ANOTR

Two kids from the same corner of Amsterdam

Jesse van der Heijden and Oguzhan Guney grew up in the same part of Amsterdam and knew each other through mutual friends long before they made anything together. Van der Heijden had been producing since he was twelve, working through progressive house, dubstep and drum & bass in whatever order held his attention. Guney came at it from the other end of the city's scene — a techno festival in Amsterdam, then the Awakenings parties and the records Adam Beyer was releasing on Drumcode. Van der Heijden showed him how to put a track together, the pair posted the early results, the response was warm enough to carry on, and they were both sixteen or seventeen when the partnership that became ANOTR started.

The first studio was an Amsterdam attic, which lasted until the neighbours objected to the volume. Rooms and tools have changed several times since, including a switch from Logic to Ableton after they bought a Push, but the working method has not: two people in one room, agreeing fast. Guney has put it plainly — they hardly ever have doubts about each other's view on music. By the middle of 2025 they had been making music together for more than thirteen years and were both in their thirties, which is the context the past eighteen months needs. The recent run is not a breakthrough so much as the end of a very long approach.

The Reset, and a track that outgrew the clubs

Their debut album, The Reset, came out digitally on 4 November 2022 through No Art, the label they run themselves, with a vinyl pressing following in early 2023. Twelve tracks wide, moving between house, disco and funk, it was the first album the imprint had released — a label built for their own records first and other people's second.

The track that travelled was 'Relax My Eyes', made with the Dutch vocalist and musician Abel Balder, one of their closest and most frequent collaborators. It entered the UK singles chart on the tally dated 16 April 2023, an unusual outcome for a cut lifted from an independently released house album, and it remains the song a general audience is most likely to recognise. Everything the duo have done since has been measured, fairly or not, against it.

Retreats, mushrooms and On A Trip

A couple of times a year the pair go somewhere remote with as much of their equipment as they can carry and cut themselves off from work, friends and partners for the duration. Van der Heijden has drawn the distinction between that and touring: everything made on the road tends to be laptop work, whereas the retreats run on outboard instruments and several people locked in at the same time. Psilocybin is part of the process, sometimes microdosed, sometimes not. Guney describes it as an enhancer of feelings — when the music is slightly off, he says, the unease registers on the inside before the ears catch up.

That method produced On A Trip, their second album, released on 31 January 2025 on No Art: fourteen tracks across roughly three-quarters of an hour, reaching into krautrock, disco and alt-soul, with singles including 'How You Feel' featuring Erik Bandt and Leven Kali, '24 (Turn It Up)' featuring Kurtis Wells, and the disco-leaning 'Currency' and 'Care For You'. It arrived alongside a world tour announcement and is the furthest from the dancefloor they have placed themselves on record.

Talk To You, and the biggest dance single of 2026

'Talk To You' was released on 6 March 2026 on No Art, featuring 54 Ultra — the New Jersey singer and songwriter John Anthony Rodriguez — and recorded in upstate New York. It is disco house built on funk guitar figures, syncopated synth stabs and reverb-soaked vocals; the comparisons to 'Relax My Eyes' were immediate, with the qualification that this one is slower and more relaxed.

Commercially it did everything a dance single can. It went to number one on Beatport, topped WARM's global dance radio chart on the 11 April 2026 ranking with around 800 plays in its tracking week, reached number four on Billboard's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and gave the duo their first entry inside the UK top 40. It had been used in more than 50,000 TikTok videos by 14 April 2026, and has since been certified gold in the United Kingdom and Italy, with a gold streaming award in Greece.

Withness: pulled back to the floor

Their third album, Withness, followed on 12 June 2026, again on No Art. Where On A Trip wandered, this one was written and stress-tested on dancefloors while the pair were touring, and it sounds like it: classic drum-machine programming and 909 samples sitting under warm eighties textures and layered vocals, with features including 54 Ultra and 3DDY. The stated brief was range rather than experiment — a wide spread of songs they could actually play, each one built to make sense wherever people have gathered to dance.

The title is a coinage the duo explain as an active form of witnessing: the memories made with other people are the witness to those moments, and Withness is about being in it together. Spotify picked it for its Sound Of The Summer 2026 list. The release was handled as a run of rooms rather than a press cycle — parties at Pacha in New York and UNVRS in Ibiza, and a secret pop-up in London on the day the record landed.

Where they stand, October 2026

The clearest measure of the year is Alexandra Palace. ANOTR headlined the north London hall on 17 and 18 September 2026, their largest UK shows to date; the 18th sold out and the 17th was added to meet demand. Both nights ran a custom audiovisual build, the most recognisable element being a set of giant rainbow orbs carrying the duo's logo. They posted the full 18 September set online afterwards for people who could not get in or wanted the night back.

The one date currently on sale is at home. The second No Art Festival takes place on Saturday 24 October 2026 at Taets Art and Event Park in Zaandam, running from midday to 11pm across multiple indoor stages during Amsterdam Dance Event, after a debut edition that sold out. ANOTR play alongside a thirteen-name bill that mixes label acts with selectors from outside their own lane: Hunee, Moxie, Saoirse, Chris Stassy, HalfPint, Rooléh, Genairo Nvilla, Alci, Aline Umber, Brunello, Hannecart and Mateo Dufour.

That pairing — a sold-out British arena show in September, an eleven-hour self-promoted festival in a Dutch industrial park in October — is a reasonable summary of how the duo now operate. The records go as wide as they can; the rooms stay under their own control.