Pintai has been running a series of close-knit events in Amsterdam establishing an important network and has just launched an excellent record label of the same name. Read our in-depth interview with the collective as we get their thoughts on club culture, the art of parties and more.
Welcome to Magazine Sixty, Pintai. Tell us about the original reasons why you decided to start doing your own parties, who is involved, and what is the ethos behind them?
Thank you for having us!
With Pintai, mainly, we wanted to create a sense of belonging… a musical home… for us and others in Amsterdam. To create a space through music that fills up with kind people that feel at ease. Lately, we’ve been missing the right ‘soul’ in things. Wholesome experiences. Dance floors in Amsterdam can sometimes feel individualistic. Dark minimalistic atmospheres with high-energy music and little room for connection. It seems that raw vibes have become the status quo. Also, online this raw ‘raver’ image has become something ‘cool’ to be part of. While the scene has always been a lot about acceptance, respect and bringing all kinds of people together. Now sometimes it feels like social conformity is stronger than interest in the art.
With Pintai, we want to get a bit of gentleness back on the dance floor. Focus on kindness and connection and trying to build this community through actions rather than (online) words and images. Through well-thought and curated events that have a touch of romance to it. We like to add more dimensions to our events, by starting early, sharing meals and organising dinner concerts, live sets, investing in building a relationship with a venue and exploring artist and industry collaborations with similar philosophies in music.
We hope to create a space where people feel genuinely welcome and get to feel what music and dance floors are all about. This is a beautiful composition to make: a mix of all kinds of open-minded people on the dance floor feeling welcome and happy. Once you achieve that, you can stretch people’s musical taste because people feel at ease to explore and there is trust. When Pale Product did their first performance at our dinner concert, they mentioned they felt this trust from the audience. That is great.
We do this with three friends called Fred, Rafa and Hal.
How would you describe club culture in general these days? Is it as much about business and entertainment or does it retain some of its underground musical roots and political subculture?
It is hard for us to answer this question on a global scale when referring to the ‘scene’. A thought I (Hal) had is that ‘the scene’ was growing extremely fast thanks to the love affair between promoters and social media. A lot of promotion was created by sending a photographer out with a camera to shoot the most ‘hip’ people and post pictures of them online. This type of behaviour communicates more to the ego rather than a genuine appreciation of art or community. This often gets accompanied by music that gives a lot of direction on how to behave on a dance floor. Very clear build-ups and drops with powerful kicks guiding the audience through when to cheer, raise your hands and jump around. Then these moments get posted on socials again, building a scene where this type of dance floor behaviour is expected. (I believe) DVS1 mentioned: popular house and techno these days are becoming what EDM was. The mainstream is shifting, which can be exciting for the people enjoying it. Music and events are an instrument to create something. Some use it to create what they believe in… others to create money. And then there are people who combine these two beautifully.
We do think that the underground roots are still present. We met many brave promoters that were willing to take a lot of risks in their own shapes for the love of music and community. I wouldn’t be surprised if these people keep pushing boundaries in more challenging (political) futures as well. I’d like to think so. Maybe the percentage of these kinds of communities is smaller compared to the full landscape of the ‘scene’ these days. But I am sure these minds are still active all over the place. Then again, As everything is becoming bigger and more commercialised, I feel the scene responds by craving smaller, more intimate parties again. We notice a counter-movement of deliberate small dance floors with a focus on the essentials.
You recently launched your own record label with a four-track release featuring music from Gråzon, Hame, Pango and Tren. Was this a logical extension of running the parties, how has the response been and would you recommend doing so to other people (in terms of the amount of work you have to put in for the potential rewards of streaming etc)?
For us, creating a label felt like a logical extension. There is a lot of good unreleased music out there and giving some of these artists a platform through releasing records was something we got really excited about.
Combining a label and events is like a positive feedback loop. Through the label, we are able to communicate creatively with our community. And we’re able to welcome this audience at our events to experience this together. There’s a stronger connection this way.
The first release was definitely a lot of trial and error, but now we know how it works and the second release feels much easier. Emotionally the rewards are very satisfying. The positive feedback, the nice interactions with the artists who trust us with their music, and creating the artwork together with Ines. Financially, it is to be seen. I do believe, with the right ideas and active participation of a community we will be able to create a healthy creative system around Pintai. And with this we mean both for us and everybody involved professionally. This is important to us.
Tell us about the great Art Work you have for the nights and the label?
We work with Ines Fernandez de Cordova, and we love it. She makes beautiful art. We were very happy when she accepted to do the artworks for Pintai.
We met her initially when we decided to have a new artist for each party poster. The idea was to make these posters standalone art pieces and print them as Riso-prints. We worked with Juna Horstmans, Romee van Oers and Ines. We pay the artist a fee for their work and 50% of the profit from the sales of the posters also go to the artists. We loved this idea, but in reality, it is quite difficult to find ways on how to promote these prints. As relatively new promoters, finances are a bit of a struggle. I think printing the posters as riso-prints is an example of a romantic idea that doesn’t really work with a small community. We decided to stop creating new prints as we could be wallpapering our flats by now, but we’re happy with the ones created.
Ines, who now makes the artwork for the label, really understands our vision, aesthetic and briefings. It has been great to see how she manages to translate her craft into a Pintai context. We’re looking forward to showing you the next artwork, coming soon.
Outside of music, which cultural venues would you recommend to someone visiting the city (galleries, bookshops, record shops, restaurants or whatever else you would like to mention)?
We actually have a one-pager for every artist coming to play. In this one-pager there is a Google Maps link with all kinds of places to explore. This is the link:
There was a recent report in the UK by the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) saying they thought clubs could all be closed by the end of the decade. Do you think there will always be a need for certain types of music and spaces for people to dance, or will that change due to social conditions and people’s changing needs?
That’s some heavy news! But I already feel hope in the sentence ‘Clubs as we know them’. I am sure there will be a lot of creative minds that keep on filling the needs of society. Sometimes the brains behind the scenes are truly clever and unique and who knows what beauty lies ahead. There will always be a need for dancing and social interaction… and those two needs are a good start for a club to exist. Every generation of promoters has their own struggles… I know too little about the London scene. With all the expenses going up it may sadly become an activity for the wealthy. But maybe this will be the resurrection of old-school raves?
After covid, a lot seemed to have changed. But sometimes I think, here in Amsterdam, there were some unhealthy parts of the scene too. Slippery slopes of the growing limitlessness of the scene. 24H permits, more extreme subgenera of music focusing solely on the energy side of the spectrum, the rise of designer drugs and GHB. There is a dark side to the club scene. I hope that the scene feels a responsibility to make partying a somewhat healthy addition to society rather than drifting people away from it. Maybe, after a forced reset of habits like covid, some people find new headspaces to enjoy that work better for them. I think it is okay for a scene to struggle every now and then and to re-invent itself. But I strongly believe that genuine forms of art that are being channelled with love and care will always exist. The economics of a scene don’t say everything about its people’s interest in it.
How do you promote your parties? Do you use social media in the process? What are your feelings about social media’s prevalence in today’s world (positive/negative)?
We mainly use Instagram. As many, we have a love and hate relationship with it. For us, it is important that we don’t ‘convince’ people too much or make things better than they are. Whether it is with our words or visuals… we hope to be inviting and objective so that the people who interact with Pintai can develop their own opinions and ideas. If you start convincing large groups of people with fancy words and visuals, I think this behaviour translates to dynamics on the dance floor as well. Good things take time and genuine connections are not made via social media marketing.
At the same time, it is amazing to live in a time where ideas can be brought to life and communicated so easily. Whether it is bedroom producers connecting through listeners via Spotify, bedroom marketers sharing ideas… the distance between the creator and the audience is very small. That is exciting.
If you could have any DJ, group, singer or performer (alive or dead) from any era to guest at one of your events who would it be?
Since we are a team of three, there would be three different answers to this question. But at the same time, there is a whole list of artists we would all love to book. This list goes all over the place and trimming it down to one or three artists would give a false sense of direction. We’ve been really excited about the artists that have been willing to work with us so far. We hope to keep a nice balance of more established artists we love and being able to introduce new ones too.
And finally. Please tell us about your forthcoming plans for more music releases and parties?
Pintai is internationally oriented by design, with contributors from different countries. 2025 seems to become an exciting year where we will experiment with international events with people we met along the way.
Our second release by Hame is coming early next year and we are working on more single-artist EP’s at the moment. The next Pintai Mix on our Soundcloud will be done by one of the artists who also plays at the Pintai x Delayed event on the 30th of November in Amsterdam.
In the meantime we stay open to all sorts of ideas 🙂 we are in it for the long run.
Thank you so much for having us!
Have a nice day.
For more information about Pintai
Pintai on Instagram
Buy tickets for Pintai’s next event on November 30 here
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