House from Antwerp, Belgium
MAYAKU is a Belgian house collective born in 1999 out of the creation of the 3 main Wally’s Groove World producers: Marius, Jan (aka Rubba J) and Koenie. The name MAYAKU was created by these 3 producers lending the first two letters of their name. Marius is a respected producer who released his debut album “Balance” in 2000. He has been getting lots of attention by doing remixes for the likes of An Pierle, Yann Fontaine and Groove Armada. The second member, Rubba J, has collaborated on a number of occasions with Marius to create the deep Water Sessions releases. In addition to producing, he is an active member in various funk and hip hop bands. The last tweeker on duty is DJ Koenie, who has been releasing music since the early 90’s (on the Wonka and WGW labels).
MAYAKU’s sound is a mixture of deep house, house and house-tech with a spacey-dubby San Francisco twist. On the producing front, MAYAKU have been extremely busy. They have released tracks on the Belgian labels Wally’s Groove World (WGW) and Wha? Roots and on the japanese label “outergaze”, and the highly regarded San Francisco house label Grayhound Recordings. MAYAKU’s debut album, “The Other Side of the Volcano”, was released in April 2002 and is highly praised by the likes of Dorfmeister, Laurent Garnier, Kenny Hawkes, Doc Martin, Ralph Lawson, and the list goes on. NY Thunder, Groove & Kramers and the current king of tech-house Joshua have received the MAYAKU remix treatment, with upcoming remixes in the works for Lunascape, Max Berlin and Arsenal. Magazines including Muzik and Dj have reviewed MAYAKU releases while Jockey Slut magazine has featured an interview with this belgium house collective.
MAYAKU have taken their act live: Marius and Rubba J on the decks, synths and bass ... Their unique performance has taken them to perform at festivals and clubs all over Europe including the infamous Arezzo Wave festival (Italy), Rex (France), Dour & “10 Days Off” festival in Belgium amongst others.