Since the late ’90s, Sety has been a fierce and tireless activist within Paris’ electronic underground scene, determined to carve out a space for unconventional, experimental dance music. In 1999 he co-founded the Circus Company label, along with fellow artists Kean and Freak, of Nôze; in 10 years, it has grown from a local outpost into an international hub. With a roster including Nôze, Ark, Dave Aju, dOP, Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts and DJ Koze, among many others, Circus Company has become one of Europe’s most respected modern house labels.
Sety spent much of the label’s history working more or less behind the scenes, aside from a handful of tracks for Circus Company, Karat and Logistic (where he had the honor of remixing the godfather of minimal techno, Robert Hood). But it’s become clear that he’s not just talented DJ and curator, but also a formidable producer. His 2008 Sweet & Sour EP—which included a beautiful and often-charted remix by Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts—showed an unusual focused attention to the fusion of tones, textures and grooves in a powerful current of deep house energy. (It was all the more unusual considering that it was his first solo EP release.) Sweet & Sour received enthusiastic support from the likes of Luciano, Daniel Bell, Zip, and Ricardo Villalobos—but you wouldn’t need to know that to be swayed by the record’s immediacy. Since then, Sety has gone on to remix Butane, and more releases are in store.
Sety’s years behind the curtain didn’t curtail his activity behind the decks, however. His vision and his versatility have confirmed Sety as a promising artists in a new generation of house musicians. He holds a residency at Paris’ Rex Club, where the Circus Company family comes together, and also plays at some of the world’s most celebrated clubs—Berlin’s Panorama Bar, San Francisco’s Kontrol, London’s Fabric, São Paulo’s D-Edge… If you’ve ever caught him at any of those places, or perhaps at a party with no name in a building with no address, on a night where you lost your phone and have nothing to prove that it even ever happened, you’ll know the feeling that Sety brings. As with Circus Company’s records, it’s a vision of house music that folds its history into something familiar and strange all at once: mercurial, pulsing, unpredictable, sensual, and unforgettable.