Filsonik

Filsonik is the latest DJ / producer to have grown out of the hugely lively NYC deep house community. Today, he shares a studio with producer extraordinaire, Quentin Harris and has a friend / mentor in the King Of The Underground himself, Mr. Dennis Ferrer. Hailing from the Lower East Side, he grew up on hip hop, latin disco, and reggae music. He was schooled from age seven as a classical pianist and as such his influences are both street and formal. His childhood neighbors were John Mateo and Eddie Matos and his first experience of house music was with them in the early 90's when they asked him to play sessions keys on one of their early tracks. His cousin Conrad, is a legendary dancer from the Paradise Garage and Loft days. It's not difficult to understand how Sonik reached his destiny. In the true spirit of old school NYC dance culture, Filsonik is a true renaissance man and brings many different artistic influences into his craft. Originally a visual artist, he made a career out of photography for a number of years before stepping out into the world of house music circa 2004 with a debut EP on Got Soul Records. During this period he collaborated with Scott Wozniak, also a longtime friend. Out of this particular alliance came the "Steel Dreams" EP and Laid "Punch Up" rework, both on Syam Music. A successful WMC in 2004 created a buzz that has been building ever since. He found another early supporter for his house productions in Osunlade and recorded an EP for Yoruba that found a home on Syam. A subsequent partnership with Julian Bendall of Bah Samba however under the Bah Sonik nomiker, yielded a remix of Osunlade's "Love Song" for Yoruba. His friendship with Ben Johnson from Club Shelter / Syam Music took him in the direction of Timmy Regisford. Over the space of six months, with Regisford, Sonik cranked out a series of cutting edge club classics on various incarnations of Regisford's URA imprints including "Keep It Basic" and his own production feat. Alicia Keys "POW" which again garnered much attention (RA). "Can U" (URA) set the tone of Filsonik's original works to come. Tracky and driving with a cut-up vocal refrain, this cut became a Shelter classic. 2007 is already heating up to be Filsonik's most prolific to date. He spent two months in the winter recording a Bahsonik album called “Shake The Dog” (Syam), featuring vocal performances from a range of world class performers such as Nadirah Shakoor, Siji, Ambrosia, Jephte Guilllaume, Monique Bingham, Quentin Harris and Maxine Braham. In the midst of the album recording, he still found time to tap into his techie sensibilities with "Evolution" (Funk La Planet) and has since further developed this sound under the wing of Dennis Ferrer for the forthcoming Objektivity release "Diva Jaguar", a certain afro-tech classic. His additional production on Abicah Soul's "Nimba Groove" (Syam) and Carlos Mena Feat. Tamara Wellons "Oh Well" (Bahsonik Remix) (Ocha) and soon to be released Rocco Rodomaal’s “Heartbeat” (Filsonik Remix) (Shack Music) highlight the more percussive edge of his programming skills. Filsonik’s latest project teaming up with long time friend and legendary hip hop DJ, Tony Touch and hip hop vocalist Soni was signed on the spot by Louie Vega for his Vega Records imprint during a set at his NYC residency at Cielo. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.