin-based producer and DJ Elninodiablo (aka Stephanos Pantelas) unveils his most personal and unrestrained release to date: The Downey Groove, out now on his own label, El Niño Diablo Music.
To mark the debut album release, he’s throwing a party at Lunchbox Candy, the queer-led night he runs at Kreuzwerk that’s quietly redefined Berlin’s underground. With 2K+ crowds, wild performances, a sex worker-run Loveroom, and regulars like Peaches, it’s one of the city’s most in-demand parties, now headlining WHOLE Festival and on the radar for Sydney Mardi Gras 2026.
Conceived during an extended solo stay in the mountains of Cyprus, the album emerged from a period of deep introspection and play. With only a laptop, headphones, and a field recorder, Pantelas shed expectation and allowed intuition to guide the process. What began as informal sketches gradually evolved into a full-fledged album—loose, soulful, and steeped in feeling.
The result is an eight-track voyage through dub-drenched electronics, warm psychedelia, and sensual grooves, rich in texture, full of emotional nuance, and anchored by rhythm. Opening track ‘Purple Hypnotic’ sets the tone with woozy pads, aqueous textures and whispered fragments, before ‘Misteriosa Noche’ flips the vibe with a shimmering, funk-laced swerve. ‘The Soul Monad’ invokes the spiritual influence of Eno, Byrne and Sherwood with a bass-heavy, ceremonial dub, while ‘Subadrift’ offers up a spacey, synth-driven lift-off that draws on echoes of ‘80s/‘90s electronica.
The groove continues on ‘Rodeotheque’, a cheeky disco-boogie detour laced with tongue-in-cheek vocals and playful surprises. Title track ‘The Downey Groove’ follows with live percussion and unfiltered energy, a jam that feels both immediate and expansive. On ‘Rise In Dub’, thick basslines and jungle field recordings build a tripped-out nocturnal atmosphere, before final track ‘Operator Please!’ brings things full circle with sine wave warmth and slow-burning melodic closure, crafted entirely with Ableton’s Operator synth.
While no fixed concept shaped the album during its making, its emotional core revealed itself after the fact. Themes of release, rebirth, and feminine embodiment came into focus—vibrational, sensual, and rooted in the body. As Elninodiablo puts it, his creative process never starts in the mind: “It begins with an impulse in the body, a need to express. The meaning only becomes clear once the music is done.” In this case, the album became a vehicle for personal healing, especially through rhythm, movement, and bass. “It’s sacral, rootsy, and connected to freeing tension stored in my body,” he explains. The bold, unprompted artwork by Tobias Jacobsen intuitively mirrored this energy: otherworldly, vibrant, feminine.
Musically, Elninodiablo defies genre. He describes his sound as spatial, fearless, emotive and sexy, demanding yet deeply intuitive. It’s music that invites surrender, both on and off the dancefloor. “For me, music is spirit in sound, truth expressed through frequency. It moves through you. It transforms.”
Elninodiablo’s journey is as eclectic as the record itself. From Cyprus pirate radio in his youth to spinning at London’s queer underground landmarks like The End, Turnmills, and Fabric, he quickly earned a place behind the booth. His deep understanding of club culture eventually translated into a successful PR career, where he represented artists and labels such as Horse Meat Disco, Salsoul Records, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Tegan & Sara, Strut Records, and !K7.
Having laid solid foundations with releases like Shadow Dancer, Dorothea’s Rainbow, and Lunchbox Candy, this new album marks his most liberated expression yet. Studies at Berlin’s Catalyst Music (housed at the legendary Funkhaus studios) helped sharpen his production craft, while extensive travels fed into a style that draws from global influences, moving effortlessly between dubbed-out dream states, hard-hitting club gear, downtempo soul, and eastern-harmonic hybrids. The music evokes vast open spaces, from desert plains to humid jungles, more mood than genre, more energy than structure.
Outside the studio, Elninodiablo also curates Lunchbox Candy, a bi-monthly queer event at Berlin’s Kreuzwerk,, dedicated to radical sound, visual art, and embodied expression. That same fearless spirit pulses through every moment of ‘The Downey Groove’.
He describes The Downey Groove as “a womb-like slap in the face and a warm, gentle cuddle.”
and then