We caught up with Antal Tamas, owner and manager of Play and Tonic Records, to chat about the beginning of the label and how STEMS are helping to transform things. Check out our latest interview for Behind the Stems below!

Learn all about the label that has worked with everything from Nu Disco to Indie Dance!

Tell us about Play and Tonic, and how you came to exist today?

The main people, who are involved in this project are Tamas (Used Disco) and Martin (Maxxx). We’ve started planning our label in the summer of 2015, when we met at the Black Sea coast. After this, the idea was born, we made it real and have created “Play and Tonic” to serve the finest House and Nu-Disco music, including our own productions also. We wanted to help our talented friends and producers to release music on the biggest digital music stores and introduce their great works to the world. Nowadays, our catalogue is getting more bigger and colorful with every day and we receive a lot of support from the music scene and our main partner – Traxsource.

What are Play and Tonic’s core beliefs that may separate you from other record labels?

It may sound strange, but we haven’t got a fix scheduled plan for the future, yet. Our label release only EP’s and tracks, which we really like. Approximately, every month or more than, a new EP or album is out. Most important for us is the quality over the quantity…Also, we have sublabel for other genres, like more underground sounds. It is called “PLNTC” and we have dropped out our first EP, a few weeks ago.

Why do you think mixing in Stems are a part of the natural progression of DJing?

We are professional DJs more than 15 years and in the past, we were really open about new things, new technical upgrades and developments. This was until we’ve heard for the first time about STEMS. We remember when we’ve sent our request to the Symphonic team, about releasing stems. Firstly, everybody was pessimistic about how much potential is there in the new format. Right now, it is pretty obvious that it is the most innovative way to color, diversify and establish your mixes and performance.

What will be a big step forward in helping the Stem movement progress?

The best and most important for this format is to help more people and labels joining the STEMS format. It is actually happening… you can see that Toolroom, KittBall, Nervous and Turbo Recordings have joined, also.

What is Play and Tonic doing to help grow the Stem format?

We request STEMS format from all of our producers and we suggest to spread the releases to producers, labels and promoters. Our social profiles are helping to make the format more popular, with a lot of photos, videos and posts about it.

Why do you think the younger generations are enthusiastic about Stems?

Younger people are most open for new things. Trying the mixing in STEMS is very good way to stand out from the crowd and make an own and unique style. Today, everyone can be a DJ easily, but most important is the passion and effort. Maybe the STEMS is best for the upcoming generation.

What do you say to those who are skeptical about the format or creating Stem content?

All of our friends are supporting the process about spreading this format. We would like to suggest STEMS to all of the upcoming labels, same like Play and Tonic, because it is really good and important to focus on the innovations and modern genres. The music industry development never stops, and is nice for all the labels to be ready for new streams and changes.



What is your favorite part of mixing with Stems?

We really like this type of mixing. Excellent way is to try the vocal cue-ing and use the whole vocal and fx parts on other tracks. Another great thing is that you can play Basslines or Synths from one style and sampling them onto another. You can create unique sets this way and the crowd is enjoying it very much.

What other ways do you think Stems will shape the Music industry outside of DJing?

STEMS could help producers and musicians a lot. They can try sampling different parts and their composition skills could be improved. Someday, people may start listening to only one stem from a track, which could be better than the whole song…who knows?

We are ready for it! 🙂

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