Sensurreal

Dutch techno pair Gert-Jan Bijl and Dirk-Jan Hanegraaf have issued material under several aliases, most frequently Sensurreal, along with Marvo Genetic, Sunshower, and It's Thinking. Their output has consisted chiefly of 12-inch singles together with two albums, appearing first on Beam Me Up!, Prime, and Deviate before moving to Kirk Degiorgio's Op-Art imprint. Their melodic, funk-driven take on techno shares surface similarities with fellow Dutch producer Jochem Paap, recording as Speedy J on the short-lived Beam Me Up! label that closed in 1996, yet their deeper connections lie with Stasis, Degiorgio's As One, and the Link and Reload projects of Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton. Like those artists, Sensurreal built grooves around funk, jazz, and soul traditions that have long defined popular music in their native Rotterdam.

Hanegraaf began in local garage-rock groups, but Bijl's growing passion for Chicago house and the early U.K. acid-house wave gradually pulled him away from guitar-based music. Bijl supplied a steady stream of underground mixtapes and imported singles by Marshall Jefferson, Farley Jackmaster Funk, and Mr. Fingers that accelerated the shift. Raised in the Rotterdam suburb of Puttershoek, Bijl had already experimented with tape-deck mixing and short-range pirate radio broadcasts from the age of eleven. Exposure to electronic dance music through both radio and the city's burgeoning club circuit led the pair to assemble a home studio by the end of high school in 1989, beginning with an Alesis MMT 8 sequencer, a Yamaha DX-100 synthesizer, and a Roland S-10 sampler.

Their debut single appeared in 1992 as Sun Shower. Subsequent releases followed on Malego, Deviate, Beam Me Up!, and Prime under the names It's Thinking and Marvo Genetic, with Sensurreal introduced in 1994 via the album Never to Tell a Soul. Two full-lengths, Soul and the tour document The Occasional Series, came out on Beam Me Up! before the label ceased operations in 1996. The duo signed with Degiorgio's Op-Art the following year, issuing the three-track EP NewBrandDesign. Bijl has also recorded solo under the alias Gerd, with EPs appearing on Beam Me Up!, Pork, and Universal Language.