Matias Aguayo

Matias Aguayo produces left-field dance music while serving as vocalist and DJ, bringing doses of playfulness and seduction to techno. Early ties to minimal techno gave way to output far removed from that style, built instead around bizarre vocal arrangements, pop instincts, sensuality, and a sharp sense of humor. Initial notice arrived through the duo Closer Musik in the early 2000s, after which he went solo with the 2005 album Are You Really Lost. The 2009 release Ay Ay Ay, built on vocal loops, coincided with the founding of Cómeme. The Visitor, an eclectic and ambitious album, followed in 2013, and 2017 brought Sofarnopolis, the first album from post-punk-influenced band the Desdemonas. Support Alien Invasion, an all-instrumental set from 2019, fused Latin rhythms with industrial minimal techno. The moody, experimental Que Si El Mundo, a collaboration with Julianna, appeared in 2022.

Born in Santiago de Chile, Aguayo moved to Cologne, Germany at the start of the 1990s. By the end of that decade he had worked with Kompakt co-founder Michael Mayer under the name Zimt, then formed the vocal-based tech-house duo Closer Musik with Dirk Leyers. The pair issued two singles and the 2002 album After Love before splitting. Aguayo, like his former partner, stayed linked to Cologne’s Kompakt label and supplied remixes for Leandro Fresco and Mayer. He joined Mayer on a reinterpretation of Kylie Minogue’s “Slow” shortly before his proper solo debut with Are You Really Lost in 2005, an album that included co-productions with Markus Rossknecht, Aguayo’s partner in the duo Broke.

Solo 12" singles continued on Soul Jazz, Kompakt, and the Latin American-centric Cómeme; the 2008 track “Minimal,” a pointed critique of the minimal techno scene, drew notable attention. The second solo album for Kompakt, 2009’s Ay Ay Ay, relied mainly on looped vocals and contained the singles “Rollerskate” and “Menta Latte.” The Visitor, Aguayo’s third solo album, emerged on Cómeme in 2013 and proved as strange and alluring as its predecessors. One further Kompakt EP, Legende, appeared in 2014, while Cómeme issued four volumes of El Rudo del House EPs in 2015. Dirty Dancing, an EP with Spoko, came out on the label in early 2017.

Aguayo formed the post-punk-influenced band Matias Aguayo & the Desdemonas, whose debut full-length Sofarnopolis was released by Crammed Discs in October 2017. Support Alien Invasion, a return to abstract techno and one of Aguayo’s darkest releases, appeared in 2019. The EP Que Si El Mundo, his first collaboration with Colombian DJ and musician Julianna, arrived in early 2022. Aguayo then issued a single containing an updated, extended mix of the 2013 album track “El Camarón,” backed by a Ricardo Villalobos remix.