Dekmantel 2015: "We've only just begun"

Dekmantel Festival kicks off this weekend.

Now in its third year, the Amsterdam event is one of the finest house and techno festivals in Europe. Imagine the weekly line-ups of top clubs like Fabric, Berghain and the recently departed Trouw rolled into one long weekend in a forest and you're just about there.

With excellent sound, a beautiful woodland location and friendly vibe among the thousands of ravers who attend, everyone who's off to Amsterdam Bos over the new few days is rightly licking their chops in anticipation. To add further to the excitement surrounding Dekmantel Festival, we caught founder Thomas Martojo to talk curation, the Dutch authorities and how Autechre are absolutely mindblowing.

Are you happy with how quickly Dekmantel has become established as one of the best festivals of its kind in Europe?

It's been a bit overwhelming. And there's still much to learn, to see where we can take it and what we can do with it. It's crazy to have all this attention all of a sudden and have people talk about it so much. But we've only been doing it a short time and I think we can still improve.

You're still ambitious.

We're being compared to a lot of festivals that are really established and we don't necessarily feel like that: we've only just begun.

Do you think it'll get any bigger?

No, not really. We started with a 5,000-capacity festival then we doubled it last year, which was a big step. If we were to grow into bigger numbers we'd do it with baby steps. It feels natural where we're at right now in terms of numbers and I prefer festivals not to be too big.

So you're trying to create a festival that you'd want to attend?

That's the only thing you have to keep in mind! It's pretty straightforward.

The festival seems to run very smoothly, with great sound and production. Do you use a trusted team for those things?

Of course. We couldn't do this with just the three of us. Most of the people who work with us on the festival do it exclusively with us which is kind of a rarity in Holland – we have hundreds of festivals happening in Amsterdam alone in the summer. We have a good crew and it's been a smooth process this year. Hopefully I won't jinx it by saying this!

Festival culture seems to be really ingrained in Holland. Is it relatively simple to put on a festival?

There's some really big players who have been doing large events for a long time. I think those organizations have been quite influential with setting the standard. It's also to do with the Dutch mentality: we always try to do stuff properly and neatly.

In terms of the politics here, the city council has been very welcoming. It may have peaked as there's a lot of festivals happening but that being said, doing a three-day event with electronic music here in Amsterdam, I think we're the only ones doing that.

The mayor of the city seems open to dance music.

Definitely. The politicians see it as something that contributes to the city and the culture in a very positive way. The political environment is key because it makes everything much easier if there's less resistance [from the government].

Are all the artists you choose to play based on personal taste?

Pretty much. There's a big group of artists who have been playing for us on many occasions and we keep asking them back. They've been playing for us well before we started the festivals: we've been doing parties for eight years now. Through those we've established tight relationships. We're not a festival that will change the entire line-up every year, that's not so much what we're about.

So the continuation of artists is intentional.

It's a balancing act. A lot of festivals try to present a completely fresh line-up every year and we're not so much interested in the newest of the new alone. We'd rather focus on quality. If as a result some artists play every year then so be it; none of those artists will play exactly the same set of course.

Who are you excited about bringing to the festival for the first time?

Definitely the ones playing the opening show: Autechre and Manuel Gottsching. I first saw Autechre playing 11 or 12 years ago. I was really young, had no idea what happened to me. It was pitch black in the room and they played a devastating set. I knew a lot of their albums off by heart but it was a mind-blowing experience. Ever since we've been putting on slightly bigger parties I've been trying to get them on board. So that's going to be really special. That goes for Manuel too, it's been a long process in getting that booking together. The fact that we had the amazingly beautiful Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ available partly made it happen in the end. It took some convincing to get him to do the E2-E4 piece and it's going to be the ninth time he's ever done it. I'm curious about Madlib too. It's perhaps not something that's directly associated with what we do, therefore I think it's all the more interesting. And Roy Ayers definitely, hopefully the sun shines when he plays! That'd be amazing.