Artist Talk: Opuswerk

Put the word “Swiss” in front of pretty much anything, and it adds a certain ring of prestige to what you’re talking about. So how does it work with music? Swiss-engineered techno? There’s no denying some intrigue, and those giving shape to club sounds coming out of Switzerland include long-time spearhead Ripperton and house music staples Drumpoet Community, to more recently, the ad-lib sounds of Zurich label -ous and Basel’s Amenthia Recordings for smooth-edged techno. Pushing a more club- and warehouse-centric sound is producer Hendrik van Boetzelaer, aka Opuswerk.

Hendrik rose out of the industrial techno boom that swept through the scene at the turn of the decade and gave birth to a whole new generation of producers. And with a run of records on labels like ARTS and Semantica, to his most recent release 'Forms of Multiplicity', Opuswerk’s sound is a classic streak of boomy techno aesthetics. Taking this sound further afield is Hendrik’s HISS:1292 project with French producer François X, a collaboration exploring deeper and sequential sounds for Paris label Dement3d, known for its sophisticated take on ambient-laced techno.