Piece Wise Talks ‘Coasting’ And Setting Sail Records

Piece Wise, formally known as Bastiaan de Nooijer, is known for his chill, electronic and deep sound. Friday, November 11, the burgeoning artist released “Coasting.”

The track is slow, moody and deep, and it features captivating vocals. Indeed, the song by the Setting Sail Records label boss proves to be an excellent example of De Nooijer’s ever evolving sound.

Here, De Nooijer shares with Forbes the inspiration behind “Coasting,” the story of his label, how his brand has grown since inception and more.

Lisa Kocay: Can you describe your sound in three words?

Bastiaan de Nooijer: “Chill, electronic and deep. I’ve been experimenting with a lot of chill electronic music [and] very loungey music as well. I still have a lot of chill lounge stuff coming out, but now I’m focusing more towards the deep electronic, melodic stuff. Not too energetic, but more progressive stuff, and still with the chill touch to it…The new sound I’m working on now is coming out later next year. It’s constantly changing and it’s a lot of fun.”

Kocay: What was the inspiration behind “Coasting”?

De Nooijer: “As my sound was very chill electronic, which I hadn’t been making for a while, I wanted to go back to that sound and see if it was still something for me. I was quite a big fan of this vocalist: his name [is] De Rien. He has a very magical emotional tone to his voice, and I’ve always wanted to work with him. I was actually constantly trying to make an instrumental for him. Then I had something and I sent it to him and his management, and he loved it. We got to work, and it’s a very chill, sort of sad, instrumental. The way he did his vocals [was] just perfect. It’s a very emotional song for both of us really.”

Kocay: How has your brand grown since its inception?

De Nooijer: “It’s actually been growing very slowly. I’ve been releasing my music with quite a few record labels as I didn’t have any insights on marketing and all that stuff. Basically, my music was in the hands of other people, and at some point I was just really unsatisfied with the results. I had multiple things happening in my life: I had a breakup going on, my [university] wasn’t going very well, I didn’t have a side gig and also, very importantly, my music wasn’t reaching good results with the labels. So everything just hit at once and I wanted to drop everything and figure out how to make or how to take control of my own music. That was around the start of Covid. I just started looking into music marketing, especially on Spotify.

“I decided I was supposed to graduate a few years ago around the start Covid, and I decided to take a gap year to fully focus on diving into the whole marketing side of the music industry. I started to really understand and learn, and I was just really interested in everything behind it. I wanted to basically have my artist side, which I could have full control of, but also the whole release process side. So marketing, getting a release ready, sending it out to the world. Then I finished my first gap year, and then I was like, ‘Am I going to graduate now?’ And I was like, ‘I’m not going to graduate right now. I’m going to take another gap year.’ So I decided to focus a second year on all this stuff. I started doing advertising non-budget since I didn’t really have a budget.

“Then I started to work more at my side job. I started to get a budget. I slowly started to get paid for my music after all the years of not really getting paid for my music. I slowly started investing and kept diving into the whole behind the scenes—what a record label actually does. Everything just started rolling.

“So the second gap year was done, and I was like, ‘I need to graduate right now.’ I didn’t want to do a random graduation at a company, which I didn’t a 100% support. So I was like, ‘All right, am I going to graduate?’ I was like, ‘Nope. I’m going to take a third gap year.’ That’s the year that I actually started planning out my label, putting everything on paper, setting up the entire brand, getting [it] trademarked.

“A few months ago I started and I knew I had the power to push my own music better than other labels can do for me. So I was like, ‘All right, I’m going do it.’ It started [and] things went so fast. I started getting so many demo submissions for the label.”

Kocay: What was the first song that got you into dance music?

De Nooijer: “The first song that got me into dance music was ‘Levels’ by Avicii.”

Kocay: What’s your favorite song you’ve made and what was happening in the studio when you made it?

De Nooijer: “I think my favorite song I’ve made is called ‘Bloom’ with two Australian artists and vocalists: they’re called Abroad. [It] was also the kickstart track of my label.

“As my sound constantly progresses and changes, every song I make at that time is my favorite song. But that’s the most important one for me as it was very important for the label kickstart—the whole message behind the label that I wanted people to hear. It was basically a pitch to my audience and to artists and my friends about the label in the first release.”