Since she began DJing and producing in 1999, Maayan has racked up an impressive discography. As Miss Fitz, she has released EPs on Raum…musik, Freak n’ Chic, Contexterrior and Circus Company; she also travels in disguise as Laverne Radix, with singles for Oslo’s Love Letters from Oslo and for Raum. March 2009 also marks the release of Maayan’s debut release under her own name: “Night Long” (on Japanese label PowerShovel), an intimate album woven together out of recordings of Cuba’s best contemporary instrumentalists that later on that year was followed by an EP on the ever changing Perlon.
The diversity of Mayaan’s sound is no doubt a result of an unusually global upbringing. Born in Tel Aviv, she lived in the Mediterranean city for most of her life, studying multimedia and, following a six-month stay in New York, beginning to DJ bars and small parties. Tel Aviv isn’t a big place, though, and so when Maayan came to feel that she had hit a wall in her home town, she packed her bags and set off to travel the world. Argentina was her ultimate destination. But after a six-month stint in Amsterdam, she found her way to Berlin, which turned out to be exactly she was looking for. Inspiration was everywhere, from the avant-garde Club Transmediale festival to Jamie Lidell’s experiments in live sampling to, of course, the city’s legendary underground party scene. She soaked up everything, building up her studio and experimenting with different sounds and processes, gradually inching towards the dance floor. Seven years later, she remains in Berlin, making music and molding the contours of the city’s clubs to fit her own inimitable vision.
Maayan shapes sound to fit her own singular sensibilities—a strategy that has resulted in a significant and growing body of recorded work and a reputation as a talented, versatile DJ who unerringly takes listeners to special, unexpected places. It’s impossible to reduce Maayan’s productions and DJ sets to a single sound, but certain qualities prevail: a loping, swinging, hips-and-ass-friendly sense of the groove; a bubbling sense of funk; a keen sense of timbre and tone color, with a wooly low end and crystalline highs. It’s also possible to discern a certain sense of humor, as well—nothing over the top, simply the occasional wink or sly grin as a riff steps out and takes its star turn. Like the best musicians, Maayan’s work is all about communication. No wonder she understand the dance floor so well.
(via facebook)
Once Was Now 