The other side of a dream
Fanny Bartels decided to catch her dreams through guitars and electronic sounds. Fascinated by the Big Apple she created her artistic alter ego, Fan NY, working her sound and collaborating on various musical projects in various cities. From the Dutch Limburg to New York and Melbourne. In Melbourne she wrote and produced several tracks with DJ Harris Robotis, forming the band We are fans and publishing the EP titled Inferno (Jupiter Clique, 2010), highly successful on the Internet. NY Fan had to return to Holland and continued her solo work in the electro pop fields. Now she is doing rehearsals for an acoustic tour in a week with her new songs which she will also present in autumn in an electronic format. She’s definitely a dream catcher.
Your artistic name is NY Fan. Is it because New York?
I have always had a fascination for the USA. In 2009 I finally visited it. I flew to New York. I was speechless when I first entered that city. There is something magical about that place. I visited Strawberry Fields in Central Park and tried to imagine what it would have been like when John Lennon was still sitting there. The thing though is that my artist name NY Fan is a mixed up version of my real first name, Fanny. When I came back to The Netherlands I added both things together.
Your sound makes me think in bands like Depeche Mode. What are you looking for through your music?
Wow, I consider that to be a compliment. Depeche Mode and all the new wave of the nineties have been a great influence on my music. What I look for through music is being swept away by an emotional rollercoaster. Rawness, edginess combined with simple tunes, catchy melodies and in your face vocals. Music has to grab you by the throat and leave you hypnotized for the next few hours.
Are you a “Dream catcher”?
Oh yes definitely. As a child I was a dreamer, always staring out of the window thinking about the ‘what ifs’. As I grew older I became a Dream Catcher. I made a pact with myself, which is doing everything that is on my wish list. I never want to wake up one day thinking ‘what if’. I’d rather be a complete failure in what I do, than never have tried at all.
Its sound is really dark, like being lost at night, but it’s a song about desire. Could we say the song’s rhythm is your own heart’s beat?
When I was living in Melbourne my housemate took me to an illegal rave in the woods. When we got there, there was a soundsystem put in the middle of skyhigh ferntrees. It was magical! I captured everything of that night and wrote Dream Catcher. It definitely represents my heartbeat of that time.
“Friday night” has a harder sound but becoming more melodic in the end. What does a Friday night mean to you?
This song is about the desire between two people dancing in a club on a Friday Night. In the beginning the listener might think they are somewhere alone, but they have been dancing in the middle of a crowd for the whole night already. The lyrics are about that instant attraction you can have with someone, and the desire that makes you feel weak in the knees. For me meeting a person like that and dancing together all night is the perfect Friday Night!
Do you think life, as an experience, is electronic, electric or acoustic?
I think life as an experience is music. Like they say those different songs together form the soundtrack of your life. That can be either electronic, electric or acoustic. The rhythm of the beat, however, resembles one’s own heartbeat. It is the rhythm of life. I guess electronic music makes it easier to capture a heartbeat, especially with four to the floor 120 bpm beats. Then again, a good Brasilian sambaband can set me on fire like that as well!
“Hopelessly” is a very funky song, is it about a personal feeling?
Oh yes, all my songs are about personal feelings. Most of them are about love, memories and heartache. Hopelessly is about the state of mind you can get in when you fall in love with someone. You can kinda lose sanity for a while. This song though is about someone you should not fall in love with.
You also founded the duo We Are Fans together with DJ/Producer Harris Robotis. Could you tell us about that project?
We Are Fans started out as a musical experiment between Harris Robotis and me when I was living in Melbourne. It was a case of one plus one makes three. After that we formed a band around it. But we soon realised there was no chance for the existence of the band. This was due to me not being a Australian citizen. We decided to look into the possibility of just releasing it as a studioproject. But when we put our demo-tracks on Myspace we were hit with many offers to get it released. Labels told us would not be a problem getting me a visa. We planned our first try-out in May 2009. The place was packed. Two weeks later I left Australia with a return ticket booked and was ready to spend the next few years living in Australia. At my arrival in The Netherlands I found out the visa was not going to work out. I was devastated.
Robotis decided to continue the band. He found a new singer, Maxi, she is great. I figured it was time to start a career on my own.
The EP Inferno with the tracks that I recorded with Robotis was still released with my vocals on it last year. It felt good to see it was not all for nothing.
I guess everything in life happens for the right reason.
And you’ve collaborated with so many other musicians: Daniel Zuur, TWR72 and Auxiliary Tha Masterfader. What do you get from that kind of experiences?
I like working with different people and exploring my musical abilities. All the producers bring in a certain flavour. That triggers me to experiment with my writing and singing. I absolutely love the second solo album of Roisin Murphy where she wrote every track with a different producer. Peaches have done a similar thing. I also feed of the energy with working with different people. For my new tracks – they will be showcased later this year - I did work with just one producer.
What’s the last dream you’ve caught?
I have just spent ten days on a Dutch island called Terschelling. There was a cultural festival called Oerol. With theatre and music and 40.000 like-minded people. It felt like a dream that went on forever. I came back home and felt truly inspired and full of energy. I am starting an acoustic tour of my new tracks in a week. I feel more ready than ever to hit the stage! On top of that, my track Dream Catcher - that I produced together with Daniel Zuur - will be released on vinyl later this summer.
Interview by Juan Carlos Romero
Photos by Albert Hartwig