The Heart of the Scene / Dekmantel

Our exclusive reportage inside’s Amsterdam’s electronic soul.

For Amsterdam’s techno scene, Dekmantel acts as the unmissable yearly reunion where old friends, newcomers and souls estranged to the peculiar rhythms of the city gather for three days of sonic exploration and heart-bound reunions. For more than a decade, the festival has settled in a remote area of the Amsterdams’ Bos, past the streams and the fields, and has called out to all electronic music addicts to join its mystical dance. Five days of a meticulously curated program that have summoned legends of the past and made space for the future to shine, all united in a sounding desire to reach higher musical grounds.



Whether experienced or oblivious to the codes of the scene, confident or still fumbling around to find your pace, Dekmantel opens its arms wide to whoever is here to vibrate with the sound, to let everything aside, to plunge into the melodies and let your souls be filled by the movement of the crowds, coordinated like a cellular organism.

Finding its roots in Amsterdam’s eclectic electronic music scene, Dekmantel has always managed to channel the inimitable spirit of the city into everything it creates. The festival’s packed program opened inside the Oude Kerk, once a Calvinist church and now the oldest standing building in the Dutch capital. A space so hushed that every step feels deliberate, it became the stage where Moritz von Oswald unveiled his new project Silencio. Here, the organic merged with the artificial, dissolving preconceptions of what music-making can be. What followed was nothing short of monumental, equal in grandeur to Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa or Rodin’s The Thinker. A 16-voice choir collided with classic synthesizers in search of the perfect balance between the synthetic and the acoustic. The result was a moment that didn’t just resonate, it guided you, hand in hand, into unknown territories where everything still waits to be discovered.

Electronic music exists in time and space, and Dekmantel made sure everyone felt it. Thursday afternoon became a living classroom: talks, panels, workshops, each one tracing the genre’s unbroken lineage while bringing it into the present. Leading the charge was Resident Advisor, the global authority on electronic music, turning the stage into a space where knowledge and ritual collided. Like David and Goliath choosing friendship over battle, the indie label and techno giant ceded the floor to voices that matter. Molly Dicker, Mike Redman, and Dennis van Rijswijk dissected the roots of hardcore techno while mapping out the pressures and possibilities of the genre under popular and commercial influence. DJ Mell G revealed her hard-earned, almost secretive approach to track closing. Meanwhile, Olaf Boswijk and Mick Sabine spoke of the power of breaking patterns, of letting individuality and creativity govern the sound of today. It wasn’t just discussion. It was a ritual. A reminder that electronic music isn’t just heard, it’s lived, felt, and carried forward by those who pay attention. As the sky darkened and the evening settled in, the IJ river that meanders around the city, weaving its emblematic canals, became the stage of an otherworldly show. Venues reputed for their classical or jazzy agendas bent their rules and welcomed in their high-end walls artists and attendees gathered to anchor electronic music in a new era.

The famously exigent Bimhuis was the theatre of Polygonia’s newest live performance Dream Horizons, with the seated setting devoting all attention to the artist’s eerie travel across universes of sound in the dimly lit room. Her venture moved through highs and lows, sometimes appeasing and sometimes unbridled, tracing a symbolic path with the tip of her flute or the handle of her saxophone. Standing on the other side of the bay, the Eyefilmuseum, overlooking the calm flow of the river, hosted what can only be described as a historical event essential to mankind’s growth. Godfather of techno Jeff Mills played for a room full of curious aficionados his original score for Fritz Lang’s 1927 movie Metropolis, opening the door to a new dawn for artistic intersectionality. Detroit techno arose from the depths of a city lost to the capitalist machine and left to rust among abandoned factories and mechanical hearts. What could better fit a futuristic film casting a condemning eye on the industrial monster than a sound crafted from machinery noises? Nothing, I can tell you that much. The journey felt like a neoteric fever dream, with every note accompanying the wordless expressions of the actors, depicting a new portrait of Metropolis and layering its science-fictional identity with fresh sonic dimensions.

If one word could describe Dekmantel, it would be homely. Friday kicked off the forestry festivities at the Amsterdamse Bos, with vibrations from the speakers drawing partygoers from every horizon like moths to a flame. From the moment you enter the majestic scenery of the Bos and join the mass of bicycles converging on the festival site, you can sense that the moments ahead are unlike anything you know. Everyone seems to share the same rhythmic breath, pushed by the will to venture beyond conventional events and touch something truer, deeper. One might think that the presence of seven stages would turn Dekmantel into a hub swarmed with countless technoheads ready to wreak havoc, yet everything remains human-sized and music is the sole master in this realm outside reality. Entering these woods requires respecting the nature all around, and in celebration of its harmony, the Dekmantel creative team incorporated elements of the environment into the festival’s scenography. Nestling the Selectors stage under a giant weeping willow, making the walls of the Greenhouse stage transparent to connect with the lush surroundings, or projecting a light show onto the trees bordering the Radar stage at night, natural elements become integral to the spiritually charged experience of Dekmantel. Crossing the bridge between worlds, you encounter the circular-shaped main stage The Loop, enthroned at the center of the festival like a lighthouse in the deep sea, casting light over mesmerized partygoers. Meanwhile, the twin sisters of experimental and hardcore techno, UFO 1 and UFO II, hang at the back of the venue alongside the UK bass and jungle-oriented stage The Nest.

For this first day, DJ and producer Floating Points graced the Greenhouse stage with an all-day set alongside Palm Trax, a moment made even more special by his groundbreaking 8-point sound system baptised Sunflower Soundsystem, allowing for a metaphysical immersion in sound. Dekmantel resident Quelza delivered an energetic, bass-filled set where lyrical elements draped the whole in melodic rhythms, while the Ragga Twins enflamed The Nest by mixing pure jungle with singing and reggae elements, making it impossible not to dance your cardio out on the floor. The day ended with a smooth house set by Ogazón, only interrupted in its capturing groove by capricious rain.

Saturday saw an array of explosive sets take over the festival, following the pulse of the speakers so blissfully that even the century-old trees seemed to join the dance. Shanti Celeste hexed the Selectors stage with whimsical tunes, crafting a pure house experience tinted with enchanting voices. Marrøn took over UFO I to infuse the stage with feet-moving grooves that triggered a sense of eternal galore, followed by hardcore techno’s mastermind Freddy K. Against a backdrop of red light, Freddy K unveiled a set that felt like returning to the origins of techno, letting go of superficial artifices to let the sound express any emotion. The basses were raw and expanded, taking the energy higher with every beat. The day closed with Honey Dijon swooping into The Loop stage, playing tracks inspired by disco legacy and remixing staples to the declining light of the sun.

Reaching the end of the race with a heavy heart, the last day of Dekmantel became an encounter, a collision of the unique wraith of the previous four days to finish this cathartic adventure on a high. Satoshi Tomiie revealed his vision shaped by decades of tearing down the limits of musical genres, invoking dub and minimal elements with house’s bouncing tunes. His set transported the crowd to places untouched by humans, sparking nostalgia for times yet to come. UFO I reached its apotheosis with Richie Hawtin’s audiovisual live performance DEX EFX XOX, a thunderous spectacle that kept the stage background hidden throughout the festival for this occasion only. Like the answer to humanity’s eternal questions, Avalon Emerson’s closing set at The Loop threw technical mastery, soul-filled energy, and sensitive exploration at everyone’s feet, uniting the crowd in a sonic communion beyond pain and differences. The final track, Sexy Boy – Vegyn Version by Air, illuminated by thousands of multicolored lights, is forever embedded in the memories of those present.

Biking back to the reassuring brick houses of Amsterdam, it became clear that this enchanted parenthesis was more than an escape from routine for the sound-hungry attendees. Dekmantel is not about dancing your heart out and going home thinking about the next big thing. It marks your soul with a red iron, leaving you dizzy with happiness and almost questioning if everything truly happened. It brings you closer to others and to yourself, revealing that united in sound we are practically invincible, bulletproof to life’s mischiefs. If you were hesitating to book a trip to Amsterdam to witness it for yourself, wait no more.

Dekmantel / The Heart of the Scene

Credits:

Pre Register: here
Event: Dekmantel Festival / @dkmntl
Words: Emmanuelle Plantier / @emmanuelle.plnt
Editor: Anca Macavei / @ancamacavei
Photographers: Alex Heuvink, Yan-Kevin Yango,
Atacan Tutulmazay, Jesse Wensing, Tim Buiting
/ @alexheuvink, @dontframekevin, @tutulmazayatacan, @zwtsr.photo, @timbuiting

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