June 11, 2025 |
Straight from Berlin’s underground to Parklife’s main stage, DJ Heartstring are here to make you dance, cry and fall a little bit in love. Known for their euphoric high-speed blends of pumping rhythms and emotional melodies, the DJ duo – Jonas and Leo – have been soundtracking heartbreak and hedonism in equal measure since 2021. Their signature Trance Dance Music is fast, nostalgic and made to move both body and soul.
Rooted in contrasting influences – Jonas from the hypnotic depths of techno, Leo from the glittery highs of Italo disco – DJ Heartstring channel their differences into something bigger than the sum of its parts. Their sets feel less like club nights, more like communal release – sweaty, chaotic, euphoric, emotional. From low-lit Berlin basements to major festival stages, they’ve built a reputation for turning dancefloors into places of pure connection.
2024 has been a defining year. Their Boiler Room Melbourne set went viral within days, earning hundreds of thousands of views and spreading their cult-like energy across continents. A BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix followed, alongside praise from the likes of Mixmag, The Face and DJ Mag, solidifying their status as one of dance music’s most emotionally charged acts.
Now, DJ Heartstring land at Manchester’s Parklife Festival for the first time on June 15, joining the stacked PL25 lineup that marks 15 years of the UK’s most beloved Manchester weekender. They arrive armed with new material from their latest EP You Are The Sun, I Am The Sky – a four-track love letter to the rave – ready to tug at your heartstrings and set the tempo for summer.
Expect unreleased heaters, surprise edits and their signature “cheesy-but-it-slaps” charm. As they put it: “high-energy grooves with a hint of heartbreak.” At Parklife, that’s exactly what the season sounds like. Here, we chat with the DJ duo about what to expect from Parklife, staying true to their underground roots and time travelling to past rave eras.
1. Who are DJ Heartstring?
We are Jonas and Leo from Berlin – two chill guys trying to make it in this crazy music world.
2. How did your contrasting backgrounds shape the DJ Heartstring sound?
We both complement each other really well, one has his roots in groovy, rhythm driven techno and the other one in the cheesy goodness of Italo Disco.
3. How do you stay true to your underground roots as you grow?
It definitely gets harder the more you grow, but we always try to balance big festival shows with smaller club shows to honour the places that made us fall in love with all of this – the gritty dark rooms of the so-called underground.
4. If you could time travel to any rave era, where would you go?
Everyone is gonna say the ’90s, so we are going to the ’00s in Berlin, arguably at the height of its club scene after the ’90s and before the hype of the ’10s.
5. If you could collaborate with any artist, dead or alive, who would it be?
That’s a tough one, there are so many great artists that inspire us. From the top of our heads: Yung Lean, A.G. Cook, Overmono, Whitney Houston or Celine Dion. But there are honestly so many.
6. How will you bring your signature high-energy sound to Parklife?
We‘ve been back at the studio a lot and very keen to showcase some of the new songs and collabs we‘ve been working on.
7. What can fans expect from your Parklife set?
High-energy grooves with a hint of heartbreak.
8. How do you expect performing at Parklife will compare to past gigs like Berghain or Boiler Room?
You never know! What makes it special to us is to be able to perform at all these different venues and events. But when we perform at a big festival with a rather short time slot, we like to get straight to business – whereas in a club setting, we might play some more unknown B-Sides.
9. How do UK crowds compare to others, and what energy do you expect at Parklife?
We love UK crowds! They‘re usually very high-energy and there to party – and for sure don’t mind a little singalong moment.
10. What’s next after Parklife – any new music or big projects coming up?
We can‘t say too much, except that there are some tunes coming that people have been eagerly awaiting for a while now. Stay tuned!
Photography courtesy of DJ Heartstring.
