Analogue Dreams: 5 Steps With Anton Pieete

It was Anton Pieete’s grandfather who stirred his grandson initial urge to make electronic music, by passing on his old synthesizer in 1997. And not without success. Now Anton Pieete is a key member of Amsterdam’s New School generation and is storming dance floors with his captivating take on contemporary techno. Innovative and in your face, his hybrid sound is steeped in industrial techno twisted with tough, edgy high-octane tech house. So with the sky seemingly the limit we invited Anton to share five pivotal monets in his fledgling career as to what made him the musician and the man he is today.

FAMILY

It all starts with my family. My father, grandfather and brother were/are all sound engineers, so since the day I can remember I was walking around in studios. Because my grandfather had a lot of synthesizers, he gave me 2 of them, around that same period I discovered techno music and it was very clear that I started making it with the tools that I had. I didn’t really have a clue how to actually make techno music, so when I started it was more an interpretation of how I experienced the music at a rave. A kick with reverb and some heavy sounds on it were the base of the first tracks I produced and I’ll admit it didn’t sound very good, but one thing was for sure : making techno music was the only thing I wanted to do and I knew I would never stop making it. 

AUDIO DESIGN 

After a long trail of different high schools I was finally ready to choose a study and I auditioned for audio design at the high school of arts. As  I’d been playing guitar since I was 8 years old and now had experience making techno they decided to let me in. On the very first day at school as I walked into the building I met a guy named Wouter Snel. Wouter was known as DJ Falcon and made drum & bass music on a very high level. His music sounded so good compared to mine, and I was dying to know how he did that. After some weeks we decided to make a track together at his place, and I saw his mixing techniques and the way he built up the foundation of a solid track, I had learned everything that I wanted to learn in 1 day and didn’t really want to go to school anymore. Making music at home instead of going to my classes wasn’t really the idea of the school, so they kicked me out, and now I had all the time of the world to focus on my music (if you are in school and reading this, don’t stop and finish your studies!).

RELEASE

2000 cups of coffee and approximately 1 kilo marijuana later I had finished 10 proper tracks that were ready to be heard, so I burned 10 CDs and just sent them with a handwritten letter to a bunch of labels and distributions that I liked. Only 3 days later I got an email from a distribution based in London called ”Pure Plastic” and they told me they loved the demo and wanted to release my music. It was the start of my music career which ended pretty soon when the heavier techno was no longer cool and had to make place for ”minimal”.

The minimal wave wasn’t really my cup of tea but I was still going to the clubs to party, and that’s where I met Bart Skils. We started hanging out and ended up in the studio one day. It was the combination of techno and a bit of minimal that became our style in the studio and lead to a great success.

2008

It was the end of 2007, I had some pretty successful releases with Bart, set up a label with my good friends Jeroen & Laurens (Radial) and was making a lot of remixes in the studio. But there was a problem: I wasn’t make enough money to survive from just my music. I was working in a coffee shop 5 days a week, but really just wanted to focus totally on my music career.  As the releases I did on 100% Pure had sold pretty well, the owner (Dylan Hermelijn AKA 2000 and One) helped me out. He believed in me and gave me 1000 euro’s every month for a whole year so I could entirely focus on my music and nothing else. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me, and I worked very hard. All this hard work paid off as it resulted in my first solo record for his label Intacto. The record was named ”Players”, came out in November 2008 and became a beatport number 1 hit. From that moment everything started to roll.

BACK TO ANALOGUE

After more than 3 years of nonstop producing music I was beginning to have some problems in the studio. I had the idea that everything I made sounded a little bit the same, and when I listened to productions from other people I had that same problem. Everything sounded the same.

It took a while to figure out what to do about it, but than I realized I had to take a step back to go forward. When I started making music I was only using hardware synthesizers and effects, and over the years they were all taken over by a computer software with some plug-ins. I started connecting my old gear again and it was the best decision ever made because it brought back the memories and feelings of the music I love, and now I put these feelings straight into my tracks. Every day when I wake up, I can’t wait to sit in my studio.

Anton Pieete’s – Loner / I Hold From You is out now on Rejected. Check it out below.