Some tracks you can never escape from: their melodies fill too many late night memories where the bass plays out too much fun. A few years before dance music really blew up in the States – we're talking around the year 2007, the first year EDC took over the L.A. Colosseum and Tiesto's revered Club Life podcast began – Mason dropped the mashup of their club hit "Exceeder" with Princess Superstar's "Perfect", a collaboration that became a classic anthem for all electronic time. Comprised of Iason Chronis and Coen Berrier, the Dutch duo never stopped experimenting with sound, something apparent from a simple listen through their recent releases on Beatport, which features a heavy list of the business's biggest labels.
After more than seven strong years in the industry, Mason plan to release their sophomore album, ZOA, out August 26th on their own Animal Language imprint. 14 tracks make up the collection, which features never-before-heard songs and a smattering of beloved re-releases. From the latter category, you may recognize their work "Solid Gold", a vocally-driven exploration in spacey electro, and the grimey Boysnoize Records track "Get Back!", which showcased on the Miami Noize compilation. However, no matter how good these are, Mason still has much more in store for you with ZOA.
Today we have the pleasure of premiering two standout tracks from the forthcoming release: "Reach For The Stars" and "Gotta Have You Back". Both deliver on the promise of something different, while still supporting Mason's masterful production. "Gotta Have You back" featuring Rogue Mary builds on clipped synth runs that make way for breathy vocals, culminating in pronounced climbs that drop into elevated choral repetitions. Conversely, "Reach For The Stars" with Rockattack Ten and Big Boy Caprice travels in a completely different direction. The track starts off in measured pace, carried by short synth pulses, and taking its time to grow before exploding into glamrock-like vocals.
Enjoy the two tracks below, and grab ZOA when it drops August 26th. Like the album title suggests, you never know what shape the next Mason track will take, so always be ready for something a bit different.
"We've worked with over 15 vocalists and musicians on this album, which is always very inspiring, as they're incredibly good at what they do. 'Gotta Have You Back' features Hercules And Love Affair lead vocalist Rouge Mary, who we've met on tour and loved straight away: an amazingly creative artist to work with – and the nicest person out there. For 'Reach The Stars' we went back to Dutch childhood heroes of ours. Rockattack Ten was the main rapper of Dutch funk band Gotcha!, as well as guest vocalist of Funkadelic – both big influences of ours. For the chorus vocal we were looking for a male high falsetto voice, and the one person on our mind, Bigboy Caprice, also turned out to be the hardest artist of the album to track down. After serious CIA-like investigation we caught him, and he was all up for the idea and sang it brilliantly." – Iason
