Breaking Through: Joran Van Pol

I’m guessing you’re quite excited by the resurgence of minimal then?

Yes, I am. I think for the past few years minimal maybe was a bit of a dirty word as everyone was getting either into deep house or the Berlin kind of techno, but its great to see that minimal (if you can put it that way) is coming back again.

To now be sharing booths with some of the guys that originally influenced/inspired you, do you look out for things that they do and you can learn from?

Yes, if you see me in a club I’m nearly always observing the crowd and the DJ’s, trying to see how the interaction between the two is. Next to that I’m always trying to learn what their key-factors to success are. Without trying to be their copy though, because I think being unique and having your own identity is one of the most important success factors.

As for the technology, of course I look at Richie, as he is always one of the first to take certain technologies or setups on stage. The geek in me always gets very excited about that.

What are you using at the moment in your setup? Do you see yourself ever wanting to play live sets when you have a few more releases under your belt?

My setup currently consists of a Macbook Pro running Traktor Pro 2, 2 x Traktor Kontrol X1, Traktor Kontrol F1, Audio 8 DJ and an Allen & Heath Xone 92 mixer. I am however experimenting with new setups and deciding which to tour with.

I agree that playing live is a trend today but that doesn’t influence my decision whether to play live or not. That decision is based upon what I think fits me as an artist better. I think DJing fits me better because of who I am and also I simply love DJing a lot! I like to play longer sets so I can take the crowd somewhere.

Have you got any gigs coming up that you’re particularly excited about?

I’m always excited to play, but I’m extremely excited for the upcoming festival season. I’m playing at some great festivals like Awakenings (also at the official afterparty), Welcome to the Future, Indian Summer and a bunch of others. There are some things in the pipeline in terms of gigs, which I’m super excited about, but I can’t share anything about that at the moment…

We touched on your debut EP earlier, how did the “_conscious” EP get released on M-nus?

Well I first got in touch with Richie when I submitted one of my tracks into the M-nus Soundcloud Dropbox. A couple of weeks later he emailed me saying he really liked it and asked me if I could send some more of my tracks. So we stayed in touch and I ended up signing “Untitled 2” to M-nus‘ digital imprint Minus12 for the MixMag compilation. After that I continued to keep sending new music. “Faded” (coming out on the M-nus “minMAX compilation”  on May 27th) became one of Richie‘s favourites last year. Eventually Richie decided to sign and release my first EP.

The feedback has been great for the “_conscious” EP, people seem to like it a lot. Which is a huge reward for my work in the studio!

Have you anything else production wise that you’re working on?

In June I have an EP coming up on Dubfire‘s SCI+TEC Digital Audio. The EP will contain four tracks and a couple of DJ Tools. So that is something that I currently have planned and I am working hard on new material for future EP’s.

It’s been a pleasure, thanks again for talking to DT. We look forward to seeing a lot more of you over the coming years.

Thank you for having me!

Judging by his “_conscious” EP and “Faded” we’re not being hasty by getting excited by what Joran Van Pol will have to offer us over the coming years in terms of both music and performance. Check out a stream of his new EP below.