Label of the Month: Pets Recordings

Catz 'n Dogz began as a playful battle of opposites, the name inspired by their constant bickering. 23 years in, the tiffs have mellowed and they're still releasing an eclectic mix of heaters. They're deeply grateful for their long friendship along with the different tastes and symbiotic skill sets they bring to the project and their expansive house label, Pets Recordings.

Voitek Tarañczuk and Gregor Demiañczuk met in 2003, when they were 18 and 19, respectively, in their hometown of Szczecin, Poland, along the German border, to exchange music. Soon after, they started working on music together, first as minimal project 3 Channels, and later embracing their less-boxed-in Catz 'n Dogz alias.

"The name changed context. Nowadays, Catz 'n Dogz is more like a mix of things. Before, it was made of contradictory characters. It's more like a cat and dog weird friendship," Tarañczuk explains.

Demiañczuk connects with us at home in Málaga, Spain, while Tarañczuk calls in from Madrid, sitting on the couch next to his new puppy. The conversation flows naturally and in a constant forward motion, as the longtime friends and collaborators continue right where the other left off. Catz 'n Dogz is not a duo where one of them could continue using the name as a solo act; both of them make it what it is and turn one plus one into four.

"It's one organism, but we are very different. Even when we DJ together, we're digging different stuff, but all together, it's creating something special. It's similar with the label, because when Voitek is bringing his A&R and I'm bringing mine, usually he's signing different people than I do – we both like it, but I wouldn't be able to discover this kind of music," Demiañczuk says.

"Okay, let's just be serious. I sign things that people who do reviews like and Gregor signs things that, basically, are how the label survives, because he's really good at signing hits," Tarañczuk interjects.

Given their yin and yang dynamic, they sometimes sign music one of them is not a huge fan of. But opposites not only attract, they rub off on each other, and at times they come around to embracing the other's tunes they weren't initially a fan of.

"It's the same when we DJ and also when we discover and release music. Sometimes I don't like it and I will say, 'Oh my god, it's so bad.' And then after a few months, I will be playing that track, and Voitek is like, 'You said you don't like it!' or the opposite,'" Demiañczuk says with a chuckle.

"It's really beautiful because we realized that we both complete each other, and that's really cool," he adds, rather poetically.

Even when their tastes diverge, they only sign artists they can both get behind and want to work with. In that way, Pets Recordings, which they launched in 2010 with their own Something Will Come Out EP, and its rawer sub-label Step Recordings, are like an extended family that they want to see thrive. Ideally, they want to support artists beyond just one or two releases.

"We like our label a lot, we treat it very personally because we also release there. We always wanted to have a label and curate and release music that we like and that we feel. So, as Voitek said, when we know a [track] is going to be a big hit, but there are some problems, somebody is not 100 percent into it, and we don't feel the exchange of the workflow and energy, we just pass on it," Demiañczuk explains.

Their catalog is far from a laundry list of names, opting for under-sung talent, but they do have a track record of working with beloved acts early on, including Eats Everything and J.Philp in the early Pets days. They released the British house act's first and third EPs on Pets in 2011 and 2012.

"We were always into DJing, we love to mix different sounds, different styles. That's also why we changed our name from 3 Channels to Catz 'n Dogz, because a lot of people were really connecting us with one genre, minimal. We also wanted to play house, disco, deep house and harder stuff, we didn't want to close each other off, and it was the same with the label. It's a really big privilege that people trust us and send us their music… We try to listen to as many demos as we can," Demiañczuk reflects.

The latest release on Pets Recordings comes from Dan McKie, their first release from the Ibiza hidden gem whose been DJing since 1997. "Your Future" features motivational quips from Rion S atop a punching bassline, perfect for a summer day party or, as Pets aptly put it "a versatile cut built for hedonism in the underground and on the festival stage." The previous release on the imprint, Worst Plot Convenience, is a driving, techy three-tracker from Belgian Vhyce, his fifth EP on Pets Recordings since 2021. Listening through the catalog is like raving in a club with many rooms.

"Having a big catalog gives a lot of possibilities for other big DJs to rediscover old records. Sometimes on Beatport we see that there's a record from seven years ago that suddenly 100 copies got sold. We're like, 'Who played the track at what festival?'" Tarañczuk shares. "We are part of this big void of music that the longer you have the catalog, the more interesting it gets, when something can come out and function in a new reality with completely different people that were not aware that record exists."

They launched their sub-label Step Recordings (Pets spelt backwards) in 2014 to carve out a home for stranger, less polished sounds that color outside the lines. "It's a more underground, rough club sound, not only four-four," Demiañczuk explains.

"The arrangement feels more like the old way, the arrangement is more in an old way, like how you would do it with a mixer by hand, or, to just record a session. Usually the stuff we do on Pets is more polished, the whole construction of it is more thought through. A lot of releases on Step are more free-form," Tarañczuk adds.

This results in Step being a home for more queer and underground artists, like Baltra, LUPE, Sylvio B, Queer on Acid, Lady Blacktronika, Das Komplex, and Ketiov.

"Usually friends recommend us music from other people," says Demiañczuk. "We also dig a lot, we love to dig and find new artists. Some of the artists we discovered through demos, but mostly, we dig ourselves or we get recommendations. Sylvio B is an amazing artist. He did three EPs for Step, they are spectacular.

Just as the continued support from KiNK and Get Physical were vital to Catz 'n Dogz success and visibility early on, they take their ability to platform lesser-known acts seriously. They're curating a big festival stage and booked an all-women lineup. It frustrates them that the more diverse lineups we were seeing a few years back have regressed to the usual suspects, dominated by mostly white men.

"I would love to help more people. We want to start a mentorship [program] in the future. I'm really thinking how to approach it the best, how to give somebody a chance. Just booking somebody on a festival, in a slot that people are still coming in, it's not enough. I think it's better to really build representation – a full stage only girls, or pick three people to help and really commit," Tarañczuk muses.

The assert that the diversity on their labels is intentional, and it's important to them to release underrepresented artists and to know what artists the release stand for.

"There's a lot of queer representation, especially on Step, it's quite important," Tarañczuk states. "The more representation you have, the more motivation you have that you can also do it. It's really simple. I know it because I'm gay, and I never had a romantic comedy about two dudes kissing, and now there's tons of it on Netflix. I wish I had it growing up."

They've also supported fellow Polish acts throughout their career, such as Jackname Trouble on Pets003 and Das Komplex on Step006 and three EPs since then. Their 2022 album, Punkt, featured all Polish artists, offering a chiller vibe with vocals in their native language.

In recent years, they've found sassy indie dance perfection in a string of collabs with pop-dance triple-threat (and Beatport Next alumn) Nala. Solomun gave his kiss of approval to "Me Me Me" and "Hot Mess" on Diynamic in 2023; the A-side which remains Catz 'n Dogz top track on Beatport at the time of writing. The playful trio followed it up with "Dance!" on Pets Recordings in March 2025.

While there's an inherent openness and cheekiness to much of the Catz 'n Dogz universe, their tracks bops with Nala sound like they've unlocked another portal, one into a radical queer, feminist never-ending dance party. When asked if working with Nala brings out a playfulness in their sound, Tarañczuk wholeheartedly agrees.

"'Me Me Me' spent one year on the shelf because I couldn’t get the mix right… One day, I was like, I will change it completely. I added the breathing and the bridge. We played it out and it fucking blew the club out. We're like, Okay, now it's ready, " Tarañczuk reveals.

"The indie dance records we do are more conceptual, so they need way more time to brew. [The goal was to] make it as weird as possible. When you listen to a Joy Division record or even LCD Soundsystem, there's always a moment that stands out, and how it's mixed. 'Dance!' had six mix downs, and at the end we left the shitty one, because the shitty one was the good one," Tarañczuk continues.

Earlier this year, the "Good Touch" producers were in New York working on music for their seventh album, due out in the fall on Pets Recordings. They're mum on the details, but say it "is going out of our comfort zone and [will] open new horizons." Given how different each of their albums are (2025's excellent Basic Colour Theory is worth a revisit), it's certain they'll surprise us again.

16 years into Pets Recordings and 23 years into Catz 'n Dogz, they're happy to still be invited to the party, and excited to keep bringing newer acts along for the ride.

"It's pretty cool that Beatport is still interested in us. That's a good feeling," Tarañczuk concludes. "Especially because before it was TSZR, then CircoLoco, then us."