Cuijk-based Anthony Mena represents a complex intersection of cultures and influences, bringing together a personal history of African musics with on-the-cusp contemporary dance forms and club culture. Born in Luanda, Mena’s musical roots go deep, starting with his father’s love for reggae and moving on to hip hop before becoming engrossed in the four-on-the-floor canon in all of its glory. Now an aspiring artist in the Amsterdam dance music world, Mena brings a full-bodied approach to DJing and production, undertaking each with a verve and tenacity that belies the cool natured spirit of his sonic output.

Touching on a wide range of sounds, including percussive afrohouse, soulful deep house and chunky, floor-ready tech house, Mena’s sound comes across as an effortless synthesis, respectful to his forebears while unrelentingly looking forward. Having already played out at venues like Chicago Social Club (Amsterdam) and Metaxa Bar (Berlin) and co-founded his own club night called Nachtwerk, Mena has begun to craft a space, both physical and abstract, for his music to exist in.

Functioning as both Anthony Mena’s first official effort and the inaugural release from the Los Angeles-based Makehood label, “Ortega” is an essential house track that is as accessibly graceful as it is full of tiny artistic flourishes. Built around a propulsive four-to-the-floor kick pattern, Mena crafts a lush narrative on “Ortega”, weaving blissful choral vocals, a resolutely funky bassline and an array of deeply textural synth lines that simultaneously effuse feelings of hope and melancholy. At just over five minutes long, “Ortega” infuses a number of house music traditions into its run time, touching on the subtle mutations of classic deep house, the polyrhythmic churn of afrohouse and even a slight nod to Chicago’s jacking action. It’s the rare track with the potential to bring a dancefloor to its feet in the early stages of a night, maintain the energy at peak time and bring an exhausted crowd to an elated finale and it's clear that Mena has a unique grasp of the music’s lineage.

Cover Art: Garrett DeRossett 
Mastering: Conor Dalton @ CALYX Mastering

Anthony Mena
SC: @anthonymena
FB: facebook.com/Anthonymenamusic
Twitter: twitter.com/anthonymena100

Anthony Mena - Ortega (MH 001)

The debut release from Ukrainian artist The Stoosie arrives on the Los Angeles-based Makehood label this Fall. Three tracks of masterful drum programming, indomitable basslines and enough creative samples to keep dancefloors afloat and home listeners willfully engaged. With each effort coming in at around seven minutes, The Stoosie’s club proclivities are obvious, but each song on Zulu is far more than the average tool, instead comrpised of rising and falling movements and an unwillingness to kowtow to dance music convention.

Opening up Zulu is the commanding eponymous track, a gorgeous balancing act of spacious sound design, a forceful bassline and sparkling synth and effect work, all coming in at a loping pace that demands full body immersion. “Khalifa” is centered around a transportative female vocal sample, the mysterious voice weaving its way through muscular kicks, a quick, earworm melody and crescendoing blips and effects that take the track to dizzying heights. Zulu is closed out by “Maartkare”, the most stripped back track on the EP and an effort that puts its funky, hip shaking bassline fully forward in the mix.

As an opening statement, Zulu puts The Stoosie in a category of producers focused on transcendent sounds as much as dancefloor efficacy, to write fully fledged songs as much as he thinks about club spaces. Only the second release on Makehood (after Anthony Mena’s “Ortega” single), Zulu represents a willingness to look outside of the box and to unite artists from disparate backgrounds and geographies. 

Side A
A1. Zulu

Side B
B1. Khalifa
B2. Maatkare

Exclusively distributed by Halcyon Records.

The Stoosie - Zulu EP Snippets (MH 002)

We're a new independent techno + house record label in Los Angeles. 

Home to...
@anthonymena
@contemporisthimself
@imthestoosie

makehood

Popular tracks