Operating in the neighbourhood of Rotterdam, one of its finest electro technicians, Gamma Intel, is a steady and sharp signal in the network of the Dutch underground. Uninhibited, cerebral-tickling, sound architecture deploys serious craftsmanship honed from meticulously polishing every texture from his singular, chiselled perception of audio design over constructive time.
Outside his explosive production unit, Gamma Intel activates the same intellect on any territory, dancefloors or otherwise, spinning oddball hot numbers to make you sweat. A perfectionist by nature, he commits to disruptive, magnetic rhythms, all assembled with a curious mind deliberately free from restraints, forming a hyper-vortex music experience.
Rest assured, the Dutchman strikes with bullseye precision on IA MIX 381, hammering sound selections sourced and refined on his laboratory work table. Mechanical whirrs and a barrage of bolstered beats crackle in this tasty execution from Gamma Intel—setting forth a blaze hard to quench. Feel the warmth.
Interview by Asmi Shetty
"I can't help but to listen to music from a producer's perspective. Things like sound design, arrangement or mixing can be really important to me"
Laurens, thank you for polishing a rather fire-crackling, off-kilter podcast for the IA MIX Series. It’s a steady, slow-burning rager, much like we anticipated. What was running in your mind while putting this together?
Thanks, glad you like it! For me, recording a mix is always a moment of self reflection where it becomes clear what kind of music I’m into right now. I wanted to showcase a few sounds that grabbed my attention over the last few months, as well as some upcoming stuff on Nerve Collect.
Roll back to the beginning: Why music? What brought along the idea of Gamma Intel?
As a little kid I’ve always felt the need to express myself in some kind of way. So during high school two of my friends and I were checking out house and techno mixtapes and podcast series and then we thought ohhh we can do this too! So we got home to our parents and got ourselves a cracked version of Fruity Loops and started experimenting with music. That itch never really went away.
As a selector, what elements/ textures of sound are you hunting when curating a mix? How would you best describe your taste?
I’m very much focused on a certain feeling, not necessarily on certain sounds or elements in a track. I like it when a track carries a certain emotion, and you can use these emotions to give some kind of direction to a mix. Since I’ve been making music for quite a long time, I can’t help but to listen to music from a producer’s perspective. Things like sound design, arrangement or mixing can be really important to me.
It does not always have to be very challenging or very complicated, also for example a simple element executed perfectly can do the trick. Simple yet effective, where you think wow that’s just brilliant. I think I’ll always have this fascination for sound design in music production where I’m like: how did they make this sound or how the hell did they come up with this melody?
How does the art of DJing differ from producing music for you? What is the ideal creative process? When do you know you’ve aced a track?
Not so much I think. Of course it’s a different process on its own (lol) but it’s also both very personal and a sort of showcase of your musical taste and abilities. And with both you can push your creative boundaries as much as you want.
The creative process. oh god. I have a strong love – hate relationship with the creative process. I was struggling for a long time after the last record that came out a bit more than a year ago to redefine my own sound and what I wanted to sound like.
I had a lot of sessions in the studio where I was so uninspired and everything I was doing was not really making any sense to me. I really had to drop all the things I thought I knew about electronic music and just go at it from a completely different angle, and then slowly but steadily trying to find what I was looking for in the first place. I know, a very vague answer, but I think a lot of producers have a similar struggle or feeling or can relate to this.
Also because I have a tendency that my next record need to be better (whatever that means, i’m not even sure) than the previous one. I’m a bit of a perfectionist in that sense. I don’t want the next record to sound the same as my other work. I think it’s important that as an artist you’re always trying to reinvent yourself and stay fresh. I would get bored making the same kind of tracks over and over, and for me that’s also not really the point of being an artist.
When do I know I’ve aced a track? Haha, depends on what you mean with that. I think I get the most satisfaction of making music when I know I’m onto something that I cannot reproduce a second time. So when certain sounds work out super well on that particular occasion only or maybe some sound design session worked out as a super lucky accident. But yeah it’s not really up to me to decide whether I’ve aced a track or not. I’ll leave that to the listener to decide :)
"I get the most satisfaction of making music when I know I'm onto something that I cannot reproduce a second time"
What kind of machines reside in your studio? How many hours in a day/week do you spend there?
I currently have a small home studio where I’m using an Octatrack, Digitone, Novation Peak, and some Behringer stuff like the TD3 for acid, Behringer Edge for drums or percussive stuff, but also nice for basslines. And the nice thing about the Behringer stuff is that most of them you can patch with cables so I can use the LFO on one synth to modulate the filter cutoff on the acid box etc.
You can create your own small modular setup with a couple of cheap synths, I think it’s great. I’m using the Oto Boum as a distortion / compression unit and some guitar pedals to record some weirdness into the track. But then again, the true Ableton warrior that I am, I’m using mostly the computer to process these sounds further and to arrange the tracks.
What do you pack for your live shows? How has this transition been – DJ/ Producer to performing live?
Developing a live performance is one of the best decisions I made during the pandemic. For me playing live is the most personal and pure form of the art of electronic music because it’s my own personal workflow and musical ideas portrayed directly onto a crowd, with no middle man (the producer of a track) in between like in a DJ set. Also I feel so much more comfortable doing it now compared to the first few times and I learned a lot about the machines and their capabilities in this whole process. So I’m very excited to continue to do this and develop the live set even further.
At this moment I’m using an Octatrack, Digitone, Novation Peak, a modded TD3 and the OTO Boum compressor for end of chain compression. It’s a small yet very effective setup!
How do you feel about where you are right now? How have phases of life impacted your rhythm as a musician, especially your recent full-time job as a dad? (we saw your kid nibble at your record)
I feel very good about where I’m at now. Of course fatherhood has kicked in and therefore I’m having a bit less time to make music now but I also feel that I definitely have enough time to still do it. Just have to plan the studio sessions beforehand and work a bit more in the evenings. You have to make it work out for yourself.
Besides, my last record was made entirely after our son Eddie was born and I think I also got really inspired by this new phase of life. The main difference is that before I could go into the studio whenever I want and now I have to restrict it to the evenings. And I had to switch to working exclusively on studio headphones, which is something I had to get into for a bit but now that I’m used to it it works fine for me :)
You’ve got more pursuits in order. Take us through the horrors and the joys of starting a new label. How is business as a co-founder at Nerve Collect?
Yeah well it has been mostly joys to be honest haha. Nah, I mean there’s always a lot of stress involved when releasing new music, but it’s like getting a kid. you get a lot of love and gratitude in return from it ;) Haha nah but all jokes aside, it’s going very well with the label.
Job and I are both putting a lot of time and effort into the whole thing, therefore it’s good to see that the hard work is paying off. It’s going very well working together I’d say. We both have a quality first kind of mindset, not only when it comes to the music but also when it comes to the artwork, distribution, mastering, PR etc. We both kind of naturally fulfil a role that we know that we’re good at and I’m happy that the label is being picked up so quickly by a lot of artists that we adore. It feels right to give something back to the music community.
Between all the shindigs, what keeps you light and motivated for more?
Working on the label has been something lately that I get a lot of motivation from. And some really fun festival gigs ahead in the next few weeks so yeah I can’t complain :)
Thanks for chatting with me, Laurens. For goodbyes, what’s your favourite classic Dutch track?
Thank you! Since I’m a sucker for 80s music, here’s a classic track from 1983.
TRACKLIST
1. Krotone – Til 5
2. Mercy System – Procedures
3. Ghoulish – Arc Flash (Korzi Remix)
4. Doctor Jeep – Pula Perereka (forthcoming on Kaizen)
5. Lakker – Nomad
6. Dual Monitor – Step Pattern (forthcoming on SPE:C)
7. Indent – Phantom Pressure
8. Fels – Outzone
9. Octoptic – Inko
10. Dubix – Pink City
11. Hypna – Naga Alert
12. Dual Monitor – Altern8 (forthcoming on SPE:C)
13. Lakker – Surface Drummer
14. Jan Loup – Mojo Nosae (Gamma Intel Remix) (forthcoming on Nerve Collect)
15. freq444 – JW12
16. Hassan Abou Alam – Mesh Mafhoom (forthcoming on Nerve Collect)
