Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2009

Courtesy of Unit

Pennsylvania native Jay Haze is one of the many foreign musicians and artists who have put down roots in Berlin over the last decade. Signed to Ellen Allien’s influential BPitch Control (he also runs his own labels), Haze is part of a cohort of DJ/producers who have made the city the capital of house music in the ’00s.

Unlike many of them, though, Haze’s productions tend to be on the brazenly emotive side. As alter-ego Fuckpony, he’s let rip a series of releases that, beginning with 2005’s Love for a Strange World, have given notice that the Berlin scene is not all about minimal techno or trendy electro.

Following 2007’s Children of Love and last year’s Love & Beyond comes Let the Love Flow, just out on BPitch Control. In contrast to much of the dance music emanating from Berlin these days, it’s made not with samples but with instrumentals provided by Haze himself, and two hands planted firmly on a sequencer.

Regarding the love theme in his recent work, Haze told Metropolis by email, “Music for me is love and this album was a full conscious stream of love flowing through my body and taking form in music. I think music is my deepest love in the sense that I don’t even have to think about it, and it never makes me sad.”

The track “I Know It Happened” provides a nice example of how Haze takes the classic, steamy New York house template, twists it up and tweaks it out beyond recognition. Guest vocalist Chela Simone’s love sighs are transported into the stratosphere by dubby effects and squelchy beats.

For Japanese clubbers, Haze offers these parting words of advice: “One thought—let’s get it sexier. It can be done and I know it’s coming. Let’s do it now…”

Meanwhile, another American DJ headed for Tokyo’s decks on Friday is also sounding nostalgic—not for New York house, though. Despite the fact that he’s the impresario behind noted New York club Cielo, Nicolas Matar has directed his sonic gaze to the legendary Spanish party isle Ibiza and the Balearic house sound with which it’s indelibly associated.

This could have more than a little to do with the fact that before he opened Cielo, Matar was house DJ for Ibiza’s Pacha club for eight years. It’s no surprise, then, that Cielo Balearic—released on Japanese DJ Studio Apartment’s Apt. International imprint—overflows with the soaring instrumentals and trance-y rhythm tracks that undergird Ibiza’s E-fueled decadence.

Air
Cielo Live in Tokyo. House: DJs Nicolas Matar, Alex from Tokyo, etc. From 10pm, ¥3,500. Daikanyama. Tel: 03-5784-3386. www.air-tokyo.com

Unit
Ubik. DJs Jay Haze, Wada, etc. Nov 27, from 11:30pm, ¥3,500. Daikanyama. Tel: 03-5459-8630. www.unit-tokyo.com