Armand van Helden & Brittles – Music, hierbas and sunsets

Armand van Holden is American and works as a DJ, producer, remixer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of house music’s most revered figures and has a career spanning over three decades. Brittany Landstrom, or Brittles, is American and a DJ and producer. They married in May 2024 and work both together and independently, whilst their work takes them across the world, Ibiza is home for some months every year.

I met Armand and Brittany via Zoom, the questions and conversation flowed so easily, demonstrated their professionalism, love, humour, and relaxed attitude.

You spend a lot of time in Ibiza, and you’ve done loads of work in Europe and also obviously also in America, what’s special about Ibiza?

As far as being a DJ is concerned destinations were starting to have a British invasion. If you want to say promoter and promotions, with Ibiza the brand identity process has been there for a long time, but really, I think, took off in the 90s. In the late 90s that’s the phenomena that created massive headliners in the world, and associated culture.

What is your personal connection for you with Ibiza? Is it you love the place? Is it you love the work?

The special connection is the vibe. I love it. We kind of chill out in the mountains away from everything, but it’s amazing. I’ve never seen anywhere where you can go if you want to be in all the action, and go on the scene, but you can also enjoy all the spiritual aspects of the island and nature.

When you’re doing your work, is the emotional response very different in Ibiza to the emotional response in other places.

When you know, you get that amazing thing of the Ibiza crowd, is it a very different emotional response to anywhere else, a real emotional response. But the world is relatively the same, so I think your heart beats with some kind of emotion on the plane, right before landing. The vibrational shift here, I’ve never felt elsewhere, speaks out, but I like especially how it is for me.

So, what is it is landing on those islands in the middle of the Mediterranean, it’s truly special. So, Ibiza anywhere you like to go, any particular spots?

I feel like we always, first thing we do, when we get here as we go to Mambo café, and we watch the sunset with an hierbas. We always know a lot of people over there. It’s tradition to go to Mambo at sunset it’s beautiful. It’s great to know so many people there so that’s definitely one of our spots. For restaurants I think we’d name Sa Capella and Hostel La Torre also Cala Gracioneta, Casa Maca. We love everything club-wise but Ushuaïa because we love day parties and Hï Ibiza. I mean a DJ in the bathroom?

We don’t love being super late all the time. Great for us is if you’re out during the day and then back at a reasonable time around 11 pm. We both really find a good position with this new concept of, you know, go to something at seven and you’re done by 11.

How do you see the club culture developing in Ibiza?

Well, a different hour to go out, yeah, we’ve done a lot of late nights, so we do our nights where we’re out very, very late. Here there are a lot of things very late, we will have dinner sometime so late. We have the option to do what we love, it’s our true love and passion. It’s possible to club really hard for two weeks and then subliminally it’s time rest and then to have new energy.

Why do you think 90’s revival is so strong, and why is that?

Brittany: I think because I’m Gen Z and I know that Armand is obsessed with the aesthetics and fashion. It’s reflected in music as well a lot, but we all grew up with the music, so I mean like David Guetta stuff. It’s like a lot of 90s inspiration things and it’s all familiar, so we love it. But I’ve always been strongly drawn to it. That’s why we’ve made it because I’m obsessed with it and love it. I grew up with it and there’s just a lot of things about the 90s that I’m stuck with because I’m a 90s baby. So, I think a lot of younger people in the club they want, and they like it, because it’s familiar. It’s also just the aesthetic I grew hearing a child. I think it’s hard to say, but I think it’s still very much there. I would love it to continue for while, I would like to make more dance music and keep it going, but it’s hard to say how long it all really work.

Tell me a bit about your work.

Armand: I put the mixing part down to how I feel, the walls really came down with New York City. If you want to say, it was a momentous time, I want to try and raise them again. In the United States the wall was down, where you can go with what you want to go with. So, I think this is a more positive time, remembering a time when I could move between genres, mix anything from any sound or group. Mix and surprise, and today it’s not so sectioned, or tribal, it’s more everything everywhere.

I’m fascinated by DJ’s who use classical music like Mozart and Vivaldi which is never happened before in my experience, all music can be accessed by DJ’s now?

I know it the newest thing, but it still seems to be something where that’s breaking down the barrier of making people kind of go, oh my God, this is this is not what I was expecting. A DJ can be more experimental maybe than ever before, a lot of borrowing or just what they’re doing in their crowd. They’re taking like a song or any genre or a completely different genre like I used recently like Def Leppard. Any experiment across the island, I also do; I am a person like themselves with a wide range of musical interests and references.

What’s happening in the future, any anything particular you want to share with us?

Brittany: Talking about how I feel like we’re not limiting ourselves by focusing on specific style of music. I think we’re very open to experimenting of course I would like to try things. I’ve been working on a number of 90’s ideas, but not yet sure whether Armand’s gonna be involved with them or not, but I will see if anything happens with it or not.

Armand: Nothing is set in stone, but I think we’re not focussed on one thing. We’re very open to just experimenting and we don’t want to put ourselves in the box, just like what we were talking about and we’ve already kind of jumped out with what we’ve done together. We’ve done different styles and we’re gonna keep it that way for now though, I think.

I’ve been on that path for the past 20 years. I don’t feel like a I have had a stressful day for quite a long time. Just making sure that I’m enjoying what I’m doing, and that’s for me and I will continue to make music because it’s fun, and like music we’ve made together. It’s never really felt like work. It’s always been we just come up with ideas together, we will be hanging out, and then something comes out of that, and it’s always in a very casual setting. We’ve never had very specific plans and where it’s going, and I think we don’t take it super seriously. I think maybe that’s why we’re able to know it’s important for us to relax, and not stress if you’re booked professionally.

How far is your calendar booked?

I check stuff everyday and yesterday, I saw an email and noticed the prospect of a gig, I saw a few more and the last one I looked at, it and it said September 2025, that’s crazy!

Well with that let’s close. I have to say it’s been brilliant talking to you.

Thank you so much, have a wonderful rest of the day and good luck with everything.