Dekmantel 2015: "We've only just begun"

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.