::TheEssential Desyn Masiello

[proggresive house]

::TheEssential Desyn Masiello

 
Just as I’m about to wrap up our interview, it dawns on me that Desyn Masiello has been here before, about a year and a half ago playing a beach party. A whole helluva lot has happened since then though…from a BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix which was nominated for mix of the year to a frenetic experience at the Miami Winter Music conference, some wicked production work and recent elevation into the most hallowed of DJ circles…
But it all started with a mix CD. DJs dream of building a career on the strength of musical creativity, but few achieve this. Desyn did. After 10 years of bedroom DJing, he decided it was make or break. “I put together this mix – most of the tracks on it no one really had – and posted it on the Global Underground Message Board. I got replies from all over the world and sent it out.” From there, things snowballed and soon he was getting gigs around the world, purely on the strength of the CD and the word of mouth it generated. This grass roots approach still guides him today. “I network but only with DJs and Producers, never club owners and promoters – my networking is about the music really. I think it’s harder to appeal to the trainspotters – you know the really dedicated followers of the scene – than the industry players. Like I know for a fact that John Digweed picked me up for the Bedrock mix without even hearing me play.”
Ten years of DJing as a hobby probably accounts for his affinity with the real scrutinisers of dance music – he spent a long time playing music for the sheer love of it, enduring six years of working as a computer programmer before it became unbearable. “My boss who was a mate finally got rid of me. I was really taking the piss by the end – going to lunch and spending the next four hours looking for records. Luckily by then I was getting a gig a month so I could just about survive – 300 quid to my Mum for rent and a hundred to live on.”
He says it’s only in the last four months that he’s really started to feel secure in his role as a DJ – before that he never knew if he was going to drop off the radar – even when he was signed with Deep Dish. “Those guys are cool, but it was a new operation and they didn’t have their s*@t fully sorted.” But then four months ago he joined Excession which is none other than Sasha’s agency and found himself in the company of legends like Steve Lawler, Nick Warren, Lee Burridge and of course Sasha himself. As a House DJ, there isn’t anywhere higher to get to. But when it comes to the music, Desyn is far from satisfied. “There’s probably one or two sets I’m really proud of…actually just one really, a set I played in Miami at the music conference in 2004. The same afternoon I’d been doing yoga on the beach and I can’t even do yoga! It was erm…quite a spiritual experience. I played to about 15 people in this horrible dodgy R&B club. They were all real dance music aficionados and they said it was the best set they’d heard in Miami.”
Desyn is a House DJ, but it’s hard to categorise him. When I ask him if he plays much Tech House, he tells me a little bit “but then if you asked me about any other genre I’d tell you a little bit too. I like to work a lot of different stuff into my sets.”
While he’s really focusing on his DJing right now, he’s also learning piano and guitar to improve his studio skills – “I think you need to be able to play an instrument to do really good production work” Meanwhile, he just played gigs in Bahrain (“whoa what a little scene they’ve got going on,” he laughs – off their heads, probably cause there is nothing else to do!”) and Sydney and after his gig at 66 on 24 February he’s off to Jakarta for the first time as part of an Asia tour to promote that Bedrock CD Digweed wanted him to do. Maybe you were at the gig on Thursday night, you caught the four hour set and maybe that’s why you’re reading this. I’m writing this 3 days before the gig, listening to his Essential Mix for Radio 1 and I’m expecting some sublime s*$t down at 66.