Suara’s latest V/A release is entitled Astral House, and features 13 distinct cuts of genres ranging from deep house to progressive, as well as melodic techno and house.
One of these is a collaboration between German duo GNTN and Oliver Winters. GNTN are an emerging DJ & Production techno duo composed of Marcel and Jan, both of whom grew up around Dusseldorf, and then decided to join forces in 2014 upon realizing they shared equal passion for music production and melodic-influenced techno.
When they met Oliver Winters, who boasts releases on the likes of mau5trap, EIN2 and Timeless Moments, they knew they had found the perfect production partner for a collaboration, giving birth to their track “Pulsar.” They will have the masses grooving to this ethereal track, packed with percussion and loaded with leads, its transcendent energy gives way only to dance-oriented intent.
We decided to have a chat with GNTN to discuss the collab with Oliver Winters and what
Hello lads, nice to speak to you again! How has 2018 been for you since we last had a chat?
Hey mate, thanks for having us. 2018 has been pretty good for us.
We concentrated even more on our production and geared up a little bit to push the boundaries.
Currently, weâre working on our Live Set, which will be launched later this year. We just feel more comfortable to express our sound this way, instead of using CDJâs. Really excited for this project and canât wait to hear peopleâs reactions. We already uploaded a little studio video of it on our Instagram recently, which was featured by Beatport. So we are pretty happy already, but excited what will follow.
Any highlights that are particularly impressed in your memory so far?
We established our event brand Hide & Seek, which was great. We hosted artists like Reinier Zonneveld or Bart Skils. Good to see so many good reactions to it! Release wise Stil Vor Talent, the label of Oliver Koletzki, definitely was one of the highlights for us this year!
You guys are teaming up with Oliver Winters for a forthcoming release… how did you meet in the first place?
We actually send us tracks back and forth for feedback, and at some point, we had the idea to work on something together. From time to time we noticed, that we got a similar taste in music, so it was a natural next step to work together!
How did the idea to make music together come up?
As said above already, at some point we just noticed that we got a similar taste in music and that it would be worth to try and work something out together. The work with Oliver went pretty well and smooth. It was a great experience working with him.
Did you guys work in the same studio or was the collab done separately with online communication?
Actually, it all went online. Oliver sent over some first ideas, which we then used to add some typical GNTN synths to it. It was a constant back in forth of stems, which was pretty interesting. It was a whole different process in comparison to other collaborations we did!
Why do you feel the collab worked so well?
It was just such a natural development and exchanging of ideas, which felt really good actually. So it didnât take really long at all to finish the track.
The release comes out on a massive label, Suara. How did that come about?
Thatâs definitely a goal we had on our list for some time already. We were in touch with Coyu regarding some other demos before and were so happy that he signed the collab with Oliver. Super thankful for that.
What does releasing on Suara mean to you guys?
As said Suara was always a big goal for us of course. We played out so many tracks of this label and we are really proud to be a part of it now!
The label has been shifting towards the more nuanced styles of techno, with Coyu being pretty vocal as to that and why. What are your thoughts on that?
What we really like about Coyu is, that he is constantly developing with Suara and that he is always searching for new sounds, that werenât heard before. This inspired us a lot in the last years and we feel that some other labels should follow the same strategy. A lot of labels get stuck with the same sound over years, which may work for some, but we feel itâs more natural to develop from time to time and be open for new things.
How do you feel your release fits within that?
Astral House is all about a new movement of a sound that is coming up more in more in the scene. Being the first of itâs type weâre even happier to be a part of it. We feel that all tracks have a similar vibe, while still being different which is great for such a compilation.
Do you have any other releases planned for the rest of the year?
Actually, we worked on so many tracks this year, but September 10th our new EP with Nekliff will drop on Suah Records as well as our collaboration with Citizen Kain September 28th on Stil Vor Talent!
Astral House including GNTN and Oliver Winter’s “Pulsar” is out on Suara now
