Timo Maas has more than earned his title as a dance music legend. But he’d rather you forget that and connect with who he is right here, right now. And that’s someone who never repeats the same trick, someone never happy to rest on his reputation or copy his early career success. He is really only happy when he’s breaking his own rules, subverting expectations and exploring new musical ground.
And it’s the same with his DJing. When the two-time Grammy Award-nominated artist is in the booth, he is a storytelling adventurer. It’s never about back-to-back bangers or brainless hits, but about crafting, building, teasing and eventually pleasing. From hefty concrete funk to stripped-back and brain-altering techno via psychedelic synths stronger than any drug, he knows exactly what to play and when. He has done so at every major club and festival on the planet from Tomorrowland to Kazantip, Creamfields to Coachella, while for 17 years during the golden years of Ibiza’s Circoloco party at DC10 he was a regular guest, which is a testament to the fact that he has always stayed ahead of the times.
Timo is a down-to-earth realist. He knows the work he has done before – even if it resulted in two different Grammy Award nominations – doesn’t matter, and he enjoys the challenge that comes with staying relevant. So he never wants to copy his own recipes in the studio. He is always looking for new micro-fields within genres so that he can reinterpret things from his own perspective. Although he has made every shade of electronic music, it’s a pure love of techno that keeps him coming back to his most famous sound. It’s all united by his ability to craft weighty bass and rolling drums that lock you in. To dream up unusual breakdowns, freaky vocal treatments and deftly designed details that sound like nothing else.
Timo’s genuinely eclectic output is matched by the diversity of the labels he releases on. From majors like Warner and Virgin to underground staples like Stripped Down Records, Cocoon, Mobilee, Tenampa and Last Night On Earth. Whatever he does and where, Timo always comes from an artistic rather than business standpoint.
Right now, the German artist is bringing even more energy and invention than he did 20, 30 or 40 years ago when he very first started mixing records before techno even existed. Sure, he’s proud of his iconic remixes of Azzido Da Bass and Depeche Mode, and will never forget being nominated for two Grammy Awards, but he is still striving for new heights. He is a DJ who excites young and fresh-faced ravers at DC10 as much as those who saw him play the Berlin Loveparade in 2001. He is a producer who makes tripped-out contemporary techno but also remixes Afro-Peruvian group Novalima, the all-female heavy metal band Voice of Baceprot from Indonesia, and pop greats like Paul McCartney, Madonna and Placebo amongst many more.
He will continue to stay one step ahead in 2023. After a busy period of his signature remixes, Timo has been locked away working on a wealth of new music. Some of it is designed to rattle the walls of a warehouse, some of it is genre-bending electronic experimentalism and some of it finds him reworking traditional Peruvian music into a dance floor context. After 40 years in the scene, Timo’s aim is to make people ask, what the fuck was that record? Who the fuck is this DJ? And with all that experience, he doesn’t often struggle.