Joaquin Joe Claussell

As an American electronic dance producer, Joaquin "Joe" Claussell earned recognition as one of New York City's most active participants in the house scene by contributing across several roles at once. He worked simultaneously as a DJ widely regarded for his skill, a producer, a remixer, the operator of the labels Spiritual Life Music and Ibadan, and the proprietor of the Dance Tracks record shop. Spiritual Life Music issued material from numerous New York nu-house acts, among them Claussell, Mateo & Matos, Blaze, Slam Mode, and his frequent collaborator Jephte Guillaume. The weekly Body & Soul party he co-hosted with François Kevorkian and Danny Krivit revived the atmosphere of David Mancuso's early-'70s Loft sessions by blending disparate selections that moved from Milton Nascimento through Masters at Work, Cesario Evora, Kevin Yost, and Fela Kuti. Claussell's own productions reflected the same breadth, regularly incorporating live acoustic instruments alongside dense percussion.

Like Kevorkian, Claussell had participated in the disco period, regularly attending sets by near-legendary figures such as Mancuso and Larry Levan. Growing up in Brooklyn, he absorbed an unusually wide range of music from the listening habits of his seven brothers. In the late '80s he joined the staff at Dance Tracks; after entering into a partnership with its new owner Stefan Prescott, the store became one of the city's premier sources for vinyl. He first entered production through several remixes, then inaugurated Spiritual Life Music in 1996 with Timmy Regisford's single "Stubborn Problems."

The label quickly concentrated on groove-oriented music spanning recent decades, treating Caribbean folk and salsa rhythms with the same attention given to deep house. The Dance Tracks stock followed an identical approach. Mid-'90s releases by two prominent New York producers, Slam Mode's "Fiat Mistura" and Blaze's "Directions," raised the label's profile, after which Claussell issued his own productions, notably Jephte Guillaume's 1997 singles "The Prayer" and "Kanpe." He also started the Ibadan imprint and delivered his first proper single, the 1997 Brazilian house track "Escravos de Joe."

The same sensibility that shaped Spiritual Life Music also animated Body & Soul, the Sunday-night event Claussell launched alongside Kevorkian. His first full-length mix, Mix the Vibe, appeared on NiteGrooves in 1999 and was followed later that year by the studio album Language; a Spiritual Life Music compilation of the same name was released around the same time. In 2008 he returned with Corresponding Echoes, which again fused jazz, house, and global sounds. He continued contributing to compilations and remix anthologies, including a 2018 reworking of "Yambu" with Dayme Arocena.