Mike Rogers is an Amsterdam-based indie dance trio featuring three of the country’s rising electronic music stars — Mike Mago, TWR72, and Kita Menari mastermind Micha de Jonge.
The project can trace their origins back to the early 2000s: Mago and TWR72 met while DJ’ing Dutch underground electro parties. That raw and energetic scene saw the pari playing a mixture of electro pop, French house, fidget and techno. As the years passed by, they individually developed their own unique sounds — but they realized that they had long held a similar dream: to start a live act inspired by the bands they grew up with, as well as the likes of Miike Snow, Foals, Editors, Van She, and Goose.
Mike Rogers was a way for the pair to challenge themselves creatively and professionally — and to further develop themselves as producers and DJs. The duo recruited Kita Menari’s Micha de Jonge to his big, plaintive vocals to their hook-driven, crowd-pleasing sound.
Their full-length debut, which is slated for an early 2023 release will see reportedly see the trio crafting material that’s a mix of analog, digital and retro sounds with a modern feel. But in the meantime . . . The Dutch trio’s latest single “Can’t Stop” is an anthemic bit of post punk/dance punk centered around angular guitar attack, de Jonge’s achingly plaintive vocals and a motorik-like groove paired with enormous, euphoric hooks. While to my ears recalling the likes of Radio 4, Interpol, and Editors, “Can’t Stop” as the trio explains is about a lonely man, who looks back at his life: As a young man, he tries to do everything right, but always feels as though he is failing since people don’t seem to understand him. Battling a personal struggle with his past, the lonely man protests against this feeling, with the hopes that he can get rid of those negative thoughts.
Written last year, the trio explain, “In our minds that year was a year where we had a lot of questions. Like, what is freedom, what should one fight for, how should one fight for something, how do we move forward as a society and also, how do we judge our past behaviour. We believe questions are the biggest inspirator. We’re trying to ask questions more than to send a message, although that’s also a bit of a vision we want to share.”
