Sacred Spaces for Sound

On the occasion of Dekmantel’s 10th anniversary, I traveled to Amsterdam to chat with Torus following his set alongside Berlin-based friend and collaborator, Mechatok. What initially began as a straightforward discussion of his production quickly unraveled into something more expansive—a series of reflections over broader cultural currents shaping today’s clubbing landscape. As someone who has navigated the club scene as a DJ, party organizer, and now club owner, Torus occupies a unique vantage point from which to reflect on the shifts occurring within dance music culture, in the Dutch scene and beyond. 

Torus’s own musical approach—drawing from disparate directions including trance’s simulation of space and ambient’s immersive stillness—embodies tensions between recognizability and pop references. Torus views the club as a sacred space for music, one that allows for a genuine emotional exploration which rejects ironic tendencies. His production cultivates a space that equally engages with hedonism, vulnerability, romanticism and sincerity. As the conversation turned to Dekmantel itself, with its expansive approach towards left-of-field genres, it became clear that the festival is grappling with the same questions: What spaces do DJs build for their audiences, and what emotional terrain do they invite us to explore? For Torus, the answer lies in a desire to open up the possibility of genuine connection and transcendence.

Torus is the musical alias of Joeri Woudstra, a multidisciplinary artist based in The Hague. Around 2012, Torus emerged from the Dutch underground electronic music scene, releasing his first EPs on London-based Sonic Router Records. His sound matured through further explorations and experimentations ranging from introspective ambient, harder electronic genres all the way to the dance floor. Notable highlights of his discography include both the original and deluxe editions of the 2020 cult ambient album The Flash in collaboration with DJ Lostboi (Malibu), released in 2022. Tracks like “Ordinary People” and “Enter the Sun” perfectly capture the evocative moodiness of both artists’ music, drawn out and filtered voices echo into a pop-laced ambient. 

Torus quickly established himself in a wider network of artists operating at the edges of the dancefloor. His collaboration with Stockholm-based YEAR0001 label highlighted his music as part of larger forward-thinking reimaginings of dance music that have now turned from niche to cult classics. Torus’ track “Circles” featuring fragmented vocals opened the Rift One compilation, a seminal 2020 VA which marked a defining moment for a new wave of eclectic pop, rap, trap, and garage, drawing from rave culture to reimagine it. The compilation featured innovative and influential artists such as Palmistry, Mechatok, Toxe, Namasenda, and Dark0 alongside Swedish staples like Bladee, Thaiboy Digital, and jonatan leandoer96 (Yung Lean). Torus’ recent mix for YEAR0001 encapsulates the ever evolving and expanding influence of that scene in the current electronic music world. 

Woudstra’s interest in recontextualizing club music is also apparent in his A/V projects and sculptures. These hybrid artworks materialize his interests in technology and emotion, a tendency that permeates all of his works as a composer and as an artist. For example, the Radiate serie is comprised of sonic and physical sculptures, stacked speakers playing mixes of his own music, samples, loops from pop music, and iPhone field recordings in romantic settings. 

His reimagination of a new club experience also comes to fruition in Laser Club, a series of parties running since 2017, with guests including Kode9, Hannah Diamond, Kamixlo, Instupendo, Dorian Electra, Crystallmess, Oli XL, Harm van den Dorpel and 70386357. Born from the necessity of creating a space for parties that felt organic, Laser Club became the outlet for experimentation in all aspects of the club experience, with Torus curating not only the line up but also the stage design. Lasers, strobes, lights and smoke have become signature of Laser Club, as well as permeating into the identity of Laak, the club space that Torus opened in The Hague’s industrial area in 2022. 

A few weeks after his set at Dekmantel, I talked to Torus in the run-up to the reopening of Laak after a 9 month hiatus. It’s a busy time for Woudstra, who, in between producing visuals for festivals, playing at clubs around Europe, and working on production of his own events, is also releasing a new record, Summer of Love. The record is inspired by radio shows where DJs mix together as many pop hits as they can into five minutes. All of the seven songs on the record are harmonized into a super mix of melancholic and ambient cuts stemming from all his favorite songs he played at shows this summer. The record feels like entering a viscous, non-gravitational space in which one can only attempt to orient oneself by latching onto fragmented memories. Cuts such as “Slow Break,” a rework of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights,” or “Lose Control” which takes Matrix & Futurebound “Control” to a softer emotional space, scratching the brain right by playing on potential recollections of the listener. 

Much of Torus’ music feels like conversations, with sonic landscapes built on repeated patterns and soundscapes, creating a cohesive semantic field for experimentation. Loops and elongated melodies, stretched to the point of silence, give his production a drowsy quality that transitions into more piercing explorations, letting electronic music wail, cry, and scratch its walls. For instance, while other productions embrace a serene surrender to the flow of life, 333 Mirrors released with Berlin based Tresor Records in 2022 carries an unsettling edge. Its cinematic, soaring sounds expand and loop, painting an eerie, emotional landscape. Torus’s blending of trance and ambient music makes these seemingly distant genres feel like two sides of the same coin, merging their collective synchronicity and space-filling qualities. 

This clubby approach to not-so-clubby music has been highlighted in different moments of Dekmantel. The festival indicated a tendency of expansion of the club and festival experience towards, for example, the canon of the listening sessions or immersive audio experiences. This was evident in the aan‘t IJ program: in addition to live performances, various DJs and artists offered audiences the chance to explore music that pushes the boundaries of club genres, also within a club setting such as Shelter. The spectrum spanned from the more bubbly and bouncy AV show by Nick León and Ezra Miller, the fluid melodic trip hop of James K, and the pure deconstructions of Huerco S. which demand a deeply emotional full sonic immersion. Besides festivals, there is a resurgence of clubs’ ambient rooms, or a space in which music usually deemed as distant to the club is recontextualized in that setting. 

Marta Ceccarelli: I see this trend as a rejection of “pure club culture,” the typical four walls, loud music and visuals that one might associate with the institution of the club. It is also a way to present and highlight genres that are remixing and deconstructing languages of club music. I am specifically thinking of your production and engagement with ambient music. 

Why do you think we are moving in this direction beyond what is usually considered dance or club music? 

Torus: I think there’s a lot to it. There was this article in AQNB about the rise of contemporary ambient music a few years ago, which featured mine, DJ Lostboy’s records, and Malibu’s music prominently. That was really focused on that period during COVID when there was a focus on returning to your inner peace at a time when you’re essentially enclosed. But for me, that idea seemed too simple, like, “Oh, because we’re not partying, we’re listening to ambient music.” Actually, during COVID, I was making club music, whereas now I’m making ambient music again. 

For me, this is linked to experiences of anxiety. During COVID, I didn’t feel anxious—I was at peace, with no deadlines, no social pressure. I didn’t need ambient music to unplug and get my mind right. But now, I feel like I need ambient music again because I’m working so much and need something to neutralize my brain. And after COVID, probably coupled with more awareness due to Gen Z’s mental health crisis generalized feeling of being burned out, clubs have started having safer space policies. So ambient music becomes this safe haven for people, even in the club. 

For those who aren’t as engaged with electronic music, your first encounter with it can seem like a scary place. Especially the genres most prominent in Berlin or even at Dekmantel, which have a heavily druggy connotation. It’s a scene that requires a guide, a manual—at a festival like Dekmantel you need to research the artists, know the different types of techno at each stage. 

So when a festival is quite heady, it can feel exclusive. But ambient music allows enjoyment for everyone—sober people, those who are too high, or those who aren’t part of the niche electronic narrative. It just kind of includes everybody in a way. I’m not saying culturally or politically it’s safe from being divided or polarizing, but in a physical, sensorial experience, it’s a place that helps build a baseline from which you can explore different extremes of culture, sound, and scene. For example, it was a funny coincidence that UFO 2 started with this extreme ambient performance by Malibu and Sky H1, which is the closest stage to UFO 1, the hardest stage at the festival. 

Your selection for sets often leans towards trance, while your production tends to engage more with ambient. You seamlessly move between these sonic influences, merging them on the same plane. So perhaps it’s what you mentioned—a common baseline of enjoyment. Both trance and ambient can be appreciated by a crowd unfamiliar with their specific histories or contexts.

I’d even expand on that. There was a time when I focused heavily on trance, and I still play it, like I did last year with Evian Christ. But now, with the record I’m releasing, I’m looking to move beyond trance to explore electronic pop music as a whole. It shares the same euphoric quality and accessibility—melodies that are easy to follow and not too harsh, with elements that are highly recognizable. This recognizability makes it inclusive and allows me to experiment more with sound while keeping a core element that remains familiar.

Recognizability is extremely interesting because it allows me to really experiment with stretching and processing sounds as far as possible because it will always retain this core of its reference. You can get away with so many weird experiments if there is some section of pop recognizability.

This universal quality makes it exciting to mix and DJ anywhere because it always resonates with people. Some DJs thrive in specific contexts and need the right crowd to succeed, like a lot of the lineup at Dekmantel. A lot of djs there need an informed audience that knows about the whole back catalog. You need the right crowd for that sound to thrive. 

Having a more universal starting point and moving into experimental directions allows me to navigate different scenes and find unique angles. For instance, my show with Mechatok at Dekmantel was quite different from my set at Draaimolen with Evian Christ, but both involved blending mainstream pop moments with experimental distorted elements. The same approach applies to my other music: even though it’s more club-oriented, the way I contrast and contextualize different sounds is similar to how I handle ambient music.

I was thinking about Lorenzo Senni’s set after yours. His approach to trance is quite the opposite of yours. He strips away the softer elements and presents a very sharp, niche version of trance, which makes it less accessible.

I think he removes a lot of the inclusivity from the original reference and intellectualizes it, which I appreciate as a different approach. It’s another way to explore the same genre. The Torus Senni horseshoe theory — both his and my music end up being quite experimental and they come from a comparable place. We start at one point and go to opposite extremes.

As you mentioned, in your work recognizability plays a role. This also extends beyond references to pop music. For instance, you use phone buzzing sounds, birds, seashore noises, and other familiar elements, hybridizing natural and artificial soundscapes.

I use a lot of iPhone voice recordings because their compression makes them instantly recognizable—like random voice memos or wind blowing into a microphone. It has a very specific Iphone quality. Adding these layers amplifies the recognizability of the elements I work with.

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Recognizability, however, can take on different forms, and has different connotations, not always positive ones. Specifically in the last few years there has been a focus on “edits,” both as a trend in production, its use in sets, and subsequent criticism of its perceived overuse. Edits have been defined by Shawn Reynaldo as “a catch-all term that’s frequently applied to both mash-ups and bootleg remixes of known (i.e. usually pop) songs” within the electronic music scene. Notably some of the debate seemed to have been sparked after last year’s Dekmantel’s videos “depicting crowds going wild to bootleg reworks of Britney Spears, ’90s rap cuts, Y2K-era Eurodance and other chart-pop fare.” But what Reynaldo sees in this criticism of engagement with chart-pop is a perception of the cheapening and commercialization of dance music. While Mechatorus may not be at the forefront of the “edits” trend, their sets often rely on genres that can be associated with mainstream and commercial threads of dance music. 

Mechatorus’ set at Dekmantel tapped into the dialects of EDM, trance, pop, and K-pop, playing with their symbolism and energy to create these moments of crowd unity. The two took heady, peak-less and progressive genres and made them drop alongside unapologetically cringey anthems. The crowd aptly went off to Losing Control by Odd Mob & OMNOM, with that infectious “I think I’m losing it” hook. They kept the energy high with bass-heavy Brazilian baile funk, then dropping wet, wobbly, iconic cuts like Timo Maas’s remix of Azzido Da Bass’ Dooms Night, eventually capping it all off with Calvin Harris.
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The use of those references breaks the set. As a listener, I find that really important. Big room genres and sets that progress without an end can almost create a sense of anxiety, being stuck in a never ending loop. Breaking away from those buildups is refreshing. Especially if they are broken with something funny. Funny but not ironic. This way of mixing never feels imposing nor as pandering to the audience, something that might happen when sets that instead overemphasize pop references or irony. There’s a difference between being funny and being fun. In the club I’m tired of irony without a genuine joke or enjoyment.

It’s extremely tiring. It takes so much energy to avoid feeling like you’re part of a joke when you’re at a party—you’re there to have fun. For example, we ended the set with Calvin Harris. That was partly a way to release the pressure built up from the more intense or heady moments, or the deeper anxiety-inducing moments. Having moments like that in a set serves in two ways. Firstly I am constantly referencing those genres in my own music anyways. But also as a kind of baseline resetting function. There’s moments in the sets where you can definitely get overwhelmed by the intensity, long build ups, or the overall headiness. It’s like this challenge to have checkpoints in the set where you can completely reset all of those variables, and then you just start over again. You can experiment and then go back to another Calvin Harris track.

I played a couple of Calvin Harris tracks at Pacha, but that was different. We had a detailed document outlining what we should and shouldn’t play. I usually ignore these guidelines and go with the vibe I feel in the moment rather than sticking strictly to a list. I adjusted my approach a lot—I played a range of classic house, deeper tech house, and even some poppy French house tracks that I don’t usually play. For that night, I felt like I was almost a regular DJ.

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Amid a crowded landscape of festivals, Dekmantel has established itself as both a beloved Amsterdam institution and a global powerhouse. Just weeks after orchestrating a sprawling 10-day series of events, its more intimate counterpart, Selectors, took to the shores of Croatia. Dekmantel’s reach extends far beyond Amsterdamse Bos, the core of its summer programming, spanning the Adriatic and even to Australia with Dekmantel Naarm. Known for its impeccable production, the Netherlands is home to high-caliber festivals, and Dekmantel sets the bar. A hallmark of the festival is its attention to set design, this year in collaboration with Dennis Vanderbroeck and Matiere Noire, enhancing the immersive experience. The programming offers a broad spectrum of electronic music, from techno and ambient to experimental and bass-heavy sounds.
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This was Dekmantel’s 10th anniversary. What parties were you going to 10 years ago?

I feel I wasn’t going to many good parties back then. I started Laser Club in The Hague out of necessity since there was nothing going on, at least not as a party format. We had amazing festivals like Rewire, and there was Progress Bar, which started around 2015. It was a scene with really experimental music, the deconstructed club era. There I saw Kamixlo, Elysia Crampton, and I think Malibu played one of her first shows in the Netherlands there after I had booked her. But my feeling about Progress Bar was that it was heavily institutionalized, with huge funding and an insane light setup. It wasn’t a party where you felt like you were discovering a scene; it was more like an institutional projection of different ideas. They tapped into different scenes and brought them to Amsterdam, which was cool but also felt in some ways authoritarian. The high funding and stacked lineup and sort of air of pretentiousness made it feel the opposite of grassroots, which is what I wanted for Laser Club. 

I would tap into organic scenes from London, like Bala Club and trance parties, and even online communities, from discord and servers relating to ambient scenes. There were some smaller parties with no budget, organized by artists for artists. Laser Club was similar in that way. Somehow, I managed to elevate lineups to punch way above our weight. For example, I once got funding and booked Crystalmess and Kode9 to play for a crowd of 150. That was exciting. But now, I feel like clubbing has become so industrialized.

I do agree that clubbing feels institutional, professionalized. Sometimes it feels like the club is not the place where music is moving to at the moment.

I had the same thought when I was in Ibiza, where I played at Pacha. It feels like that is where all electronic music culture is going to drive towards, probably because it’s the most profitable way to produce and consume electronic music. It feels like a superficial version of what we actually experience when we go to clubs that aren’t fully affected by that Ibiza syndrome yet.

When I travel and play at different clubs, I mostly see underground scenes. But what a city has to offer in terms of clubbing, sound systems, spaces, and context is changing. Some places are offering an Ibiza-style experience, and I saw this especially in China. It doesn’t even matter if you’re in a “sceney” setting or what the background of the artist is. Unless they’re really dedicated, promoters don’t even care much about offsite locations anymore. Very unique venues are dying out and getting replaced by Red Bull-sponsored or Cyberpunk-style clubs with bottle service. It’s funny to see places where you get to play at a really niche underground party, but they have Absolute Vodka everywhere and Veuve Clicquot bottle coolers. I feel like we’re in this huge transition right now, but I’ve mostly been thinking about it because I was in Ibiza and realized it’s the epitome of a club epidemic that we’re facing.

On one side there’s Ibiza, and then on the other there’s Berlin. That seems to be the other direction things are going, at least within the experimental electronic and club music scene. A process of Berlinification, symbolized by parties in huge warehouses, strict door policies, stickers on phones, and so on. Even festivals, such as Dekmantel are proposing this sort of simulation, with the stage design of UFO1 AND UFO2. 

That’s true. Every time a new club, club space, or listening space opens—especially in the Netherlands—it’s always announced as “trying to bring Berlin to the city,” or “meet the owners behind the new Berlin-inspired smashburger.” This whole PR campaign around Berlin being a selling point has almost an underlayer of Ibiza-esque qualities. Another horseshoe theory arises, where Berlin is seen as the ultimate underground hedonistic experience, while Ibiza represents super mainstream sellout culture. They are closer than they might seem.

I want to ask two things: how does space affect you and your sets, and how does your music construct space? 

It depends on the possibilities. At Dekmantel, there wasn’t much of an option to change the setting. Normally, if I can, I go quite far with curating the space for my music. I try to influence elements like lighting, smoke, and volume levels, even specifying how loud the music should be compared to typical club standards.

I also mix my performances with my visual art practice. Like Radiate, a series of performances that happen during sunset combined with larger installations, often at exhibitions. This summer, at Down the Rabbit Hole, I built a four-and-a-half-meter-tall church organ made of speakers and curated artists to perform around this installation. 

The previous year, I curated the Saturday night section of X-ray at Lowlands and projected visuals on a massive LED screen. I’ve been working to expand the context in which my music is presented, aiming to push beyond the traditional club experience. 

And when you perform, by yourself or alongside other artists, what kind of space do you create for your audience? Where do you bring them? 

I aim to build a special kind of space—something akin to a “sacred” environment. I use religious imagery because it conveys a universal idea of beauty and serenity, repurposed by popular culture. When performing during sunset or in natural settings, this romanticized context helps remove any pretension or irony from the performance. Like at Down the Rabbit Hole, I played a lot of pop samples when I played my set. Placing it into that romantic context made sure nobody could doubt my sincerity and appreciation for the music I played. Even though there are elements that could turn it into a kitsch thing, it can actually be interpreted as a serious engagement because of the tailored context.

For club settings, I prefer it to be as dark and smoky as possible, as you’ve seen at Laak. This setup helps people focus more on the physical experience of the music, reducing their awareness of their surroundings. Clubs often use bright RGB lights and limit smoke, which can detract from the experience and forces some sort of directional experience, all eyes on the DJ. 

From my experience, people dance more freely when they’re less aware of their physicality in a space. I want to create an environment that encourages complete disorientation, allowing people to fully engage with a euphoric clubbing experience. While it doesn’t need to be non-physical all the time, having periods of non-physicality helps people let go in the club space. Once the smoke clears and people are in a “club-ready” mindset, the communal aspect becomes stronger, and the crowd starts to move as a unified entity in response to the music. This is a goal I strive for in my DJ performances.

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Active since 2022, Laak is a club, restaurant, gallery, and event space which quickly found standing in the underground scene through its careful curation. The night programming has ranged from eclectic deconstructed club, boundary-pushing ambient textures, to more classic house and techno names, many of which played alongside him at the Dekmantel UFO 2 stage. Drawing from the network of artists Torus is part of, Laak feels like a club by artists from artists, while also accessible to an increasingly knowledgeable and interested crowd. Due to reopen on the 14th of September, Laak remained closed for 9 months due to permit issues, a perceivable gap in the precarious Dutch club scene so prone to extractivist neo-liberal administrative policies. The reopening night’s line up is kept low-key and local, opting for family invites, people who have been with them from the beginning, playing b2b. This reiterates Laak’s wish to foster the scene by maintaining a culture where people come for the club and the curation, not just the artists. For the upcoming season, there’s plans for collaboration with Lorenzo Senni and its label Warp Records, as well as Elysia Crampton, and other more deep house oriented programming. 
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The second time I came into Laak and saw the room with more lights I felt so confused, I felt like my internal geography was completely messed up. I don’t know if you changed the layout at some point, but I was convinced that the speakers and the entrance were in a completely different position. And I also thought the room was way bigger than it actually is. 

I like that confusion as a side effect, the way I use smoke and lights helps with that. We did kind of move things around during the first few parties, so it could have been that we switched the direction of the speakers. We basically rotated the whole club 90 degrees. And we’re actually going to rotate it again at some point.

We’re so excited to reopen in September. We’ve been closed for nine months because of permit issues. I think the club scene in The Hague, or maybe just the “Randstad” area [major Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht], is kind of buzzing for our comeback now.

Are you leaning towards Ibiza or Berlin vibes?

I think both at the same time. It’s going to be like Ibiza and Berlin on the same night. We’re going from one end to the other. 

Ibiza back to back Berlin?

An Ibiza back-to-back Berlin night would be amazing. Maybe that’s what I’ll tell all the DJs to prepare for.