In the past week, Dutch techno producer and live act Reinier Zonneveld has been clocking serious hours in the studio.
A fair share of that time, he says, has been spent with hardcore techno producer Angerfist. Zonneveld has also just finished the studio version of his Dance with the Devil (The 6th Gate) remix, off 2017’s Dominance EP.
“Last year, I actually built a new studio…the response of the room, and the speakers in there are really, really good,” he says. “You can do really extreme things with sounds. So, for example, if you work on bass, a lot of rooms don’t translate very well, but in this room, bass always translates, so you can make it as crazy as you want.”
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Zonneveld, as part of his upcoming Australian tour, is headlining Piknic Électronik on February 19. For its ninth season in Melbourne, the lion’s share of events will take place in the blissed open air of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl as part of Arts Centre Melbourne’s Live at the Bowl.
It was less than a year ago that Zonneveld toured Australia, as part of the line-up for one of Australia’s best-loved techno parties, PURE Festival. He’s been touring Australia at least annually for more than five years now.
“I was hoping and expecting to be back around this time,” says Zonneveld. “I think February is always a great time to be in Australia.” As an international touring act, Zonneveld can appreciate that the cities he performs impact the nature of his performance. “Every city has its own feeling and vibe. Occasionally, it determines how people react to certain types of music that you make.
“There’s a broad spectrum of techno out there, and every area has its own taste in music.”
For Piknic Électronik, Zonneveld is headlining a bill that also includes German DJ and producer, Kiki Solvei, along with an exciting stable of local acts including Rory Marshall, Paul Abad, Lisa May, Emanni, Dagu, and Acid Baby. Zonneveld, known for his marathon sets, expects his headline set to be suitably epic.
Maybe not quite the marathon his 2022 performance at LiveNOW was, however. At LiveNOW, Zonneveld’s own festival at the Hembrugterrein near Amsterdam, Zonneveld performed an 11-hour set.
At around 3pm-4pm (about three hours into the set), there was a moment that’s still vivid in his memory. All it took was one note from one of his bigger tracks Hard Gaan to transform the audience. “Everybody was there,” Zonneveld explains. “Although it was still quite early in the party, everybody went super crazy.”
Zonneveld has a variety of fond memories from that landmark gig. He remembers witnessing fans milling with merchandise from his label, Filth on Acid. Others showed up with custom-made t-shirts to show their appreciation. Some spent the entire party in one spot.
Zonneveld’s propensity to incite dancefloor freakouts at his shows has its earliest origins in the classical piano lessons he began as a three-year-old. As part of the toddler community in those days, progressive acid techno probably wasn’t quite in his sights. However, his embrace of piano proved fundamental to the recording artist and performer he has become.
Zonneveld stuck with the piano until he could compose classical music pieces. From here, he began to perform solo piano concerts. He got the bug for illegal raves while doing something considerably more straight-laced: studying finance and economics at the University of Amsterdam.
After attending his first illegal raves, Zonneveld made the bold financial and economic decisions to invest all of his student allowance into equipment to explore electronic music production. That stack of equipment was what he needed to start to make a mark on the underground rave circuit.
There were cop chases, but nothing to stop a meteoric ascent that now sees him playing major summer festivals across the United States, South America, Europe, and elsewhere afar, this year.
As part of this ascent, Zonneveld also sold out Amsterdam’s indoor arena, the Ziggo Dome, faster than pop acts including Adele, Billie Eilish, and One Direction.
The alarm bells for that show rang, initially, when the show organiser alerted Zonneveld that there had been almost no ticket sales for the 13,000-capacity arena. Five minutes later, Zonneveld received another text to say that the crisis had been averted.
The site had just crashed because demand for the gig was so great.
“It sold out immediately,” says Zonneveld. “Like, in 10 minutes or something, everything was gone. But in the first half hour, we were stressing super hard, because we just thought, ‘Nobody is buying tickets for this.’”
Zonneveld’s expansive and intricate live sets are also informed by his experience as owner of the Filth on Acid Label, and organiser of the LiveNOW festival.
“There’s a diverse selection of names you get to work with (such as Carl Cox and Angerfist),” says Zonneveld. “There’s a new energy you get from playing a track you made together – you come up with a lot of ideas.”
Reinier Zonneveld headlines Piknic Electronik Melbourne as part of Live at the Bowl on February 19. Find tickets here.
Beat is an official media partner of Live at the Bowl.
