Belgian-born Ahl Iver has always been immersed in electronic music, spending huge amounts of time honing his immaculate production skills whilst at college. Shortly after submitting his tracks to Amelie Lens, the young artist found himself signing his first vinyl EP on Lenske Records thanks to his tough sound design and immaculate rhythms. His infamous thunderous kickdrums and fast acidic sequences have since been exhibited across some of the most influential clubbing venues, and it wasn’t long until he was contributing towards the labels first VA and providing an original track for the Fabric Presents mix series curated by Lens herself.
Returning for just his second EP on Lenske, Iver follows up his 2019 release “Haunted Patterns” with a four-track killer packed with percussive heat aptly named “Down The Void”. Containing authoritative kick drums and jolting rave elements for the first track “Danger Close”, the follow up is a galvanizing rave cut layered under scattered detuned vocal samples called “Lights Out”. The namesake song is next up with a foundation of sharp hi hats and a squelchy bass line riddled in arpeggiated synth samples whilst maintaining a commanding techno ferocity. We caught up with Ahl Iver about his “Down The Void” release:
How are you? And what have you been getting up to recently?
Hey guys, I’m great! I’ve been quite busy the past months. I graduated college in the summer and since January I’m working full time, so I don’t have as much time to produce as I would like. Luckily I had a lot of time before I started working so I banged out a lot of tracks. At the moment it’s still hard for me to combine the two though, but I’m sure I’ll get better at it!
How have you found the last year and how has the lockdown impacted your creativity levels?
The last year was pretty shit, not going to lie. I really miss playing or just going to raves as a visitor, but I’m seeing a lot of positive news because of the vaccine so I really believe better times are upon us. Music wise I think I can say it was a pretty good year. I feel that I’ve grown a lot as an artist and I’m pretty happy with the tracks that I’ve released this year. Luckily my creativity hasn’t suffered much from corona. I’ve made some of my favorite tracks the past year, and I have a lot of great unreleased stuff of which I can’t wait to release.
Are there any key influences from your early days that continue to inspire you today?
Before I got into techno I listened to a lot of hardstyle, hard trance and hardcore music in general, and that’s something you can still really hear in my music. There are also some artists that really got me into techno that still inspire me to this day. I’m talking about: I Hate Models, Dax j, Kobosil, Héctor Oaks, Function, Oscar Mulero and Perc to name a few.
Your new release “Down The Void” is a fabulous listen. What was the creative and production process behind the record?
First of all thank you, I’m glad you guys like it. The tracks were made over a period of about 8 months, with Say Goodbye being the oldest and Danger Close being the most recent one. Most of the time I start off with making a kick and then I try to come up with a main part/hook. Once I got those two, I tried to figure out what kind of drums fit the track. For Danger Close and Lights Out it was obvious that I wanted some really energetic drums. Say Goodbye and Down The Void didn’t need to be as energetic in my opinion, they are also a couple of beats per minute lower. Most of these tracks didn’t take long to make, these are always the best ones in my case. The ones where you don’t need to think and that just happen.
If you had to pick a favourite track from the EP, which one would it be and why?
I think I would say ‘Lights Out’. I really like how it switches the vibe completely when the first break comes up and then goes back to full energy afterwards. I remember being super hyped when I finished it.
Signed on Amelie Lens esteemed ‘Lenske Records’, how has the label helped shape and define the EP and your overall sound?
Amelie always gave me complete musical freedom so I never really produced with Lenske in mind and I just did my own thing. Luckily for me, most of the time Amelie liked what I was making. I think it’s very important to always produce for yourself and not with an artist/label in mind. If you’re truly behind your music others will follow.
Can you share any plans you have for 2021 with us?!
Of course DJ’ing wise it’s still a mystery to me what’s going to happen, but let’s hope for the best. Music wise I have a release coming up later this year that I’m really looking forward to. It’s a track I’m really happy about and I can’t wait for everyone to hear it!
“Down The Void” is out on Lenske Records and is available to buy from Bandcamp.
Tracklist:
1. Danger Close
2. Lights Out
3. Down The Void
4. Say Goodbye
