Laura van Dam likes where dance music is headed. The tempos are creeping up, the tracks are getting bouncier, and she’s happy to lean into that energy. When she sat down with Farius in the MSI interview space at Nexus Lounge Amsterdam, though, the conversation kept coming back to something that matters to her at any speed: melody. It’s what draws her to composers like Ludovico Einaudi and Ludwig van Beethoven, and it’s part of what she wants listeners to hear in the records she’s now putting out on her own label, Capture Records.
The two caught up during the 30th anniversary of Amsterdam Dance Event, a week that also included a celebration for her agency, David Lewis. For Laura van Dam, one of the pleasures of the week was catching up with familiar faces. There was also the practical question of how much of the schedule she could keep up with. By the time she spoke with Farius, she was already considering leaving Sunday open and seeing how the rest of the week played out.
Capture Records was the project she had the most to say about. In its first year, the label is a home for her own releases. She’d like to sign other artists eventually, but first she wants to get the label’s sound and structure in place. Starting with her own music gives her a chance to hear how the records sit alongside one another and to work out what would make another artist’s track feel at home on Capture Records.
That independence comes down to decisions as small as what happens to the bass in a track. Laura van Dam brought up that example when Farius asked about the freedom of running a label. If a bass part feels right to her, she gets to keep it. That kind of control matters when a track’s character can hinge on the relationship between the low end and the melody. With Capture Records, she gets to make that call herself and carry it all the way through to release.
She’s also built a rhythm outside of releasing records. At the time of the interview, her weekly radio show had reached its 114th episode, with a global audience and a monthly feature on Insomniac Radio. The show gives listeners a regular chance to hear what she’s drawn to as a DJ between releases. Her enthusiasm for faster tempos came up naturally in that conversation. She likes the extra bounce that comes with a higher BPM, and she’s equally interested in what a melody can do once a track has people moving.
That’s where her taste for classical music comes into the picture. She hears a quality in the music of Ludovico Einaudi and Ludwig van Beethoven that she values in dance records too. A melody can give a piece of music an emotional pull and leave you with something you can hum after it’s over. Laura van Dam put it simply when Farius asked what she looks for in music. “For me, music needs to speak.”
The interview had its quieter moments, too. During Nexus Radio’s Take Five segment, Laura van Dam picked stracciatella as her favorite ice cream flavor and talked about where she goes when she needs some peace. Sometimes that means meditating among trees. Other times, it means heading to the beach. It was an easygoing detour in a conversation that had moved from a packed Amsterdam schedule to the details of producing a record.
For now, the clearest way to get to know Capture Records is through Laura van Dam’s own releases. There’s room for other artists down the line, and she’s taking the time to establish what they’d be joining. Listen to the full Nexus Radio interview below with Farius to hear how she’s approaching the label, what she’s enjoying about faster dance music, and why melody keeps finding its way back into the conversation.
