Just ANOTR day

In a studio on the outskirts of Amsterdam, things are a little hectic. ANOTR, the house duo comprising DJs and producers Jesse van der Heijden and Oguzhan Guney (known better as simply “Oz”), are upping sticks to the countryside for two weeks, and it means that when I arrive at the industrial estate where they normally record, they’re in a state of chaos. Hefty boxes of equipment — wires, speakers, synths, guitars and more — are all descending down the stairs into the back of a truck in what feels like an overwhelming mass exodus for which they’re running behind.

Still, everyone is in high spirits. The sun is shining, and we’re heading on the kind of retreat which has become a recurring feature of ANOTR’s creative process — so much so that a similar stint was the basis for their album, On a Trip, which came out at the start of the year. Essentially, the duo, known best for their warm, relaxed, colourful takes on house music, head out somewhere remote a couple of times a year with as much of their equipment as is possible and try to cut off from their everyday lives — work, friends, even their girlfriends — to make music together. 

“We try to stay away from phones, social media stuff,” reels off Guney.

Then, Van der Heijden adds: “And our team knows we’ll be offline for the most part of the day while we’re here, so they respect our time.” It means that the retreats offer a chance to just focus on their practice and each other.

“It’s way easier to tune into whatever everyone else is thinking without distractions,” explains Guney, “so you kinda find a frequency where everyone is trying to tune in, and you find what’s inside, find what you’re feeling.”

They try to mix up the location, but on this particular trip we’re in Friesland, some one- and-a-half hours from Amsterdam, at a spot they’ve been to a few times before. We are accompanied by Van der Heijden’s younger brother, Kai, and their friend, Eddie, both of whom are also musicians. A Highland cow and two goats greet us as we turn into the driveway of the residence, flanked by huge gardens and a vast lake, just as the car speakers are fittingly blasting Wamdue Project’s ‘King of My Castle’. It is quite literally a castle — or, at the very least, one of those massive, fancy buildings that rich people in the 20th century made to emulate past grandeur — with around 10 bed-rooms crammed with ceiling-scraping plants and walls filled with art.

Though we chat for much of the 24 hours I’m there, when we sit for a formal interview, it’s in the library area of the house with the guys lounging on a massive red leather sofa, joking that it feels like therapy. If all of this seems excessive for an act consisting of two people, it is the perfect place to accommodate the various collaborators who’ll be flitting in and out over the coming weeks.

Beyond Guney and Van der Heijden, these retreats offer a chance for the pair to work with other artists, bringing people whose work they’re interested by into the space to see what can happen — the day I leave, ANOTR are off to pick up Dutch artist Never Dancing Alone from the nearest station, and they’ve also got time booked in with Wayne Snow, and mention Benny Sings and Rimon. “There’s new energy coming in every day,” says Guney, “and the nice part about it is people come with joy and happiness into this [space]. You know, they’re like, ‘Ah, I’m gonna be away from home for two or three days just making music, being with friends.’ You’re filled with their energy every single time as well.”

Still, at their core, these creative retreats allow ANOTR to sit and make music in more collaborative ways with one another. “Everything we make on tour usually is on the laptop,” says Van der Heijden, “and when we’re on the road, it tends to be one of us starts a project, and then afterwards we work together on it. [On the retreats] we use a lot of gear, a lot of outboard instruments, and most ideas here are borne by two, three or more people being locked in at the same time. It feels a bit more free.” 

One of the ways this gets “more free” is with the aid of psilocybin — magic mushrooms — which the duo sometimes microdose (or, indeed, macrodose) when making music. They’re even in the process of releasing their own brand of mushroom drops to go along with the ANOTR skins and roach paper they already sell, all of which makes for pretty strong merch. For Guney, taking psychedelics means that it’s easier to listen to something over and over again and suss if something isn’t quite working. “It’s an enhancer of feelings, I would say. And so when the music is a little bit off… on the inside you feel, like, unease,” he says.

“I sometimes feel with psychedelics, it sort of slows you down and makes you listen more,” agrees Van der Heijden. He then quickly adds with a laugh, “Making music so-ber is also really good! But I just think maybe you’re a bit more open to hearing new things, to trying new things, and to having moments of introspection when you’re on ’shrooms.”

If this all sounds pretty idyllic, the reality is at times closer to some kind of creative bootcamp. Yes, we have a big luxurious evening meal — bruschetta, gyoza, steaks, fish, prawns, fries, salads and vegetables, all ordered from the only nearby restaurant — but it’s because ANOTR are intermittent fasting and will skip both breakfast and lunch (not ideal for me, someone renowned for getting grumpy when hungry).

When I wake up, the guys are busy in the backyard using the dumbbells and skipping ropes they’ve brought with them for a circuit workout. “It’s important to get a decent night’s sleep, keep active, go for a long walk and then we often like to cook together,” says Guney.

They stay up late into the night, jamming together, making beats and looping woozy lines of guitar and keyboard, all while drinking herbal tea and laughing together. Alt-hough they’ve brought the ’shroom drops with them along with weed (they weren’t able to procure LSD as they’d hoped for this particular retreat), they’ve been feeling a growing desire for sobriety and looking after themselves both physically and mentally. It’s a logical decision for a dance music duo who have been working together for over 13 years and are now both in their thirties. Guney says: “We’ve had to learn to have good communication, because I’m together with him more than anyone; you need a strong basis of trust.”  

When we meet, they’re in the midst of relentlessly touring around the world as is par for the course for DJs. But lately, they’ve been thinking about ways they might lay the groundwork to settle down a little more one day in the future and make things feel somewhat more sustainable. They run the NO ART Festival in Amsterdam, as well as their own label, also called NO ART. “We want to start developing artists more,” says Van der Heijden, “find them the tools and the opportunities that we’ve had.”

Indeed, although it’s easy to baulk somewhat at the sums of money that clearly exist in the dance world in a way that feels unthinkable elsewhere in the music industry, ANOTR seem earnest in their desire to feed it back into a community. Which brings us back to the retreats. Part of the reason I’ve been invited to be a fly on the wall here in Fries-land is because this might be their last trip like this. The week we meet, ANOTR have put in an offer on a mansion elsewhere in the Netherlands, in the hope of turning it exclu-sively into a hub for all future retreats, but also a place for others to come and jam, even when the guys are on tour. 

“Because we’ve been doing it for years, we noticed all the benefits of being in a place like this, but there might be artists right now who do have the talents, but not the tools — or not all the tools — and facilities that can help get some creative ideas going,” says Guney. “It would be so nice just to make that more open to other people who want to make music and to help steer younger artists who need some guidance.”

For ANOTR, then, these retreats are about more than simply making time for their own practice. Instead, they’re about building a space where aspiring talents without the resources can learn and grow and connect with a wider collective and foster their creativity.

“Creativity makes you like a kid again,” grins Van der Heijden. “It keeps you young, brings joy, takes you back to the present moment. It’s important to mess around with no clear goal of what it’s gonna be like. Society right now is really driven by productivity — ‘I need to do this,’ ‘I need to have that,’ or ‘I want my life to be this.’ I think we need less of that, and more doing whatever, and feeling free while you’re doing it.”

Taken from the August/September issue of Rolling Stone UK, out now. Subscribe to the magazine here.

Photography by Burak Goraler