Tilburg-based producer and DJ Annebel aims to push the boundaries of her sound by layering harmonies and rhythms into new soundscapes when mixing her broad taste in music together into an energetic whole. Her sets are characterized by an energetic and genre-fluid approach to mixing, merging high-energy rave, leftfield techno, UK-inspired breaks, bass, dubstep, and jungle into mixes that feel roused but consistent.
After releasing her debut track on the 3024 mentoring compilation in 2024, she freed up her sound and let it grow in halftime territories. This resulted in her textured, bass-heavy debut EP Exploiting the Situation on Sann Odea with 4 experimental electronic tracks and a minimal remix by Beatrice M. to top it off.
The tracks were written while researching the work of British philosopher Mark Fisher. Fisher infamously stated that no new music has been made since the 2000s. Music innovation, a constant modernist driver of the sense of the future, has also stagnated, leaving behind only 20th-century aesthetics and samples reused in the 21st century. But instead of mourning the future, Annebel explores different conceptions of newness by using various sample techniques like granular synthesis and stretching field recordings, letting past, present, and future collide. Check out our e-mail interview about the EP, favorite venues in Tillburg and more down below.
✦ Can you tell us more about the alternative/electronic music scene in Tilburg? Are there some venues where you can play regularly? What about studios, other artists, do you hang out with other producers or DJs there?
I love the scene in Tilburg. I would say there is a strong sense of communion and support for each other, as the scene is quite small and we do need each other to survive. Tilburg legend French II helped me a lot with the mix on this EP, for example. Tilburg people are not scared of bass music, which shapes the sound of the city in a great way. I rent my studio together with about a dozen other Tilburg-based producers, and it’s always very inspiring to see what they are working on. As for venues, you can find me at the Nachtzuster, Nieuwe Vorst, Hall of Fame, Radio Smederij, De Gin, 013, and my absolute favorite: Gifgrond, the best party in the world if you ask me. Plakboys are also starting their own radio soon, which I’m sure will be awesome, so you can probably find me there as well!
✦ After your debut track, you are releasing your first EP for Sann Odea. I have to say it sounds incredibly mature in sound, texture, sound design, and overall atmosphere. I really like it! How was the process of creating this 4-track (+ remix) project?
Thanks so much! It was quite intense but really great working together with Sann Odea: Liz and Juran supported me a lot during the process and were very patient with me. I learned a lot from the process. I still was (and probably still am) quite a beginner in terms of music production when I started the EP. The first track I made was Two Steps Aside, which was the first arrangement I ever finished (with some pressure from a feedback session at the 3024 mentoring program at the time). Re Re Re I made during a workshop of Hilde Wollenstein (free version) at my former school. It was about field recordings, so the whole track is made from one long sample of me running up the stairs at the building when some alarms went off. „Yavegard“ and „Arpo“ were made at the beginning of 2025 after some experimentation with samples. Laurens (Gamma Intel) and Frank (French II) helped me a lot with the mixing. During the process, I was still very lost with mixing, but I learned a lot from them. After that, Beatrice made the remix, which wrapped up the project.
✦ In the press release, it’s mentioned you were inspired by Mark Fisher’s writings. In music production, how did you work in creation of this interesting mix of past, present, and future? How does this thinking about time influence your production?
I think working with his theories for my master’s thesis went quite parallel to my development as a producer. When I started writing, I was still a complete beginner in production, and I was really stuck in the process, often not able to create anything at all. I was trying to reinvent the wheel in a way, expecting all sorts of things of myself and the music, which was not working out. More than anything:
I found out that for me, the way to make music is fucking around and finding out: having space for genuine experimentation in the moment. Field recordings and sample techniques like granular synthesis help tremendously with that.
Mark Fisher writes a lot about the conditions needed to create innovative music and how capitalism and neoliberalism have destroyed these conditions: he speaks fondly about the space and means for experimentation that are needed to create any viable cultural piece at all, and with the decline of these spaces and means, stated that no new music has been made since the 2000s, and that all music since have been copies of the past of some sort. With electronic music both struggling financially to find space and reusing all sorts of 90s and early 2000s genres constantly, I could see a lot of truth in these statements. But it was also too depressing for me to completely accept as facts, so I started exploring different conceptions of newness, for example, in Byung-Chul Hans “Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese” and Audrey Lorde’s “Poetry is not a luxury”, where time is seen as circular instead of linear. Working through these theories opened my vision on what newness and music can be. In my music, I explore alternative concepts of newness by reusing samples and moments from the past, and letting them collide in new combinations.
✦ How do you choose Beatrice M. for the remix of „Yavegard“? Are they someone you really like and admire?
Absolutely! I’ve been quite hooked on their productions for a while; they have such a fresh take and vision on the dubstep genre and beyond. I love how they stripped down „Yavegard“ to something more minimalistic and pushing. I saw them play in Tilburg a little while ago at GO! in 013 on Krackfree Soundsystem, and I was amazed by how dreamy and trippy they can make dubstep sound and feel. I was locked in for sure!
✦ Do you have some plans for playing DJ shows, where you can present this EP?
I have some stuff coming up around the Netherlands, at which I will try to play them for sure! I am really bad at playing my own tracks in my DJ sets, but I will try to overcome myself and do it more often 🙂
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Interview: Krištof Budke / You can follow Annabel on Instagram
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