Tammo Hesselink has been busy over the past four years, working through a variety of club-oriented sounds released across more than 14 records on several labels, including Delsin, Midgar, Blank Mind, and Nous’Klaer Audio. We recently spoke with Hesselink following his release on Redstone Press about his EP Naturally Occurring, his influences, how his residency at Garage Nord has helped him develop as a producer and DJ, and his production process.

How do you feel about Naturally Occurring after it has been out for a little while now?

I’m very happy with the reception so far, especially as it’s been a record I’ve been trying to write for years now. Most of my stuff over the recent years has been more techno oriented, but this more rhythmic, UK techno style has been something I’ve always been playing and writing, but have been struggling to do well for a longer time.

What have been some core influences whilst making Naturally Occurring, both musically and other media?

The tracks have been made over a long period, with Butter Hands ranging back to 2017. At that time I was mostly producing more 4×4 oriented techno. I had definitely attempted to make things more UK oriented, but never felt my sound design and rhythms were on par with similar music I enjoyed and had been playing. Visiting Freerotation in 2017 made me feel very inspired to go back and try and write things like that again. I remember seeing Simo Cell and Batu for the first time there, which weren’t DJs that would play in the netherlands regularly at that point, the sound was mostly house and techno oriented in that era with some exceptions for big names like Hessle Audio. However, seeing so many of those DJs play for a “home crowd” really changed my mind and made me realize how much I loved that sound and made me want to write tunes in that direction as well.

How has your residency at Garage Noord helped you develop as a producer/dj and also a performer?

My residency at Garage Noord has been instrumental in helping me further as a DJ. I held a residency at De School since 2017 and my sets there were mostly focused around house and techno, generally more 4×4 longer stretched out sets. Playing at Garage Noord has been the complete opposite for that. It’s been amazing to see a venue focused around everything but the more typical house and techno sounds do so well and have a reputation where everyone who goes there knows they can expect anything but the standard club night there. Over the years there I’ve played anything from dubstep, dancehall to tech house and even breakcore. I feel that both residencies have helped me a lot because you know there’s a mutual trust between you and the club, the people who work there so you get to know the place inside out and are able to try out more things than you would in places you don’t play regularly. 

Talk us through your production process and what have been some personal developments over the years?

My production process has been quite simple over the years actually. In the past I was quite interested in trying out gear (mostly because I felt a bit intimidated by older “cool” producers talking about their expensive gear and how important it is to have for your sound) so I tried out some bits and wrote some tracks that came out with it as well. For a couple of years I had a home studio where I wasn’t able to set up any gear because it was so small so I produced in the box for that period. When I moved to an actual studio outside of my house, I was already working an office job for four days a week, leaving me to only have one studio day a week where I just want to get results out. I’ve tried working with some bits of gear since, but I feel that the learning curve is so long that I don’t really have time to master it. At this point I feel completely fine with just making things almost completely in Ableton, and I still feel I haven’t really ran out of ideas or production techniques to try! I mostly just try to find a lot of samples which I manipulate with a lot of ring modulation and frequency shifter to get sounds that sound a bit in between melodic and percussive to get something that doesn’t sound like it’s from the classic analog synth spectrum.