Melting cultures, melting people
Travelling the world and getting inspired by the diversity of music the world has to offer. Meet Yør Kultura, a project of Danny Odenkirchen, Raymon den Hartogh and Kris van Aalst.
This is how it works: combining the global feeling and global music in the project Yør Kultura. Melting cultures, melting people.
Their remixes and edits are being played at major festivals such as Dekmantel, Wildeburg, Burning Man, Fusion Festival and Garbicz Festival. It’s been supported amongst artists like Jennifer Cardini, Acid Pauli, Mano le Tough, Roman Flugel, Dixon, Ame and Job Jobse.
Soon they’ll be releasing fresh work on the Munich-based label, Permanent Vacation. So it was time for a chat to get to know these guys a little better.
Connect with Yør Kultura on Soundcloud | Facebook | Instagram
In conversation with Yør Kultura
How is your summer going so far?
The summer is all good on our side. We played at some great festivals, spend time in the studio and even had time to finish some music. Touring in the summer is really amazing since we are able to meet a lot of friends.
Already some memorable moments that happened?
The feedback on our release on Permanent Vacation is definitely a memorable one. It got supported by a super wide range of artist we look up to. From Acid Pauli to Jennifer Cardini to Jan Schulte to Adam Port. Super Thankful.
Gig-wise we had a super cool one at Wildeburg Festival (NL) this year. The crowd at Wildeburg is super flexible (musical-wise) and open-minded so perfect to test out our latest music. Many friends from our home town were there to support. The best.
Catch Yør Kultura performing at Loveland Festival on 10th – 11th August, tickets: https://loveland.nl/festival/
For any of our readers that aren’t familiar with Yør Kultura as much, can you tell us a bit about who are, where you come from and what you find inspirational about where you’re living? Maybe also explain where the moniker Yør Kultura comes from and/or what it means.
We (Raymon, Danny and Kris) are all from the Netherlands, Rotterdam. It’s a multicultural city where intertwining all kinds of sounds is inherited in its DNA. This results in a great city to live in.
The inspiration for our music comes not only from our hometown but from all sorts of places, art forms and experiences all over the globe.
The inspiration for our music comes not only from our hometown but from all sorts of places, art forms and experiences all over the globe. We mix, combine and melt this into an art form where you recognize your own taste in. Since cultures are meant to evolve, our music evolves with it. By discovering new paths, we find out who we are.
How would you describe your sound and style?
It’s hard to fit our sound and style into one specific genre, to be honest. We try to combine tribal sounds with electronics. The music we make is constantly changing and evolving. It’s a process where we want to make the traditional sounds sound untouched as if they cooperate by themselves with raw techno, euphoric synthesizers and overwhelming bass lines. As if the symbiosis was always there.
How has your music been influenced by other artists, musicians, or life in general?
We get influenced by many artists from different genres and artforms. Sometimes we get influenced by fellow artists in our ‘scene’ but we get the best inspiration when we look outside our scene. That can be fashion-wise or conceptual art-wise.
Earlier this summer you’ve released ‘Shimming/Cosmic Tribal’ on Permanent Vacation. Talk us through the creative process. Maybe also the gear you use.
We made the track “Shimming” some weeks before Fusion last year. We always try to make a track which makes you feel comfortingly displaced. In a good way. A few months later Permanent Vacation responded that they’d like to release the tracks as an EP. During that period it was quite funny when people requested the track without knowing the name and imitate the track by recreating the sound with their mouth. They were saying: “It goes like this: Whiiiiieeeee”.
“Cosmic Tribal” is a track we made last year as well. The spine of it is a bounce trippy flow with elements rooted in traditional tribals. Works quite well in the darker spaces.
How did you end up collaborating with Permanent Vacation?
We were sending our music for some time but without any luck. We kept trying and at some point, Benji & Tom came back to us with the news they liked Shimming. Later on, we sent Cosmic Tribal and our EP was ready. We are huge fans of the label so when they were interested we were extremely happy. Still didn’t receive “Permanent Vacation” T-Shirts tough. So Benjamin if you are reading.
Give us an insight into what we can expect from Yør Kultura over the next few months …
Finding the right balance between working on our music and touring is key for us at the moment. The follow up on Permanent Vacation is coming up later this year, a release on Jennifer Cardini’s Correspondant and we just finished a remix for Benjamin Fröhlich which is also being released on Permanent Vacation. In the meantime, we are road-testing some new material for 2020, which already got some nice support from friends all over the world.
Do you remember your first rave?
Since we are all from Rotterdam we had our first rave(s) at the infamous Now&Wow parties by Ted Langebach. Legend.
How did you cross the aisle from being a dancer to DJing/producing?
We haven’t given up our dancer part (yet) and try to visit some underground raves from time to time.
What were the milestones that brought you closer to achieving your dream to become a DJ?
Working together instead of alone. The symbiosis between us is fantastic. Doing a project alone can be quite a hassle and making you overthink all decisions until you are stuck in a loophole. It’s great to have friends to discuss the new ideas.
What is your biggest accomplishment & best moment to date?
Hard to say to be honest as we had so many great moments over the last few years. If we had to pick a few we would say our first Burning Man adventure in 2018, our Monday morning set at Bachstelzen Fusion 2018, our Thursday closing set at Garbicz in 2017 and our Wildeburg set this year. And not to forget our release on Permanent Vacation.
Thank you.
