Death Disco: New Heights

A couple of times a week, via his Myspace page, Yuksek recieves a mesage from Istanbul or Ankara saying “Hey, know what? Yuksek means “high” in Turkish!”. No, Yuksek didn’t know this when he chose the name by instinct four years ago. Instead he selected it partly for its sound and also to buck the trend of English-sounding names that are common in electronic music. In recent months, the pseudonym has been collecting an ever-growing halo of attention, and not just for his inability to Google his choosen moniker before releasing an album under it.

Yuksek, a former signing to Birdy Nam Nam's label and a favourite of bloggers across the globe, has remixed the likes of Mika, Kaiser Chiefs, Ghostface Killah and Tahiti 80 recently. His intense live sets involve switching between his collection of vintage keyboards and FX board, and have set alight concert venues, clubs and festivals all over the world. Yuksek spent his youth practising piano several hours a day whilst listening to The Beatles, Gainsbourg, NWA, De La Soul and Nirvana. At the age of 17 Yuksek made the move to not only listen, but create.

Over the years his reputation grew as one of Reims’ central pop figures, as he played bass guitar and wrote with electro-rock combo Klanguage. He soon found a passion for the art of making a variety of sounds which lead him to produce the next Birdy Nam Nam and The Bewitched Hands albums. In time, Yuksek inevitably discovered electronic music where he became a devoted fan of Warp Records' output.

Nowadays, Yuksek successfully manages to mix pop hooks into a frenzy of dancefloor devastation. Post-punk riffs merge into acid loops, whilst disco grooves meet house beats and catchy melodies. He is a distinctly electronic based artist with a heart of pure pop gold.

So what’s the secret of his finely tuned tracks? His secret studio must surely have an influence, hidden away from the eyes of passers-by, in the basement of a basement, deprived of internet and mobile phone contact. Here Yuksek allows his tracks to develop into rich tapestries, using his talent for twisted FX and electrifying changes of tack in order to create his works. The hidden location of the studio that spawned the material for his debut album also gave birth to the title, Away From The Sea.

Yuksek is now signed to Sound of Barclay in Paris, the more pop-orientated Fiction label (historic home of The Cure, and now host to Whites Lies, Snow Patrol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Kate Nash) released the album in February.