Masalo

An inte­gral part of the Ams­ter­dam scene, Masa­lo’s abun­dant cre­ativ­i­ty blends sophis­ti­ca­tion with a sol­id dose of rebel­lious­ness. His sets shift effort­less­ly between house, tech­no, hi-NRG, and dis­co, while incor­po­rat­ing his own tracks and gems from decades of digging.

For­ma­tive years at Ams­ter­dam insti­tu­tions like Trouw and Par­adiso placed Masa­lo in the thick of the city’s under­ground dance com­mu­ni­ty. He cites his fam­i­ly as an even ear­li­er inspi­ra­tion: jam ses­sions and a pas­sion for ana­log machines from his father, a love of danc­ing and cul­tur­al influ­ences from his Japan­ese moth­er, and hip-hop and turntab­lism cour­tesy of his broth­er. Extend­ing the fam­i­ly feel­ing, Masa­lo has con­tin­ued to build com­mu­ni­ty through the Brighter Days event and com­pi­la­tion series he runs along­side his long­time musi­cal part­ner Kamma.

A pro­lif­ic pro­duc­er, 2017 saw Masalo’s first offi­cial release; a remix of Bassek­ou Kouyate’s Jama Ko, turn­ing the Malian soul bal­lad into a hyp­not­i­cal­ly ener­getic house tune. He then joined the illus­tri­ous ranks at Rush Hour – a label and crew that has been inte­gral to his cre­ative jour­ney – releas­ing his debut EP ​‘New Dance’ in 2019, fol­lowed by col­lab­o­ra­tions with Soichi Ter­a­da, Jamie 3:26, and Palms Trax. His sta­tus as a sure-fire tastemak­er goes beyond the offi­cial cat­a­log, with unre­leased edits like his Acid Dream ver­sion of Oliv­er N’Goma’s ​‘Lina’ and a rework of Prince’s ​‘Rave Unto The Joy Fan­tas­tic’ becom­ing sought-after club anthems.

The next evo­lu­tion of his artistry takes the shape of a live show, which he will debut on Dekmantel’s for­mi­da­ble main stage this year. The live set delves into the more elec­tron­ic spec­trum of his sig­na­ture sound — a high-octane jour­ney of lush synths, hard-hit­ting drum pat­terns, and euphor­ic arpeg­gio basslines, blend­ing new mate­r­i­al with nods to his beloved clas­sics. His set-up is called The Trin­i­ty — a cus­tom-made rig, designed and built in col­lab­o­ra­tion with new school archi­tects. Through a ded­i­cat­ed process of build­ing, pro­gram­ming, and mas­ter­ing The Trin­i­ty, Masa­lo impro­vis­es in con­ver­sa­tion with the crowd, ensur­ing no two per­for­mances sound exact­ly the same. Stu­dio ren­di­tions of sev­er­al tracks on The Trin­i­ty will be released by Rush Hour, Safe Trip, and Dek­man­tel in late 2024.

Get in touch: chiara@octopus-agents.com