ANOTR

ANOTR — short for “A Night On The Road” — is Amsterdam’s Jesse van der Heijden and Oguzhan “Oz” Guney, a duo who’ve actually been working together for over 13 years now, which is a genuinely long run in dance music terms. Their sound is warm, relaxed, and colorful house music built around percussive elements, hypnotic melodies, and grooves that sneak up on you — the kind of tracks that work just as well at 2pm on a terrace as they do at 4am in a warehouse.

Like a lot of the best dance acts, ANOTR didn’t blow up overnight. They built their reputation through underground club sets and independent releases before graduating to the bigger European festival circuit, and one of their tracks, “Talk to You,” ended up notable enough to land its own Wikipedia page — not a bad marker for a record’s staying power. They run their own label and festival, NO ART, out of Amsterdam, which has become as much a part of their identity as the music itself.

Their creative process is honestly one of the more interesting parts of the ANOTR story. The pair regularly head out to the countryside — Friesland, specifically — for retreats where they work with extensive outboard gear away from the usual studio distractions, sometimes joined by collaborators like Never Dancing Alone, Wayne Snow, Benny Sings, and Rimon. One of those retreats formed the backbone of their 2025 album “On A Trip,” a disco-infused, psychedelic-leaning record that critics pointed to as some of their most immersive work yet — tracks that flow into each other rather than existing as standalone festival bangers.

Over a decade-plus into working together, van der Heijden and Guney have gone from underground Amsterdam club regulars to a duo running their own festival and pushing house music in genuinely exploratory directions. If “On A Trip” is any indication of where they’re headed next, ANOTR isn’t interested in playing it safe — they’re chasing whatever sound the next retreat turns up, and so far that instinct has served them well.