Dam Swindle Boxed Out

A lot has changed for Lars Dales and Maarten Smeets in the past two years since they first send me a demo with their music. When we met in Amsterdam in 2011, they had just started their Detroit Swindle project and were making music just out of fun. They did not yet think of taking it to a more professional level. After some time, Elef got them to send me a few of their first tracks, which resulted in the “Nothing Else Matters” EP together with the now “classic” Detroit Swindle track “Jick Rames” on it. “Jick Rames” is truly a breakthrough track for the guys: it was something completely different at the time with its ultra slow tempo combined with Detroit/ Chicago-esque feel and hip hop attitude. Along with their well received release on Huxley’s “Saints & Sonnets”, this marked the jump start of their musical career and it were these releases that marked the way the guys would take, combining the early 90’s garage styles with deeper Detroit and Chicago house influences. Their music sounded so fresh and new that you could immediately pick out a Detroit Swindle track when you heard it in the clubs. It was something about their way of building breaks and especially the rhythms that had a typical “Detroit Swindle” style with lots of shuffle and off-grid action going on. Their tremendous rise in the house scene already got them to be noted as newcomers in the “Making a splash in 2013” section in DJ Mag and from there it just went off.