Community: Solitution Sounds

Solitution Sounds breaks the classic definition of music charts and puts a contemporary twist

It’s already March and this marks the anniversary of our last ‘’normal days’’ before the world changed dramatically. On the other hand, we are one step closer to Spring and the beauty of living life outside wild and free once again. As we keep working hard, we are putting the rest of our energy into staying sane and motivated while waiting for this to happen. I always find it really refreshing and charging to hear the stories of likeminded people, who are going the extra mile to create something special out of passion for everyone else to enjoy. It always gives me this warm feeling in my heart that things are not completely still and it will be okay again, as long as we don’t give in to the hardship, but keep doing what we love. In this line of thought, it is my honour to introduce you to another one of my features – Community.

In this feature you can expect the stories and in-depth presentations of individuals or organizations, whose projects are aimed at the benefit of our community, or at creating such based on common love and passion for electronic music and culture. I want to show you the people that truly want to contribute to our scene and do so in their very own unique ways.

Today, I am happy to present you to my first guest Sem Heezen, the founder of Solitution Sounds – a project that focuses on creating monthly music charts where he features various genres of electronic music across different labels.

Sem Heezen

Sem is based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he has been living for the bigger part of his life. Sem’s interest and love in electronic music got sparked around 2013-2014, when he first started going out. He was completely mind-blown after experiencing the energy and vibe of an electronic music event and realized that this was something that he was missing in his life and right there and then he decided to dedicate a lot of time and energy into getting to know this world. At first it was about the excitement and intensity of the experiences, but Sem quickly realized that the thing that pulls him towards this world the strongest is actually the music.

I deeply respect people that are truly interested in learning about things in depth before they form an opinion. Sem is one of those people. From the moment he developed affection for the music, he made it his mission to read about the history, artists and influences that make it what it is today. As he was discovering about artists such as Underground Resistance, the history of the Berlin scene, or even genres like EBM his fascination with this culture grew exponentially. Another driving force behind his relentless thirst for new discoveries is purely the fact that he always needs new impulses and diversity when things get too repetitive. He is always looking to expand his knowledge, regardless of what the topic is. It took Sem some time, but after a while he got to experience the legendary club De School in Amsterdam, which was a turning point for him. ‘’ That opened a lot of new doors not only for music, but also for the way I think about the world and about people, and I think that’s one of the most beautiful things that parties can bring to people, that change of your whole point of view about everything.’’

In 2018 Sem decided that it is time to materialize his passion and create a project that contributes to multiple members of the electronic music community. Inspired by his excellent skill of organizing his music into detailed playlists, he decided that he would love to share all the great music he has been finding and enjoying with a wider audience and have a real contribution to the scene by promoting the artists and labels that he so dearly enjoys. ‘’There is so much out there and one can’t really follow everything from every genre. After discussing my idea with some friends, I came to the conclusion that I should just compile the lists in a really amateur way and just go for it. The quality of my images was not great at first, but I didn’t know how to make it any other way at that time, so I came up with a name and made an Instagram profile and that was the beginning.’’

The name of Sem’s platform is inspired by solitude, connection and solution. ‘’It explains the solitude that you can feel at home when you have difficult times. You miss the connection to the dancefloor and want to feel that warmth again. Music is the solution that takes away that solitude and guides you through these times. I really thought about it. I just started posting every month my found gems – it could be any subgenre of electronic music. Looking back at the lists, I think they also reflect my feeling of the month. Sometimes one genre prevails. So in that sense the music I select and offer to people reflects my personal emotions.’’ Solitution Sounds’ lists contain everything from hypnotic techno through peaktime dancefloor oriented techno, to electro, and ambient.

‘‘looking back at the lists, I think they also reflect my feeling of the month. Sometimes one genre prevails. So in that sense the music I select and offer to people reflects my personal emotions’’

Sem’s charts are really authentic in that way, because they are breaking the idea of the ‘’classic definition’’ of a chart and bring a contemporary twist on it. For those of you who are not sure what I mean by ‘’classic definition’’, it is basically the old way of ranking of music in popularity based on a combination of store sales, number of plays on radio/TV and number of plays on Jukeboxes across a country within a week. Nowadays, we are looking at record sales mostly and number of plays on stream services. As I am someone that prefers the personal approach, I think that Solitution Sounds is giving people something more valuable than a ranking based on sales, which is already an outdated concept in my opinion. Especially in our industry, I do not agree that the most sales equal the highest quality. Back in the day, this was one of the few ways that the general public would have access to information about new music, but we are already past that point and it is time to adjust.  For me, the beauty lies in the fact that nowadays, we have so much music available across various platforms and so many ways to discover it, that we do not need to rely on a certain ranking which is absolutely unfair in any case, because music is a very subjective matter where feelings must always prevail when it comes to deciding whether something is good for you or not, and not how many times it sold.

‘’When I started with the charts I didn’t just want to share an ‘‘empty’’ YouTube or a Spotify playlist. I already knew about the buymusic.club website, because I was checking it as a source to find new music, and it was the perfect location for me to share my charts. The great thing this platform offers, is the direct link to Bandcamp where you can buy the digital files or physical output, this is something that I usually miss in other people’s charts as they normally just share a list of music. By using the website it becomes really interactive as every click opens the designated Bandcamp page and then you find the real thing instead of just a picture, I do think this is a proper way to really support everyone involved. Some artists choose to promote their accounts on platforms like Spotify, where you get a great reach, but unfair compensation, and others really come out for it like Zanais from Berlin. She started a Patreon account, which you can subscribe to and there are a lot more artists that do that. That’s a proper way to support. At the same time not everyone is up to pay a little bit of money to help their favourite musicians, and they are just looking for a cheap way with easy access through a shared family account for EUR 10. In my opinion there are people that buy merch, some buy vinyl, some buy digital tracks, but if you don’t do any of these things and you call yourself a music lover, I can’t take you seriously. If you are such an enthusiastic person that loves music, there has to be a way of supporting your favourite artist if there are no parties’’. As Sem is always tagging the artists and labels that he is featuring in his monthly selections, he always gets a positive feedback and gratitude from everyone involved, which in turn motivates him to keep going with the project.

‘‘there are people that buy merch, some buy vinyl, some buy digital tracks, but if you don’t do any of these things and you call yourself a music lover, I can’t take you seriously! If you are such an enthusiastic person that loves music, there has to be a way of supporting your favourite artist if there are no parties.’’

With time every idea evolves not only in substance, but in execution as well. Sem also realized that it would be great for him to pay a little more attention to the visual delivery of the content, which led him to collaborating with Job Verhoeven from JV Vormgeving. Last December, they started working on the new visual concept of Solitution Sounds, which was mostly inspired by natural elements like earth, air, water and fire. Sem’s appreciation for contemporary art combined with Job’s knowledge in photography and visual arts resulted in a beautiful new nature-inspired concept, which is already in place and will continue to unfold in the upcoming year.

Sem’s contribution to the electronic music community does not end here. He is also a part of Embodiment, which is an event organization based in Rotterdam. Currently, he is responsible for the co-ordination of their collaborative project with the local Operator radio station, where they host a night with their residents and special guests, but in the future when events are possible again he will be participating in the general organization again.

At the end of our conversation, I am filled with hope and positivity about the future of our scene, given that I keep meeting people like Sem, who really have the community’s best interest at heart and act on it. ‘’ When parties start again it will be really important to invite local talent. First of all clubs and organizations won’t have any money to fly in expensive artists, so local talent will be of huge importance and I really hope that organizations will keep that in mind and are not just saying these things now… We need to start with a clean slate. In the end my message to everyone is: Support the labels, support the artists and keep loving the music!’’

‘‘Support the labels, support the artists and keep loving the music.’’

For those of you who are in need of new music and are looking for unconventional ways of discovering it, it is time that you follow Solitution Sounds and let yourselves be surprised pleasantly with a selection that comes from the heart.