It’s rare to find a duo with as much live chemistry and raw creativity as GNTN, whose passion for music production started in their school years. Jan and Marcel were brought together by their excitement for building new sounds, which spurred years of friendship and a kind of music-savvy and creative drive that’s impossible to fabricate.
After honing their craft through school, the duo established its signature sound of powerful, deep, and melodic house and techno and after only a few years of releasing music, landed on some of the most influential underground labels like Filth On Acid and Stil Vor Talent.
Here we chat with the boys to discuss their latest release ‘Start Again’ released via their own imprint Perspectives.
Electronic Groove: Hello Guys Thank you for chatting with us. Where are you now?
GNTN: Hello guys! Actually, we are in different places right now, which is quite unusual. Jan is on holiday in Croatia & Marcel is in our hometown Recklinghausen, which is located in the Ruhr Area of Germany. We also got our studio there & are living in one flat to maximize our time in the studio.
Electronic Groove: How did you guys meet? When did you decide to start working together?
GNTN: We actually meet in school around 9 years ago. We quickly discovered our preference for electronic music. During that time Jan was working around in FL Studio and one day Marcel joined a session. We were really excited by the creative flow we had and after that, we took our way into Ableton Live. From that moment on, it was a process of constantly finding our own sound and learning how to produce music! And through that, the idea was born of doing a musical project together.
Electronic Groove: What are the advantages and disadvantages of working as a duo?
GNTN: Actually we only see advantages in working as a duo. When we’re on tour we always share great memories & an exciting time together and it’s quite the same in the studio. We always work in sessions on our own first, to draft & arrange some ideas, and later on, finish them in collaborative sessions. This has proven to be quite the best way for us to make music.
Electronic Groove: When producing, do you guys get into arguments, or is it a smooth ride?
GNTN: We actually argue quite a lot sometimes about our opinions on certain new productions and musical directions. But exactly this is what makes the process of producing together super exciting & refreshing.
Electronic Groove: Tell us about your latest release ‘Start Again’. Why was the name selected and what does the release mean to you both?
GNTN: We wrote ‘Start Again’ in lockdown end of 2020. Once we finished the instrumental we instantly had Liu Bei in mind for a vocal. We have been following his tracks & features already since Solomun’s remix of Liu’s track ‘Atlas World’. ‘Start Again’ is a musical symbol for always staying positive even in rather difficult times, like during this Covid-19 pandemic. When we wrote the track we imagined a world, which is slowly recovering again from Covid-19, and now things to literally start again & getting better, so it felt like the perfect timing to put this record out.
Electronic Groove: What can you tell us about the production process? Working with Liu Bei?
GNTN: ‘Start Again’ was planned to be a driving track with uplifting elements like the baseline or drums, but still we wanted to have a slight feeling of melancholy in it. It just felt like the perfect mixture of both directions. What we really loved about working with Liu Bei was, that he instantly got the direction of the track and perfectly translated it into the writing process. We really love the rawness of his vocal on this one.
Electronic Groove: And having Julian Wassermann doing the remix? How do you feel about his interpretation?
GNTN: Julian Wassermann is one of our favorite producers when it comes to Melodic House & Techno. His interpretation of the track goes into a slightly more peak time direction, which really makes it exciting to listen to both versions for the listener in our opinion!
Electronic Groove: Do you guys have any plans for touring? Playing local?
GNTN: At the moment there are still quite some restrictions when it comes to public gatherings, but we have got some really great festivals planned for 2022, like SonneMondSterne, Sputnik Springbreak, and Electrisize Festival in Germany.
Electronic Groove: The pandemic was a real bitch for most of the arts. What good or bad implications do you think came out of it? Will we be better now that things are coming back to ‘normal’?
GNTN: What we really think Covid-19 made with us, is the fact that we should appreciate the things in life, even more, we maybe took things a bit too for granted before – meeting with friends, eating in a restaurant or dancing in a nightclub. Obviously, it wasn’t easy for the whole scene, but we always tried to keep positive and focus on making music and thought that connecting to our listeners and fans!
“We are actually, more than ever, focussing on defining our own sound and putting out as much as quality music possible.”
Electronic Groove: What would be your dream location to play at?
GNTN: Never actually thought about that & definitely hard to say, but Burning Man definitely would be on the bucket list.
Electronic Groove: Do you have any artists’ friends that we should keep an eye for?
GNTN: Roumex is a German duo we really appreciate. They did a remix for our last single ‘Through The Silence’ and we love the work they put out.
Electronic Groove: What’s in store for GNTN for the rest of 2021? What new milestones are you are looking forward to?
GNTN: We are actually, more than ever, focussing on defining our own sound and putting out as much as quality music possible. We are also working on a really interesting event concept that we’re going to launch next year. We can’t talk about it too much, but we’re really excited about it!
Electronic Groove: Moving into a different subject. What hobbies do you guys have?
GNTN: Reading books, being in nature, cooking, meeting friends, listening to film music.
Electronic Groove: Thank you so much for your time. We wish you the best going forward!
GNTN: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us!
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