Joey Beltram

All Music Guide:

With a number of legendary tracks such as "Mentasm" and "Energy Flash" to his name, New York-based DJ and producer Joey Beltram is widely acknowledged as a leading innovator in Belgian-style acid and techno. Although his roots as a DJ lie in Chicago house (he still focuses on the style when he spins at home), Beltram's relentless club tracks were high points of late-'80s/early-'90s pre-breakbeat hardcore techno, and remain on many DJs' top ten lists as genre- and period-defining examples of post-Detroit European dance music. Born and raised in Queens, Beltram began DJing at a young age, spinning New York and Chicago-style house in his bedroom before moving into production and solo work. By the age of 18, Beltram was recording for Detroit techno staple Transmat and working on tracks with Mundo Muzique and Richie Hawtin for the latter's Plus 8 imprint.

After Beltram released "Energy Flash" on Transmat in 1988, the track was also picked up by R&S, launching his music into a Belgian association which remains to this day. He followed up the reissue with a single for the label in 1992, "Mentasm," a classic of "hoover"-style techno, so-named for its blaring, vacuum-cleaner synth noises and slamming beat. The track was embraced by Belgian techno/hardbeat fans and DJs alike, catapulting Beltram to widespread acclaim. Although Beltram remains best-known for his techno work, he by no means confines himself to that style, dabbling as well in house and ambient, as evidenced by his eyebrow-raising Aonox LP released by the San Francisco experimental label Visible in 1994. He was back to hard minimalistic acid with 1995's Places (for Berlin's Tresor) and 1996's Close Grind (released on NovaMute as Jb3). Beltram's abundant mixing skills are displayed on the Logic collection Joey Beltram Live as well as The Sound of 2 AM on Moonshine.

Wikipedia:

Joey Beltram (born November 6, 1971 in Queens, New York City, United States) is an American DJ and record producer, best known for the pioneering recordings "Energy Flash" and "Mentasm".

Mentasm, co-produced with Mundo Muzique and released under the artist name Second Phase in 1991, became iconic within rave culture, as it was the track that gave birth to the "mentasm riff" (also known as the "Hoover sound"): a churning, dirgelike synth pattern that wormed into techno's communal genome and has since been mutated and reused in literally thousands of records. Beltram and the "mentasm riff" are strongly associated with drum and bass, the Belgian techno scene, and the R&S record label, as well as hardcore/hard house in their various permutations since 1994. Beltram was referenced as a pioneer in the late 1990s house music scene by Daft Punk, in their song "Teachers" off their 1997 debut album, Homework and author, Simon Reynolds, credited Beltram with having "revolutionized techno twice before the age of 21," when describing both "Energy Flash" and "Mentasm" in his book Generation Ecstasy.

Throughout the years, Beltram has continually toured at major festivals around the globe. He has also continued releasing techno, with his 1993 and 1994 tracks "Aonox" on Visible and "the Beltram re-releases" on Trax, the "Caliber" EP on Warp, and his 1995 LP Places and 1996 single, "Ball Park" on Tresor counting among his work in the 1990s. He was also invited to release another album, Close Grind, on Daniel Miller's Novamute imprint under the JB³ alias.

In 1999, he launched his own label STX with Arena, while he continued to release under Code 6 and JB³, as well as headlining events such as Awakenings, Coachella, Nature One, Mayday and Dance Valley. Returning to Tresor in 2004, he released the album Rising Sun. And he has kept up a busy release schedule ever since, with tracks on Womb, Harthouse, Drumcode, MB Electroniks, and Bush. Perhaps his best-selling single of recent times is his remix of Oliver Huntemann's "Shanghai Spinner," which hit the Beatport Top 10 in 2009. It was also included in Simian Mobile Disco's Essential Mix at the beginning of 2010.