DASCO is an Israeli-born Berlin-based DJ/producer who dwells in the musical sweet spot where the wild euphoria of rave meets the pristine sounds of contemporary house. A DJ for nearly a decade, she’s taken the contagious energy of her DJ sets to Tresor Berlin, Ifz in Leipzig, Bristol’s Motion, the European festival circuit and to Tokyo, Sydney and Johannesburg.
DASCO is an artist firmly committed to an egalitarian vision of nightlife who aims to inspire and support women, non-binary and the LGBTQ+ community, and this year is launching her Bisexuality Exists label with the punchy acid of her rave-tinged ‘Get High With Me’ single.
Her productions - think high-energy, percussive house/techno, flavoured with 90s influences and blended into a fresh, dancefloor-targetted hybrid. She’s put out EPs on Rawax sub-label Housewax, Local Talk and has another release lined up on Shall Not Fade later this year.
Talented producer and exciting DJ, in person DASCO is every bit as positive and intriguing as her music. The only question is one she poses in her forthcoming single ‘Get High With
Me’: “Are you coming to the afterparty...?”
Review: Over the years, Local Talk bosses Mad Mats and Tooli have proved to be shrewd operators when it comes to commissioning remixes. As a result, the label's vaults are full of killer re-rubs, as this fourth collection of reworked highlights proves. Beginning with an inspired Ron Trent jazz-dance revision of Kyoto Jazz Sextet's 'Rising', the set smoothly moves between life-affirming, musically rich Latin house (Anthony Nicholson reworking DASCO), jazz-funk flavoured 4/4 smoothness (Kaidi Tatham tweaking Coflo), soul-fired organic house jazziness (Waajeed remixing Crackazat), analogue-rich late might hypnotism (a show-stopping Jamie 3:26 re-wire of Soulphiction) and sunset-ready tropical house (TRinidadiandeep's inspired re-frame of DASCO's 'African Power').
Review: Local Talk's periodic round-up of classic cuts from the label's bulging back catalogue returns for an eighth time, with imprint founders Mad Mats and Tooli gathering together a predictably fine selection of tracks. Most bases are covered - house-wise, at least - from trumpet-laden Afro-house brilliance (Dasco's "African Power"), and ultra-soulful, Atjazz-esque broken house deepness (Wipe The Needle's super-smooth "Enchanted"), to "French Kiss"-inspired house hypnotism (Soulphiction's "Believe"), 21st century jazz-funk/deep house fusion (Crackazat's fine rework of Art of Tones' "The Rainbow Song") and ultra-deep, Nina Simone-sampling dancefloor bliss (Emvee's "Brotherman"). In a word: essential.
Review: Israeli and Berlin-based DJ/producer Dasco has put out a fair number of singles over the last few years, but none are anywhere near as good as "African Power", their first outing on Local Talk. The title track is superb: a wonderfully jaunty, atmospheric, evocative and positive fusion of Afro-house, jazz, deep house and calypso that boasts layered percussion, a brilliant bassline and some lusciously lilting trumpet solos. "Keep Moving", meanwhile, is a heavily percussive deep house workout full of spacey synths and heavy South American drums. Trinidadian Deep does a fine job making "African Power" deeper, dreamier and even more melodic, while Anthony Nicholson joins the dots between Latin house and deep nu-disco on a suitably Balearic revision of "Keep Moving".
