Sensurreal

Dutch techno duo Gert-Jan Bijl and Dirk-Jan Hanegraaf have recorded under the names Marvo Genetic, Sunshower, It's Thinking, and most often as Sensurreal, releasing mostly 12-inch singles (and a pair of full-lengths) on such labels as Beam Me Up!, Prime, Deviate, and most recently on Kirk Degiorgio's Op-Art imprint. Sensurreal's melodic brand of funk-fueled techno may sound closest to countryman Jochem Paap's (of Speedy J, formerly of Beam Me Up!, which folded in 1996), but their closest stylistic affinity lay probably with Stasis, Degiorgio's As One project, and Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton's Link and Reload material. Sensurreal draw similarly from a rhythmic backbone of funk, jazz, and soul -- a tradition tracing to their Rotterdam home, where soul and R&B are the pop musics of choice. Although Hanegraaf grew up playing in small garage-rock bands, his waning interest in the limitations of acoustic based music was intensified by Bijl's enthusiasm for Chicago house and the encroaching U.K. acid-house movement, to which he constantly exposed his partner via underground mixtapes and rare imports of Marshall Jefferson, Farley Jackmaster Funk, and Mr. Fingers tunes. Bijl grew up in the outlying Rotterdam suburb of Puttershoek, dabbling in crude tape-deck mixing and pirate radio (if a broadcast radius of two blocks can be called pirate radio) since the age of 11. Increasingly immersed in electronic dance music -- both through radio broadcast as well as Rotterdam's exploding club scene -- Bijl and Hanegraaf finally began piecing a studio togther in 1989, toward the end of high school (first acquisitions included an Alesis MMT 8 sequencer, a Yamaha DX-100 synthesizer, and a Roland S-10 sampler). Bijl and Hanegraaf's first single was released in 1992 under the name Sun...