Bart Skils Shows Us What It Means To Embody the Spirit of Techno

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Bart Skils Shows Us What It Means To Embody the Spirit of Techno

“For me it’s a lifestyle. When you discover techno, it’s a life-changing thing. I live and breathe it.”

For Bart Skils, techno has always been a way of life. When THUMP rode with him from Toronto to London, Ontario on his Canadian tour in July, it wasn't hard to see why. His laidback demeanor and calm mastery of heavy hitting techno behind the decks reveal a seasoned and confident artist. "I never had a real job," he jokes. Yet, the Drumcode roster member is one of Holland's most revered techno DJs and to many plays an influential role in developing the Dutch techno scene.

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Skils has been on the scene for 20 odd years now. He first got a taste for techno in the 90s while working part-time ordering wax for a vinyl shop in Amsterdam. "I started ordering all this German and Detroit techno… stuff we never had," he says. Artists like Ricardo Villalobos and Matthew Dear caught his eye. "All these new kind of guys. The Birmingham sound. The stuff Surgeon was doing." Skils brought these sounds home and started spinning on his friend's turntables. "DJing just started as a hobby while sorting and looking for music," he recalls.

Soon, collecting records wasn't enough for him. Skils wanted to bring the music he found to Amsterdam. Sending out faxes to labels, he began to invite artists to come out and play. "We booked Gaiser for the first time to Europe and that's when I started my little parties." Skils' "little parties" were the start of the legendary VOLTT Thursday nights, which began in 1998 at the lauded and now defunct club Mazzo. Over the next few years, he sought to bring in as many new names in techno as possible. "In 2002, we had to move to a bigger 1000 person venue, club Paradiso, and then that sold out every time." By 2005 Skils had a solid following and decided to embark on what he describes as "a natural progression"—his own music festival.

Photo courtesy of Bart Skils.

The first edition of the VOLTT Loves Summer festival in 2006 numbered some 2000 people on a Sunday afternoon in an open air warehouse in Amsterdam. The debut event featured DJs such as Marco Carola, Andre Galluzzi, and Skils himself. "The only other techno festival at the time," Skils says, "was Awakenings, which had started in 2001. It was just us and them." Skils' good friend Rocco was Awakenings' founder, and while it was bigger, both festivals were attempting to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for techno in the Netherlands.

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Today, VOLTT Loves Summer has ballooned to some 20,000 people and is recognized as one of the premiere summer techno festivals in Amsterdam. This year's tenth anniversary on August 29 will feature six stages showcasing the full spectrum of what the genre has to offer. Skils has always relished in his role as curator and still seeks to bring the music he loves to a larger audience. "When I book artists for my festival, I just look at my playlists," he says. "I do the curation for the whole party. I do the festival with a friend of mine, and I'm a disaster with numbers, so I'm the dreamer."

While his colleague handles the logistics, Skils takes full creative control, envisioning each stage and its sound. "My friend keeps an eye on the festival budget. I only need to dream, so that's good for me," he chuckles. Humble by nature, Skils always plays the opening set time at his festival. "I open up. All the other artists are my guests. I want to give them a proper slot."

While Skils has seen great success as an event organizer, he is first and foremost a DJ and producer. "I started to make music to play in my own sets," he says. "I imagine I'm playing at Awakenings or somewhere in Berlin and then I create tracks, so it becomes 100 percent my sound." First releasing on Mark Broom's label Pure Plastic in 2004, Skils followed with a slew of releases on 100% Pure, Tronic, Break New Soil, and most recently the current reigning techno titan, Drumcode. He and Adam Beyer, the label's figurehead, have been friends since the beginnings of the Awakenings festival. Once Skils started producing, Beyer was soon playing his unreleased tracks in his sets. "After giving him some of my unreleased tracks, he asked me if I wanted to release them on Drumcode, and for me that's an honor, because Adam is an extremely good DJ and a super loyal friend, so it felt natural to do stuff together," says Skils.

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Bart Skils throwing down at CODA in Toronto on July 17th. Photo courtesy FLOH Entertainment.

Today, he feels right at home on Drumcode. "All of the artists became friends over the years. You really feel like it's a family." His latest EP, "Lost Boys," charted to the top of the Beatport techno charts in June and he is already focusing on his next Drumcode release. "For me," he says, "techno is a lifestyle. I've grown up with it. When you discover techno, it's a life-changing thing. I live and breath it."

He definitely brought that passion on his Canadian tour, where he played a rammed show at CODA in Toronto on July 17 alongside fellow Drumcode artist Dustin Zahn and Toronto's Weska. "I love it here. The show was massive," he says. The night demonstrated without a doubt that Toronto's love for big room techno is alive and well. The following night was a more relaxed vibe in the college town of London, Ontario at the smaller Tabu club, but he appreciated the intimacy. "I had a good feeling that people were listening and getting into the groove of the music," he says. The difference in energy doesn't phase Skils. It's clear that this techno veteran is still very much driven by his passion to share the genre with new listeners. "It's like teaching the spirit of techno. It's nice when you win a few hearts."

Bart Skils is on SoundCloud // Facebook // Instagram

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