After closing this year after struggling with post-Covid economics, Amsterdam’s clubbing institution De School, a repurposed event space that included a restaurant, gym, community spaces, gallery and multiple clubbing environments that leaned heavily into a minimalist, intimate, immersive approach, has spawned a new online archive called Het Archief that documents the eight years the space was in operation and boasts over 800+ sets recorded during the club’s tenure.
Having tried to attend the club while I was in Amsterdam for the Dekmantel festival only to be turned away because it was at capacity, its closing and the launch of Het Archief is bittersweet. On the one hand, I wasn’t able to knock it off my list of influential clubbing spaces I spent time in but having online access to the history of the DJs and live acts that performed there is overwhelming and makes you realize what a loss to the international electronic music scene this is. At least you can experience the club’s exceptional musical programming through the beauty of the web. However, as someone who has never been a fan of Mixcloud, it wouldn’t have been my choice to partner with as a host, but it won’t keep me from wasting way too much time digging around the hundreds of artists and thousands of hours represented over the eight years.
Explore the extensive archives that run the gamut of electronic styles from the homegrown house of Young Marco to the blazing analogue techno of Speedy J to the leftfield excursions of Call Super and Objekt. Meticulously organized by event categories and year, just dive into the interface to find your new favourite DJ set and easily explore artists who may not be on your radar. You won’t be disappointed other than an intense feeling of retroactive FOMO.
It’s certainly possible to pick out highlights from the archive, but, in reality, that’s beside the point. This is about sheer mass, about collective memory, and about the million small joys and microscopic communities that form on dancefloors. It’s well worth digging into Het Archief for this reason alone. If dance music is about collective memories, about histories wrapping around the present and tumbling into the future, then this sort of archival work is critical. Het Archief is a love letter to contemporary DJing, a miles-deep filing cabinet, and a monument to a dearly missed club. Michael McKinney - www.passionweiss.com
Reopening as a new venue Tilla Tec with a provisional license until 2025, the refocused complex will also house “a queer-focused gym and tattoo studio, restaurant, as well as artist exhibition and studio spaces” but will reuse the decommissioned school in new and innovative ways.
The new venue's marketing director Passion Dzenga told Het Parool that Tilla Tec will "only share the address with De School". "The way we use the building will be completely different", he said, that it will be "dynamic" and shift through serving as a "restaurant or café, other times an exhibition space and then a club.”
Tilla Tec will run the whole building, which has been empty since De School shut in January, but will make the space available for rent for hand-picked businesses. The club reopened in September 2022 after a Covid-driven closure for a second stint that lasted 16 months.
