Defected interview Martijn Ten Velden

6 May, 2009 | 8.29AM

• Written by: Defrec
• Filed under: Music News :

Dutch DJ/Producer Martijn Ten Velden is killing it at the moment…

With successful partnerships with Mark Knight for Toolroom Records and most recently Splittr, a collaboration with Mark Yardley from the Stanton Warriors, respect and support from jocks like Roger Sanchez, Deep Dish and Steve Lawler and has recently mixed the next in the digital mix series for Defected Records, Clubland Adventures 7.

Defected caught up with the man!

So how come you followed a house path when the Dutch are so well known for their Trance?

I moved to London 18 years ago and at that time in Holland house music wasn’t that big, it was never my vibe in Holland musically, even though there are some really good artists coming from Holland at the moment like Sander Kleinenburg, Fedde Le Grande and Roog (the Hardsoul guys). I really like what those guys do, so there is some good music out there now but at the time I was more drawn to London, so my whole musical background when it comes to house is totally UK based.

So is that why you moved, were you more inspired by the sound in London rather than in Holland?

Yeah totally, also in London there has always been more innovation, you can try out more things because there’s a bigger market for things and there is more openness to new styles of music, I mean so many styles of music come from the UK so it’s a really good place to try and find your own style because you have more freedom.

How would you say you’ve evolved since you started, how would you describe your personal DJ-ing style and what’s your sound?

I like the mixture between Tech and House, when it’s not too techy when it’s still got funk, as long as its got funk and a good groove to it I like it. Basically it’s a very broad spectrum. So I would say I play House but it’s anywhere from normal house, tech house, even some progressive house, some deep house, it’s a mixture of everything.

And what about your productions what kind of sound have you aimed for with them?

Again it’s House but a little bit more techy, I really like some of the new sounds, when a new kind of production style comes out, that’s what really interests me. So I always try to come up with fresh sounds that are really now.  Like the Chime remix I did for Defected last year, the intro is quite techy its got all glitchy sounds but then it goes big house anthem and then it goes techy again, so that’s a kind of good example, between styles really.

So what have been your biggest tracks and remixes?

My biggest track was two years ago and was ‘I Wish You Would’. We licensed the record to nearly every country in the world and it became a huge crossover record in Brazil, Australia, Spain, Netherlands etc. In the UK we shot a promo for it at a crazy old theatre down in South London and Luciana (the singer on the track) features in the video too. It was regularly played out on UK TV music stations to include The Box, MTV Dance - check it out here ?: http://tinyurl.com/dzgcz2

Another really big one was a project under the name Splittr which I recorded with Mark Yardley from Stanton Warriors. We released a track called ‘All Alone’ on Eye Industries / Universal and there were some phenomenal remixes on it by the likes of Hook & Sling, Michael Gray, Chicken Lips.

You‘ve gone on to do a few more, tell us about them?

My all time favourite remix that me and Mark did on Defected was ‘Sandcastles’, I can still play it now, just sit in the cellar and play it, its wicked still. And then we did another one on Defected, we remixed Kings of Tomorrow ‘6pm’.

Also, you just did the Ultra Flavour remix as well right?

Yeah, that’s been going down a storm everywhere. It was such a huge anthem so was of course another great one to get my hands on and rework for today’s clubland.

You mentioned Mark Knight earlier, we know you work quite closely with him, what is it about Mark that you respect the most?

We used to do a lot more production work together but for past couple of years we’ve also done a lot of solo stuff. We still DJ together sometimes, its great because we knew each other before we started getting really successful and we have always enjoyed playing back to back; we have the greatest fun and get on a real vibe, that’s why we do it, because we love it ! We don’t go in the studio as much as we used to but we are actually doing a new track now which is the first production we’ve done together in four years. It feels good to hook up again on another MTV & MK stormer for summer 2009.

Lets talk about your new mix for Defected because it quite a special mix, it’s not just a straightforward DJ mix, what’s so unique about it?

As it’s Defected’s 10th Anniversary I really tried to put a bit of that in there, I tried to mix some of my personal old favourites and mix it in with the new ones to make the mix, that was the initial thought behind it. But then I ended up practically re-editing every single track, putting extra drums over the top, putting acapellas over the top, I just couldn’t stop because there are so many great acapellas on Defected, so I ended putting a lot of work into it to keep it really interesting, putting lots of little snippets of old tracks in there from 5,6,even 8 years ago and tried to make it all sound modern and make it sound now, that was the aim of the mix.

Is it true that you’ve done a whole heap of mash-ups in there that are going to be available to buy?

Yeah, I would say almost every track is a re-edit apart from maybe two or three. On almost every track I changed the arrangement to make them shorter, more concise, added extra little drum sound effects, extra acapellas or mixed the beats of another tracks underneath it, like a one bar loop of drums of another record by Defected, so I really, really went to town on it.

It sounds very exciting, with all the effort you have put into this compilation is it the sort of thing we would see you do live, do you remix records live when you DJ?

I do sometimes, it depends, because sometimes the crowd don’t really know the difference so it doesn’t really matter, but sometimes when I’m really in the mood I really like to go to town, when there is 3-4 cd players doing really long four minute mixes, looping up one of the mixes and then throw an acapella over the top getting all complicated on myself, I like to do that every so often for sure, because I love mixing and giving the set more of a “live” feel.

So you would say this mix represents what you play out?

Yeah the kind of mixing style for sure but I think the first half of the mix is more warm up, its more cool, calm, its almost like before you go out so it would be early evening for me. But the mix obviously progresses from quite deep and nice and musical to a bit tougher, musically it definitely represents me yes, so that’s quite a broad taste.

And you have a new single coming out?

Yes, my new single ‘Together’ is out on Phonetic Recordings, initially its done really well, it entered the Cool Cuts at number 1 the week before Miami, so there has been a lot of initial hype about it, a lot of DJ’s are playing it, there are two versions the original which is more musical and there’s a dub which is more pumping and groovy and at the moment I’m also working on a vocal version as well. It’s available on all the usual DJ Download sites such as Beatport and of course on the Phonetic site (http://www.phoneticrecordings.com)

So what else is going on with you at the moment?

I have some ideas for Fluential, its still early doors but that’s something that’s in the pipeline for sure so look out for that.
Also I’ve been working on another new MTV anthem for release after summer with the working title “Tronic” plus some deeper tracks with a new production partner I’ve hooked up with in Dubai. I recently moved to Dubai at the end of last summer to get some head space as I have so much going on at the moment and it’s absolutely wicked here because the weather is always great all the time and I’m inspired to make more and more music.

Clubland Adventures is out now as a digital download.

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CLICK FOR INFO / DOWNLOAD

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