Quarion

“For some reason,” says Yanneck Salvo, “after exactly 10 years of producing under the name, I feel that I’m coming back full circle to why I started QUARION in the first place“. Salvo’s production alias Quarion first emerged in 2006 with the spellbinding debut Karasu EP, which became the secret card up the sleeve of house heavyweights like Âme and Dixon. 2016 has proven to be another milestone in his ever- changing career; coming full circle with an invitation to join the esteemed Innervisions roster for its acclaimed Secret Weapons series, the release of the critically acclaimed and cosmically-charged Knocking At The Door Of The Cosmos EP for Ripperton’s Tamed Musiq imprint, a deep tech workout remix of Kim Brown’s Nabi, and further remix heat for Session Victim and Marbert Rocel.

Already a veteran of Swiss music’s cross-pollination back in 2006, with accolades across Nu Jazz, Techno and Hip-Hop beatsmithery, the genesis of Quarion stems from a life-changing tour of Japan in 2005. That eye-opening experience inspired a new widescreen perspective of expression, and revealed a specific devotion to deep dance music. Karasu laid down the blueprint signatures that would set Quarion apart over the next decade: loose-limbed precision, soaring melodic narratives, hypnotic rhythms that sit in the pocket yet fuel momentum with an organic flow.

The years since have been anything but uneventful. The descriptor “deep” may be oversubscribed in dance music, but never in Quarion’s case; he remained committed to unearthing moments of personal honesty while staying rooted in the vocabulary of his beloved Afro-American influences. After Karasu’s success led to him relocating from Geneva to Berlin in 2007, a path was cleared for new ventures. Already a member of the closeknit Drumpoet Community crew, Quarion co-founded the vinyl-only Retreat imprint with his close friend Hauke Freer; both of these labels remain his favourite outlets for the uniquely hypnotic house music that he creates to this day.

After turning out a massive remix of Jamie Lloyd’s “May I“ on Future Classic in 2008, Quarion’s in- demand reworks have continued to breath fresh air into house and techno cuts by Dirt Crew, Agnes, Chaton, Oliver Deutschmann and John Daly. In more recent years, Quarion reworks have lit up the sets and charts of his peers and heroes once again, with fresh remixes commissioned by Chopstick & JonJon and George Fitzgerald’s imprint Manmakemusic.

A solid reputation as a deep-digging selector has followed Quarion since the very beginning, and taken his DJ sets to many corners of the globe. He held a longterm DJ residency at beloved Berlin nightspot Tape Club, while running the tiny but mighty Retreat parties in a small basement club in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. DJing and touring occupied his nights, as bookings at About Blank (Berlin), Rex (Paris) and Womb (Tokyo) followed, alongside tours of USA, Australia and New Zealand. His longtime admiration for dub-laced grooves and Detroit deepness led to a career-defining German tour with Motor City greats Theo Parrish and Omar-S, and Chicago’s legendary Robert Owens. This was only surpassed in 2014 with the fifth birthday of Retreat that comprised a European tour with Session Victim, and an album-length instalment of the label’s ongoing Treats compilation series. Now a well-heeled alumni of clubs such as Panorama Bar (Berlin), Concrete (Paris) and Zukunft (Zurich), Quarion regularly takes the stage for a passionate DJ set, or one of his hardware-only live performances.