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This is Sander Kleinenberg
Just playing records is not enough for Dutch DJ and producer Sander Kleinenberg, writes Tami Fenwick.
"I had to review some records the other day and it was very, very depressing, " says Sander Kleinenberg down the phone. "I don't really like to talk about other people or give comments on their efforts." I've called to chat with Sander about his records, but an email has been lost along the way, and he doesn't want to play ball. He quickly dismisses my gung-ho pitch about why RA should have a nosey in his record bag: "I don't believe in charts," he responds.
It's a cool reception, but not that surprising really. Progressive house DJs are notorious for being stalked by trainspotters, and we don't want to encourage that now, do we? But there is also the sense that Kleinenberg is shooting for something other than just plain old DJing in 2007. When talk turns to the staging of his current 'This is...Sander Kleinenberg' tour, for example, his reluctance is replaced by a torrent of enthusiasm. "I've taken on using video to spice up my DJ sets to make the experience unique," he enthuses. He tells me he has recruited Ollie Sorenson, one of the best VJs in the biz, to put together the visual side of the tour. "If you make a video you can give yourself your own identity. Me and my VJ, we go into a club and we bring everything. We bring wallpaper, a new floor, new music...We're like a club in a bag. I want to be sure that what I do stands out from the pack."
It seems Kleinenberg has a grand plan, one which rises above simply spinning records. The visual branding of his tour also extends to his latest 'This is...Sander Kleinenberg' mix CD, the artwork of which has been carefully designed to match Sorenson's club visuals. "I've worked very closely on the identity and the idea of the new CD. I love design. I love being involved in that," he explains. That idea, and presumably the concept of the club visuals, is to quite literally project the non-musical side of Kleinenberg onto your night out. It's a 'conceptual clubbing' approach that he's taken before - his last project 'Everybody' was based around DJing with his friends - but this time around the focus is squarely on himself. It's also an approach to his job which brings our conversation to an odd place: Most DJs are reluctant to talk about anything else apart from music, especially themselves, but Kleinenberg proves to be the exact opposite, bubbling over with enthusiasm when talk turns to his other loves, which incidentally, turn out to be cooking, fine dining and t-shirt shopping.
But part of Kleinenberg's new deal is musical reinvention. Like many of his peers with roots in the science of progressive house, these days he is spinning much more mixed sets, finding room for party electro, techno and even commercial house in between the current crop of progressive. It's a range of styles which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, but in an era when Digweed isn't so far from Tiefschwarz, does Kleinenberg think his selections are carving him out a distinct enough identity? "It's very difficult to buy just plain records and stay different," he admits. "I do reach out to producers and labels that are doing interesting stuff, but a lot of people have access to this music so you've got to come up with something special."
"Around four or five years ago, I saw my dancefloors being dominated by guys. That's why I steered away from so-called progressive house."
It's the ongoing progressive dilemma really: to prog to or not to prog. When Kleinenberg shot to fame with 'My Lexicon' back in the genre's heyday, things were more clear cut. Generally speaking, if you played progressive, you played it from opening to closing and that was that. Likewise, punters at a turn of the century Kleinenberg night knew what to expect. It's a far cry from 2007, when Kleinenberg is just as likely to spin Tom Novy or Rhythm & Sound as Quivver. "I want to be a bit more varied than just being known for a specific sound," he explains. "I like to look for a sound that basically works on the dancefloor and if that means steering through different vibes and different genres, then I don't mind."
But Kleinenberg's eye on reinventing himself is no new thing. He first broke from prog in 2003, the sausage sizzle factor being the straw that broke the camel's back. "Around four or five years ago, I saw my dancefloors being dominated by guys," he laments. "I was really over that and I wanted to accept girls back onto my floor. That's why I steered away from so-called progressive house."
Production-wise, he first turned the tables on the serious set with 'The Fruit', a funky electro number with a supremely daft vocal ("It's the fruit that makes it fruity, It's the juice that makes it juicy.") The guys might have headed to the bar muttering heresy, but it did manage to connect with the girls who just wanted to have fun. "The last couple of records I did were kind of gimmicky," he frankly admits, referring to his electro-tinged 'This is...' city EPs. "There is nothing wrong with that, but now I want to show a bit more versatility. With a lot of things that I've done in the last couple of years, there was sort of a blueprint and I've kept on repeating that. Not as bad as some of the trance guys, you know, but I know where I stand." In terms of the future, former peers such as Dubfire, Guy Gerber and Chris Fortier have made their decisions and moved on, but Kleinenberg admits he has yet to play his hand: "I have tons of ideas laid down in the studio. I did make the decision that I didn't want to do one-off singles anymore, so it will be a somewhat bigger volume of work. But for that I will need time. I do want to release work that reflects me a little bit more on all aspects of what I like."
Which brings us full circle to my original question: What music is Kleinenberg digging these days? After much umming and ahhing, I manage to extract three recommendations out of a reluctant Sander, which turn out to be Dubfire's remix of Axwell's 'I Found You' ("Very big and summery. Dubfire has definitely gone through a bit of reinvention after being inspired by some of the sounds he picked up."), Samim's 'Heater' ("I think Samim is someone who doesn't live by any rules and you can clearly see that he's very free in his approach. Definitely very refreshing.") and 'Flok I Farta' by Diskjokke ("I've been starting my sets with it the last couple of months and it confuses people, but confusion is very good sometimes. Sometimes you need to shake up your own world and the people around you.") Surprisingly, there is a hint of awe in his voice when he talks about these records - you can sense he's itching to get back in the studio and get down to it.
But our time is up, and our chat ends on the crucial topic of...t-shirts. Most DJs are content to turn up at clubs in whatever they slept in on the plane, which makes Kleinenberg's attention to presentation all the more unusual. "I actually put religious effort into my T-shirts," he explains in a serious tone. "You stand there, there's a spotlight on you. You better work a little bit to make it interesting." Talking to Kleinenberg, it is this careful attention to self image that strikes you most. You might say that the whole package - his tour concept, his attention to design, his musical reinventions, heck, even the emphatic name of his latest CD - is all about him searching to define himself. But should we really be surprised? Nowadays if the tin says 'progressive' on it, there's no guarantees about what's inside. Sander's solution is actually quite novel: his tin is labeled 'This is Sander Kleinenberg'.
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Published / Friday, 14 September 2007
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