Bart van Rijn has been building a head of steam in the Dutch underground for a while now, with a string of attention-grabbing 12”s drawing remix work from Perel, Kris Wadsworth and Chambray. With Fyr he makes his most confident statement yet: a five-track EP and his first full solo release on STUG Music, the label he runs himself. It’s a muscular, warmly textured record that sits comfortably at the point where deep House and rolling Techno overlap.
The EP eases in with Pre, which wastes no time establishing the record’s character. A low-slung bassline and dusty, off-beat percussion lock into a groove that’s patient without ever feeling static, with wide synth pads swelling in and out of the mix across its seven-plus minutes. It’s the sound of a producer who trusts the dancefloor to do some of the work, and it pays off—by the time the drums open up around the midpoint, you’re already in.
Far brightens the palette, its shimmering arpeggios and delayed chords lifting the mood without sacrificing any of the weight, while Day digs back down into the murk with a hypnotic, filtered loop that gradually reveals more of itself on each rotation. The title track Fyr is the centrepiece—a proper four-to-the-floor burner with a warm, sticky bassline and a breakdown that lets the reverb ring out just long enough before the drop snaps everything back into place.
Closer Cup strips things right back for the after-hours: a softer kick, drifting pads and a melody that feels like the comedown the whole EP has been building towards. It’s a neat piece of sequencing, and it shows real taste in how Van Rijn paces a record as a whole rather than track by track.
Fyr is a confident, well-balanced debut EP that should cement Van Rijn’s place in the current Dutch scene and beyond. Nothing here feels like filler—each cut earns its spot—and if this is the standard he’s setting for his own label, STUG Music is one to keep a close eye on.
