The Pitcher formed the hardstyle scene in his early stages. Now, he gathered his experience in his new album with a solid mix between energy and dynamic.
Not only a must have for true The Pitcher fans, but also for people who desire a true hardstyle sound. Great collabs and a brilliant mix will make this single CD album to an unforgettable experience.
Check out the promo mix below and hear for yourself. Buy it on hardstyle.com or the official Fusion Records shop.
Interview with The Pitcher
“Shock And Awe” is a powerful name for an album, what is the idea behind it?
Hardstyle has always been about power, energy and the dynamics in structure of the tracks. The typical anti-climax in a lot of hardstyle tracks is the best example for this. Shock and Awe stands for these dynamics, but in a way that it fits with the typical The Pitcher sound. We want to surprise our fans with new innovative sounds and tracks, which will put them in “Shock And Awe” 😉
How did you get started, producing the first tracks and how did the whole project evolved with time?
Michel and I decided to create a rougher sound for The Pitcher; by that time our track Rhapsody was born. It really had that raw sound but we haven’t forgotten our roots in hardstyle.
To make a statement about where we stand in today’s scene we decided to make a whole album with this “realhardstyle” sound. It still has this typical The Pitcher twist though, which stands for quality and to push sounds and ideas to a next level.
Any track or collab you are very proud of, and why?
We are proud to work with all those big names in the scene. They are the leading artists at the moment, not only in popularity but also in sound, which is more important to us. Every collab has something special and has a big value for this album. We are very thankful that we worked with these guys.
The best solo track for me is the “Shock And Awe Anthem”. It was pretty difficult to find the right feeling in the track. It took us some months but now it sounds exactly like the hardstyle sound we love the most. The track is not raw, not euphoric, just #realhardstyle.
We had the chance to check out the album already. But could you give our readers a brief summary of the style of “Shock And Awe”?
Like I already mentioned before, we wanted to produce some “realhardstyle”. Our goal was to create some tracks with guts. The most of our tracks have rough sounds in the intro and a good melody in the middle of the track.
“Shock And Awe” stands for The Pitcher’s sound anno 2015 and shows the listeners how diverse we are and what real hardstyle is all about. So nope, it’s not just euphoric or just raw.
With the album there is also a documentary going around. What’s that all about?
We already have released a few episodes of The Hardstyle Way. It’s about me touring, promoting and working in the studio. The whole “DJ experience”. It’s on all the usual social media channels: Facebook and YouTube.
People can have a look into my life and ‘join me backstage’ at an event. We also gave the listeners some sneak previews of tracks before we uploaded the official previews. So yeah, give it a name, it’s a mixture between a documentary and some personal after/backstage videos.
Do you have a personal message for our readers?
We already gained some massive support, thank you for that! We read every comment and private message and I really love it to make people happy with our music. We put a lot of time, effort and passion into this project. So, I really hope to get your support!