The Future of House: Veteran Dutch Maestro Sander Kleinenberg Returns
It’s a Friday night in Amsterdam, and Sander Kleinenberg is ready to launch the next stage of a career in dance music that stretches back well over 20 years. His new single on Spinnin’ Records, “Can You Feel It,” blends a soulful house aesthetic with Dutch EDM mayhem, and the results are appropriately “big.” So Sander is having a party to match.
Held at the ritzy Amstel Hotel, the event’s patrons are somewhat better dressed than you’d expect at a club record launch. In fact, the party is filling up with Dutch high society, dressed impeccably enough to match the glamour of the hotel itself. This will serve as the backdrop for the video clip of his new single, “Can You Feel It.”
Prior to his set, we catch up with Kleinenberg in one of the hotel’s upstairs levels, away from the action. While his threads are somewhat more low-key than the glamorous vibe of the party, he still looks noticeably stylish in a mix of scruffy DJ attire and chic fashion. It’s a nicely cultivated image change that’s reflected in his new artist logo—a cartoon outline of his bearded face and shaved head—which gives a nod to the fact he’s been around the traps for a while now.
“We’re shooting the video in the next wing of the hotel, and a little bit at the party as well. We’re hijacking this thing,” he laughs, playing us a crackly version of “Can You Feel It” on his mobile, long before the wider public has heard it. The first impression is how “housey” it sounds, in the classic sense—far more than the deep, progressive house styling he was once known for.
It is very housey. My true colors are finally coming out. But you know what, house music has always been my love. And I think, looking back at it, my involvement with progressive house is something that just happened; it wasn’t a train that I necessarily wanted to jump on, though I ended up being a part of it. But I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the darkness and grittiness of that kind of music. It takes a while to get back to who you are and who you want to be.
Getting Back to Your Roots
So, straight-up house music is where he considers his roots to be? “Absolutely. 100 percent. For me personally, it wouldn’t go beyond a track like ‘Can You Feel It.’ However, I felt I was finally ready to produce a track that could be played at the end of the night.”
“I think music is going in a fun direction now, and I really love that it’s there again. You see it every now and then when the mainstream and underground merge into a fusion… and that’s exactly who I am.”
This is the same guy who produced the euphoric, trance-tinged “My Lexicon” way back in 1999—one of the all-time classic anthems for the progressive house scene. Not long after, he cemented his maestro status with some particularly seminal compilations, back in the days when mixed CDs were actually setting the agenda. Kicking off with a particularly mesmerising NuBreed release for Global Underground in 2001, a series of big releases followed for the Renaissance label.
Kleinenberg’s initial moves toward a more accessible sound were handled with class, and his funky breakbeat number “The Fruit” saw him straddling both worlds in 2005. However, he’s also been somewhat at odds with fans and their expectations of him. The booming electro house “muscle” sound he embraced with gusto later in the decade faced a backlash.
It’s always hard as a DJ to create something that I can fully integrate into who I am, and what I’m about, without compromising. And I’m someone who wants people to actually hear my records. I don’t make them for the sake of 100 kids or so going, “Ooh, he’s so cool.” I wouldn’t mind if a 20-year-old girl heard it when it comes on and said, “Yeah, I know that song.”
He alludes to the explosion of dance culture the past few years, with EDM taking over the world on a bigger scale than anything he’s seen since he began spinning records in his teens.
I guess the scene has kinda moved in that direction over the past few years. For me, though, I never found my own way that I could fit in there. How do I make a noise that can be heard? Obviously, I’m not a Swedish House Mafia member; I can’t do those big stadium records. “This Is Miami” back in 2006 hinted at that kind of thing, but I realized that if I went down that route, there would be no way back. And a lot of other people did it a lot better than I ever could have.
So I think in essence, creatively, I held back. Let’s step back for a minute and let that all just pass by, and then step back in when I felt it was something I wanted to be part of again. And being on tour and DJing around the world is not the place to rediscover who you are or come up with new ideas. You can sketch the ideas, but you need time outside of the touring circuit.
All Hail the “Future House” Era
After several years of an explosive EDM sound ruling the main stages, a transformation is seeing the Dutch sound merge with house and shoot off in different directions. It’s been loosely labeled “future house,” represented by quickly rising next-generation Dutch DJ/producers like Oliver Heldens.
I think music is going in a fun direction now, and I really love that it’s there again. You see it every now and then when the mainstream and underground side of things merge into a fusion. I feel like that is kind of happening here, and I’d love to be a part of it. Because that’s exactly who I am. I’m not on the “right” side, where it’s super commercial and very formulaic; and I’m not on the left, either, where if there’s even a vocal, then it’s not cool enough anymore. I’m in the middle. And the “middle” of dance music was gone for a very, very long time. There’s been a chasm between the two. And I was like, really guys, I can’t fucking follow either one of you. So I waited and waited for the right sound to come by, something I could attach to.
Kleinenberg finished up a run of gigs in the US last month prior to “Can You Feel It” dropping, and he talks of the extensive time he’s spent there in the past decade. It’s referred to explicitly on records like “This Is Miami,” though he’s also watched scenes blossom in other dance hotspots like New York City and Los Angeles—places where he says his “middle ground” approach worked perfectly.
I love a bit of drama, a bit of a big-room moment. I’ve never shied away from that. But it needs to be compressed into something that feels a little like a journey, a little like its time and place. We used to throw the fucking most amazing parties in L.A. back around 2005, and everyone was there. The underground guys were really digging what was going on, because I’d at least try to always be quirky, to push things and come up with new sounds. But on the other hand, the fresh clubbers going out for the first time would hear a few records in my set where they’d go, okay that’s great. And that’s where it needs to be, that’s where I want it to be.
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