Antal

With a record col­lec­tion as huge as it is wide in taste, he is just as com­fort­able spin­ning Chica­go and Detroit influ­enced house as he is play­ing rare Afro funk, for­got­ten dis­co from any cor­ner of the plan­et or a beau­ti­ful boo­gie gem. Yet, this wide range of styles comes nat­u­ral­ly. ​“Often, the best nights are the ones where I feel I can play any­thing, no mat­ter how sharp my selec­tion is.” It is this selec­tion which is key, here. Antal can make you dance to an obscure track, because he knows exact­ly how and when to drop it. He plays songs you nev­er knew you need­ed in your life.

Things all got an extra push after a mag­i­cal gig at the famous Low­lands Fes­ti­val in 2014, togeth­er with Hunee. He start­ed play­ing all over the world, from Oslo to Sin­ga­pore and from Tokyo to San Fran­cis­co. There is a world­wide com­mu­ni­ty that under­stands the pow­er of a good tune on the dance­floor. And this com­mu­ni­ty is grow­ing, its roots are get­ting stronger. ​“That has become more impor­tant to me over the years”, he con­fess­es. ​“Oth­er­wise there is no pro­gres­sion. Things have to move for­ward, in order to survive.”

Since 1997, Antal runs the mighty Rush Hour Records in Ams­ter­dam with a close group of hard work­ing peo­ple. It’s a vast empire that encom­pass­es a reli­able dis­tri­b­u­tion wing as well as a much-loved record store chock full of vinyl, bought dur­ing on-going crate dig­ging trips. The label, in the mean­time, releas­es house and tech­no from the van­guard at the same time as reis­su­ing long for­got­ten clas­sics that serve to edu­cate whole new gen­er­a­tions about what has gone before. You could say Antal him­self serves the same pur­pose when DJing.