Walking through the streets of Rotterdam a few years ago, you might have come across a child with his head in the clouds, not yet aware of just how far his wildest dreams would take him. At six years old, DYEN already had a guitar in his hands. A few years later, the kicks of happy hardcore, gabber and his first Rotterdam raves began to fill both his imagination and his ambitions. Music was what obsessed him, what stayed with him, and what fuelled the dreams of a kid who still had no idea how far they might lead.
Rotterdam, the city that gave him so much, taught him to work, to move forward and, above all, to act without feeling the need to say too much. It is a machine that creates movement. A raw and direct city, shaped by the history of hardcore and gabber, whose codes DYEN naturally absorbed. At fifteen, he discovered his first raves. That culture became a playground and, later on, a genuine source of inspiration.
HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
Sometimes, it does not take much. Just one track capable of carrying you away, taking you straight into the clouds and allowing you, from up there, to understand what really matters down below. DYEN still remembers the first time he heard Chained to a Dead Camel by Clouds. A powerful, jerky track, driven by a firm kick and an industrial, melancholic aesthetic that had everything needed to capture his attention. He still remembers the revelation it triggered in him, but also in the entire crowd:
It gave me goosebumps that something this fast and hard can make a crowd go so crazy.
Before the artist discovered raves for himself, Rotterdam had already taught several generations how to do it. Live intensely, dance hard, dance fast. By the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the city had become the birthplace of a harder, more frontal sound, something provocative. Gabber culture quickly grew beyond the status of electronic music alone. Gabber became a culture in its own right. A way of dancing, with hakken, a way of living, a way of dressing. Music without detours, born in a city DYEN himself describes as “raw, direct and hardworking”.
He grew up with the echoes of that generation, but above all with the soul and energy of a city that seemed to sit at the epicentre of a culture and a musical movement that could be complex, yet surprisingly direct in the way it spoke to those listening. That same quality still drives the artist today:
There are no distractions. A kick either gives you goosebumps or it doesn’t. I’ve always loved how simple the concept can be, but how powerful the emotion is when everything comes together.
There is also, in the way he looks back at the music of that era, a fascination with a freedom that he feels is harder to find today. In the 1990s, artists had no idea where this culture would eventually go. The codes were still being written. It is this spontaneity and almost anarchic spirit at the birth of the movement that seems to have inspired DYEN so deeply.
Everything felt authentic. People weren’t following trends, they were creating something completely new. You can hear that freedom in the music.
Looking back at the past remains one of DYEN’s main sources of inspiration and explains a significant part of his musical identity today. Yet his music is by no means a reproduction of it. That is also what makes hard music culture what it is. It remains current thanks to artists with a constantly evolving, living and hybrid vision.
I have so much respect for the artists who built that scene, but I also don’t want to copy the past. I want younger generations to experience the same feeling, but through a modern sound that feels fresh.
That heritage therefore needs to be transformed and given new forms. Alongside his gabber and hardcore influences came the more rolling, less fragmented and cleaner hard techno that DYEN fell in love with. His identity was born somewhere within that space, between Rotterdam’s musical memory and the new playgrounds offered by a scene accelerating once again.
As these influences began to collide, the contours of DYEN gradually appeared. In his universe, aggression can sometimes give way to euphoric melodies, while darkness can suddenly become something far more emotional. The young dreamer from Rotterdam had found his signature, something he now defines in just two words: “Controlled chaos.” A vision that can be innovative while still remaining very OG, (original gangster for anyone wondering).
But having his head in the clouds did not yet mean he could afford to take his feet off the ground. At the beginning of his career, DYEN worked in construction during the week. At weekends, he played whatever small gigs he could get.
Back then, the dream still had to wait until Monday morning.
OFF THE GROUND
A few years later, after plenty of hard work and perseverance, DYEN began leaving Rotterdam behind, playing elsewhere in Europe and eventually travelling further and further. Yet it was not the size of a stage or the number of tickets sold that made him realise something had truly changed:
The first time I started touring internationally. Suddenly I realised people on the other side of the world connected with the music in the same way I did. That was the moment it became real.
The impact of his productions on the rise of his career is undeniable. DYEN started producing at seventeen and released his first records two years later. After beginning to establish himself in 2017, it was in 2019 that he started touring internationally and appearing at iconic festivals and events such as Possession, Verknipt and Rave Alert.
That same year, it is impossible not to remember The Aftermath, a track that shook the hard techno scene. The production already carried his signature, a frontal kick wrapped in a rounder sound and loaded with the raw energy of the warehouse. Listening to it today makes it difficult not to return mentally to that period just before the pandemic, an era that could almost be considered one of the golden ages of hard techno and warehouse culture.
And for an even stronger dose of nostalgia, we only need to jump forward to 2025. With Push It to the Limit, released alongside Paul Elstak, DYEN seems to close a circle. Everything that feeds his identity can be heard in it: the hardcore and gabber heritage of Rotterdam, the old school energy he has admired since his teenage years, now reshaped through the power and production values of contemporary hard techno.
More than a simple nod to the past, the track almost feels like a declaration of identity. The identity of an artist who does not necessarily want to recreate yesterday’s rave, but instead wants to recover what it once made him feel and pass that emotion on to a new generation.
His tracks now travel faster than the man producing them, and his success has grown beyond anything he could once have imagined:
Now people have tattoos of me and named their children after me which is something i could have never dreamed of.
Nevertheless, gaining altitude also means accepting the vertigo that comes with a level of success impossible to truly understand before experiencing it. Creativity does not escape periods of doubt. Tracks that felt obvious the day before can suddenly seem insufficient, while growing exposure and the uncontrolled rise of hard techno have also brought increasing pressure:
Every creative person has those moments. Sometimes you feel like nothing you’re making is good enough. But those periods usually push me to evolve. Looking back, every difficult moment ended up making me a better artist
This way of moving forward seems to extend the Rotterdam mentality that has followed him from the very beginning and probably never really left him. But success also changes the relationship we have with time. Every kilometre travelled is another kilometre away from home. Touring weekends are also birthdays, nights with friends and ordinary moments you are no longer there to experience. And some absences can never truly be made up for.
Now the father of a little boy who already seems more than ready to carry Rotterdam’s musical torch into the next generation, and if you have not yet seen the adorable father and son TikTok video set to a very old school track, it is definitely worth watching, DYEN knows that the life of an international artist gives him an incredible amount, while also asking a great deal in return:
“It’s given me experiences I could only dream about. I’ve travelled the world, met incredible people and turned my passion into my life and living now with my family in my dreamhouse. The biggest sacrifice is time. You’re away from family and friends a lot, and sometimes you realise you’ve missed moments you’ll never get back.”
For almost ten years now, DYEN says he has felt as though he has been living in a “whirlwind”. Everything keeps accelerating: the travelling, the music, the encounters, the stages. And among the experiences that have stayed with him:
“Definitely. Every country has its own energy. South America is incredibly passionate, Europe has such deep roots in the culture, and every place teaches you something different. That’s one of my favourite parts of touring. Its like playing risk and you have to capture all the countrys and make a fanbase. I love to discover all the cultures and experience how different every country works at a rave.”
The young man who once worked on Rotterdam construction sites has now turned what used to occupy his weekends into an ordinary week spent travelling across the world.
That acceleration also reflects an industry that has continued to grow since the end of the Covid period. The rise of hard techno has brought its own challenges. Artists now need to stand out among the growing number of DJs embracing the style, while continuing to play and produce from the heart.
ABOVE THE NOISE
DYEN’s trajectory is difficult to separate from that of a scene that has undergone its own dramatic change in scale over the past few years. Once far removed from the commercial circuit and reserved for the most adventurous ravers, hard techno now appears on stages that once seemed reserved for the most accessible forms of electronic music.
DYEN has witnessed this transformation from the inside. Having known this music when it still occupied far more intimate spaces, he can fully appreciate how far the scene has travelled.
It’s been amazing to witness. When I started, this sound definitely wasn’t as accepted as it is now. Seeing hard techno grow into something global has been incredible. At the same time, growth always brings challenges, so I think it’s important that artists keep pushing creativity instead of simply following what’s popular. I love the way this whole scene have been from clubs of 200/300 people to filling out the mainstages and football stadiums. I’m super happy to be party of that journey and i’m sure its not even far from over.
Moreover, the more accessible a movement becomes, the more recognisable its codes become. And the more recognisable those codes are, the easier they become to reproduce. In a scene where the boundaries between techno, hardcore, gabber, hardstyle and trance have become increasingly porous, standing out no longer necessarily means playing harder or faster than the person next to you. It means you have to show what you love, and who you are.
For DYEN, what seems to matter most is the spirit of a track and what it can give to a crowd, much like the feeling he experienced when hearing Chained to a Dead Camel. But it must also carry something modern. He gave his own approach a name: neorave.
For me it’s much more than a genre. It’s an energy. It’s about taking inspiration from the rave culture that came before us and translating it into something that feels modern. It’s about creating moments where people completely lose themselves together on the dancefloor.
It is a desire to translate the meaning of rave without reproducing what has already been done.
The pioneers who fascinated the young DYEN created their own rules. A new generation now has to learn how not to become trapped by the formulas that already work. DYEN seems to have understood to formula to stay authentic:
By only making music that excites me. Trends come and go really quickly. If you spend your career chasing them, you’ll always be one step behind. I’d rather make something that feels honest, even if it takes longer for people to understand it. I still enjoy every single track i play and so long i do i will always keep my authentic DYEN.
Even if the venues have grown, the objective behind the decks ultimately seems to have remained the same as it was for the young dreamer from Rotterdam:
“I just want people to forget everything outside the room for a while. Nothing else matters in that moment. If someone leaves my set feeling like they escaped reality for an hour or two and went absolutely mental and have trouble to walk again, I’ve done my job.”
HERE WE ARE
The title of DYEN’s debut album could hardly sum up his story any better. Released on August 28, 2026, through his own label Reckless, the project brings together twelve tracks and several collaborations, including Maddix, Bassjackers, Vieze Asbak, EMBERS and Mr. Polska. These different worlds allow DYEN to expand once again the boundaries of an identity he has spent years building.
After almost a decade of singles, EPs, touring and musical evolution, the album gives him a new space in which to tell his story:
An album gives you the space to tell a much bigger story than a single ever can. After years of touring and growing as an artist, I finally felt like I had something meaningful to say. HERE WE ARE feels like the most complete version of DYEN so far.
It is the mature work of an artist who has searched for, shaped and adjusted his identity over time. The traces left by his beloved Rotterdam are undeniable throughout the album. The child who grew up listening to happy hardcore, his first Rotterdam raves, the countries he has travelled through since, the people he has met and the influences he has absorbed can all coexist within the same project.
DYEN can finally look back at the road he has travelled:
Each track represents a different part of my journey. Some are inspired by the music I grew up with, others reflect the places I’ve travelled, the people I’ve met and the emotions I’ve experienced over the years. Together they tell the story of how I arrived at this point. Together with the artists i love working with and love what they are doing makes this album complete with all the genres in hardtechno what i like.
Without a doubt, it is a modern album that fully embraces the hybrid nature of today’s hard music. That musical openness is something we particularly appreciated, and something we genuinely wanted to highlight in this article.
If DYEN had to choose just one track to explain who he is as an artist today, however, his choice would be RED EYES, his collaboration with EMBERS.
It brings together everything I love about music. It combines different genres that have influenced me throughout my life, while still sounding like DYEN. That’s exactly what this album is about. Pure euphoric emotion with a big fat drop that blows you away.
The twelve tracks reflect that same desire not to confine DYEN to a single interpretation of hard techno. As for us, we are happy to admit that we remain a little old school. Our favourite is undoubtedly GABBER, a track that dives straight back into the energy of the early days while adding a bouncier touch that we can easily imagine coming from Maddix.
A bridge between past and present, between the roots and what hard techno has become today. And above all, a track we already cannot wait to hear shaking a rave.
Pure euphoric emotion.
📷 : Cover Photo Credits / Courtesy of DYEN
📷 : Additional Photo Credits / Courtesy of DYEN