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Sander Kleinenberg knows how dancefloors work: he's instigated ‘sweaty’
scenes around the world, observing what makes people move from Belfast
to Buenos Aires. Ultimately, the mechanics of the dancefloor revolve
around just one thing: good dance music. Sander knows about this, too.
His own vinyl creations are saturated in clubland so that they virtually
perspire dry ice and radiate glitterball shards from their grooves. It's
time to get back to basics, to stop watching the DJ and get back on the
dancefloor.
This year at the Dancestar Awards Sander received his accolade for his
revelatory reworking of Justin Timberlake's 'Rock Your Body'. Building
on a Neptunes production is no mean feat, but Sander manages it;
stripping away all superfluous trimmings and working the original song
structure into nine minutes of spellbinding house music wonderment. He
drops the track's original bassline, making it sound like a lost
Mantronix classic or something that would have provided the peak moment
of a Junior Vasquez set in mid-nineties New York; darkly soulful, sexy,
illicit and thoroughly irresistible. "I've got this idea," he says. "I'm
feeling house music and club music are maybe slowly going back to where
it was pre-'90s, where a song is a song and you don't bitch around with
it." It's a damn good idea - and it works.
As a kid growing up in the provincial eastern Netherlands during the
'80s, Sander would tune-in religiously to late night radio shows playing
imported r&b, electro and club mixes direct from New York City. Names
like Shep Pettibone and John 'Jellybean' Benitez rang out with the
romanticism of a distant dancefloor. He developed a fascination for hip
hop, spraying graffiti, human beatboxing (badly) and, of course,
rapaciously eating up vinyl. At school he was known as 'the kid with the
headphones'. One day a teacher asked him if he'd play some records at
the school disco, so he did. Little did he know that those fantasies
would come true, that he'd be emulating those heroes whose names he'd
only heard across the crackle of the airwaves and seemed as tangible as
a character in a comic book.
These days Sander commands respect as a DJ worldwide, with residencies
in New York’s Crobar, Ibiza's Pacha and of course his own phenomenal
Everybody parties all around the Netherlands that allow him to indulge
his stylistic experiments over eight hours and more.
Vaunted in the '90s
as one of the 'Nu Breed' of the world-conquering progressive house scene
- aided by his addition to the enormously successful Global Underground
compilation series and not least the This is Everybody and This is
Everybody Too releases on Renaissance - he is now numbered quite rightly
among dance music's elite upon his own merit alone. Clocking up hundreds
of thousands of air miles per year hasn't yet dulled his passion for
playing records he loves to clubbers in every conceivable part of the
world. "I'm completely in love with the lifestyle and what it represents,"
he enthuses. "People find it a cliché but I do think it brings people
together. I love the fact that when I play in Kuala Lumpur it goes as
right off as it does in Northern Ireland or in Tel Aviv. That is truly
the fire that ignites my engine."
2004 will be Sander's year. His remixes of global pop/r&b sensations
Justin Timberlake, NERD and Janet have topped dance charts on either
side of the Atlantic. His very own Little Mountain, has been carving a
niche for itself with its signature chunky / funky style. It is a labour
of love intended to release only the highest standard of music from
Sander and the most like-minded of souls.
And through Little Mountain comes the new Sander Kleinenberg release,
The Fruit, an epic tune in the making featuring the driving vocals of
John Fugler of Fluke fame. The Fruit, is one of two new productions on
Sander’s latest compilation This is Everybody Too on Renaissance.
It all kicked off when he moved to The Hague, administrative centre of
the Netherlands, in 1994. With no real dance scene of note, Sander
avoided the cloying, cliquey environments of cooler cities like
Amsterdam and Rotterdam, allowing him the space to create his own
identity. "Back then I was always the sort of a solo man," he says. "I
could smell it but it was not happening around me. I feel like I've had
to discover everything myself." Hooking up with local movers and
shakers, Sander began releasing tracks through German and Belgian
labels, Superstition and Wonka Beats, setting up his own label, Deal
Recordings. His breakthrough came in 1996 as S&S Project, the single 'Y.D.W.
(You Do Me Wrong)' signed to New York's Strictly Rhythm, proving a
sensation that reverberated in clubs around the world.
The release of his first 'Four Seasons' EP also proved a definitive
moment. 'My Lexicon' and 'Sacred' won him admirers across the spectrum
of the dance fraternity; notably Sasha, who included both the
aforementioned tracks on his ‘Global Underground: Ibiza' compilation and
was to become a close friend and collaborator. "I think the 'Seasons'
EPs set a general reflection of what I do in a club,"explains Sander
with customary humility. "I hope that they'll be things that people will
go back to five years from now and go, 'Yeah, I'll play that'. I hope
that it has a sort of timeless quality about it - that's what I try to
achieve."
But Sander's ambitions lie beyond the confines of the club. He remains
fascinated by the possibilities of pop music, creating hybrids that are
at once immediate and intelligent, club-oriented and credible. "I listen
to Missy Elliott records and I go,' Wow, this is so clever,'" he admits.
"This is cleverer than 90% of what I hear being made by underground
dance producers and it’s kind of inspiring. Like, 'Dam, we still have a
long way to go!'" Sander is on his way and doing things right. Listen up
people.
(C)
Copyright Clubbing Magazine 2001-2005
