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In 2005, Jonson co-founded Wagon Repair, and it’s been a blur since, a nonstop series of tours and recordings, solo and with his band mates. In 2004 he was voted “Best Producer” in Germany’s Groove Magazine. I wasn’t saturating the market with bad music.” He’s right there. People criticized me for it, said that it wasn’t a good idea. “I had all that music saved up,” says Jonson, “and then, just by chance, released it all at the same time. And then, suddenly, Jonson was everywhere: Sub Static, Arbutus, Kompakt, M_nus – and every track an anthem. That year, he also made his first appearance on Perlon, ‘Alpine Rocket’ – a track he recorded alongside Luciano during his first trip to Europe. His first record, in 2001, was the first release on Itiswhatitis (a label Mathew bought from its original owner 11 years later). Jonson gradually began honing in on his own sound, both in his productions and his DJ sets, inspired by a deeper, weirder sound that had begun filtering into the Victoria’s techno parties. By the time he discovered hip-hop as a young teen, he was recreating its electro-based beats on his own rudimentary setup at home. Thanks to his father’s work as a musician, he also got his hands on synthesizers at the age of 9.
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He studied classical piano as a kid, plus jazz drumming, and played drums in a marching band – thus laying both the melodic and the rhythmic cornerstones of his music today. He’s devoted much of his energy to supporting his own close musical family, in the groups Cobblestone Jazz, Midnight Operator and the Modern Deep Left Quartet, and with his Wagon Repair label.
Despite his quick ascent through the ranks of the techno elite, Jonson hasn’t just stayed personally grounded. Jonson has always been eager to get his hands dirty, and the music reflects that in gnarled bass sequences and long, intuitive lines. Both on stage and in the studio, Jonson’s fealty to analog equipment and real-time playing as opposed to mere layback-serves as a standard bearer for a kind of electronic music that goes way beyond the drag ‘n’ drop world of digital composition. His standards for sound and presentation are exacting. With a keen understanding for the needs of the dance floor and the universal laws of house and techno, he’s thrown out the rule book time and time again, sneaking tricks learned from electro and even drum’n’bass into the clubs, and loading up his B-sides with tracks that do what they damned well please. His music offers a rare fusion of populist intensities and nuanced musicality. And yet there’s no mistaking any given track for another. He’s developed one of the most distinctive voices in electronic dance music: when you hear one of Jonson’s tracks, you almost immediately know it’s his.