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Bakermat

The River

'The River' is a short, warm house track from Bakermat's second album The Spirit (2021), a record the Dutch producer built from gospel, soul and folk material: a two-and-a-half-minute sketch of uplift rather than a club epic.

By korczis 3 min read
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Review

Genre and Mood

Bakermat combines his warm, melodic house sound with soulful, gospel-flavoured feeling in The River. The track is uplifting without being loud, reflective without slowing down: a house record that sounds closer to a Sunday morning than to a Saturday night.

Song Summary

The River comes from The Spirit, the second album by the Dutch producer Lodewijk Fluttert, released in 2021 by Columbia/B1 Recordings. Bakermat described the record as a return to his roots, combining gospel, soul and folk samples with uplifting pianos and saxophones, and experimenting with classical music and spoken word. The River is one of its shortest tracks, about two and a half minutes, and its imagery of a river and of going with the flow fits the album’s spiritual theme.

Lyrics Breakdown

Intro: A Spiritual Beginning

The track opens with the voice rather than the beat, setting a reflective, spiritual tone before the rhythm arrives.

Verse 1: A Journey Within

The first verse turns inward, the words hinting at growth and acceptance while the beat settles underneath.

Chorus: A Liberating Refrain

In the chorus the vocal and the house pulse come together, and the track reaches its brightest point.

Verse 2: Finding Peace

The second verse keeps the theme of moving with the current rather than against it, and the groove keeps going without pushing harder.

Bridge: A Moment of Reflection

A calmer passage gives the instrumentation room before the final refrain.

Final Chorus: Embracing Life’s Flow

The last chorus returns and the track closes quickly, without a long DJ outro.

Concepts in Focus

Underneath the soul feeling is a house groove: a steady kick on every beat with the hi-hats and claps moving around it. Bakermat’s style is gentler than club house; the pulse is there to carry the voice, not to hammer. Listen to how the groove keeps the track moving forward even in its most reflective moments.

The album it comes from is built on sampling. Bakermat made his name in 2012 with “Vandaag”, built around Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and The Spirit opens with a cleared sample of Aretha Franklin’s “Spirit in the Dark”. The River belongs to the same approach of drawing on gospel, soul and folk material, and it is a good track to practise the question every sample-based record raises: is this voice singing for this track, or has it been lifted from another record and given a new frame?

Artistic Context

Bakermat, born in 1991, began DJing while studying psychology at Utrecht University. His 2012 EP Vandaag went platinum in several European countries after Sony re-released it, and Wikipedia credits its melodic approach with inspiring producers such as Klingande, Kungs, Lost Frequencies, Felix Jaehn and Kygo. He often brings live musicians on stage, saxophonists, singers, violinists and percussionists, and in 2014 formed the Bakermat Live Band. The Spirit continues that taste for played, human-sounding colour inside electronic music.

Learn from this track

Introductory

What you will learn

  • Recognise the basic house groove under a track that sounds more soulful than clubby.
  • Explain how a producer can build a whole album around the feel of gospel, soul and folk records.
  • Describe how a track of under three minutes changes what a house record is for.

Listening guide

  1. the intro The voice sets a reflective, spiritual tone before the beat takes over.
  2. the first chorus The vocal and the steady house pulse meet, and the track reaches its brightest point.
  3. the bridge A calmer passage that gives room to the instrumentation before the last return of the refrain.
  4. the ending How soon it is over: the track runs about two and a half minutes, closer to a pop song than to a club mix.

Concepts in this track

sampling

25 tracks

Taking a fragment of an existing recording and reusing it in a new one, as a loop, a chop or a texture. Sampling is central to hip-hop and dance music and raises questions of credit and copyright.

house groove

26 tracks

The rhythmic signature of house music: a four-on-the-floor kick, off-beat hi-hats and claps on two and four, at roughly 118 to 128 beats per minute.

Listen next, and why

Questions for discussion

  1. Bakermat says he wanted to 'go back to the roots' with The Spirit. What might roots mean for a house producer, and can you hear them here?
  2. Why might a house producer choose to make a track this short?
  3. Does a gospel-flavoured voice change how a house beat feels, or does the beat change how the voice feels?

References

  1. Wikipedia. Bakermat. Encyclopedia
  2. Rave Jungle. BAKERMAT releases his highly anticipated second album 'The Spirit' on vinyl (2022). Article
  3. Mundane Magazine. Amsterdam producer Bakermat returns with his 2nd studio album The Spirit (2021). Article
  4. MusicBrainz. The River. Database

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