BIO

SOUL INSIDE
depth, soul & originality

In the early 90's, Maarten organized gigs with friends, playing for hundreds of teenagers in sports venues and schoolparties. His early interest in electronic music led him to play as resident in local bars. With a school friend - who owned a pair of decks - he went by train to Amsterdam on a weekly basis to buy vinyl records at special import stores. Many of the unknown artists he bought music from back then, are world class heroes today. Artists like Roger Sanchez, Masters at Work, Kerri Chandler, Mateo & Matos, Joey Negro (now: Dave Lee), Dimitri from Paris, Mood II Swing and Ashley Beedle to name but a few. 


As house music was not as well established and omnipresent as it is today, bar owners didn't want dj's to play 'only' housemusic. Therefore he mixed it with 70's funk, soul and disco, 80's new wave and pop music. In the mid/late 90's club nights inspired him to start playing only electronic music, although 70's and 80's influences were never far away. Especially the GLAM, Juice and High-tech soul movement nights in Amsterdam's renowned RoXY nightclub drew him into soulful house, garage and soul-tech. Summer holidays in Italy with its luxurious open air discotheques inspired him to give an Italo/Balearic touch to his sets.   

In the years after he sought to bridge the gap between soulful and abstract music by developing his style into what people today call deephouse. Inspired by this Nite:Life compilation with deep, warm and sophisticated tunes - he started making cd's for friends and music-lovers with similar music and similar artwork under the name 'Urban Nites'. Copies of copies of copies landed him a residency in his hometown. 
 

In 2007 he founded his own marketing & communication consultancy in Amsterdam. This gave him the opportunity to play at some (international) trade shows, but also moved him away from nightlife. Inspired by traveling he also broadened his musical style with African and Latin-American music. After a break, in 2019, he was asked for some gigs of friends, regained his interest, digitized his vinyl collection and broadened his music catalogue with recent gems to re-establish a dj career.  

Depth, soul & originality

Today he is bookable as dj, playing electronic music with depth, soul and originality. His style is best described as "as commercial as necessary and as educational as possible", steering clear from Beatport charts without being too religious about it and ushering audiences into a sound that draws from a plethora of genres, including deephouse, tech-house, nu disco, nu jazz, Afro, latin and classics, pushing his own musical boundaries to new limits.