✺ Bookings / MGMT: zigmon@stoneseedmusic.com
✺ Find me on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3C2IqSo

✺ Stone Seed
✺ SixthSense Australia
✺ Digital Structures
✺ Recovery Collective
✺ Open Records

✺ Bio ✺

Distinctive blends of growling psychedelic techno and beautifully intricate soundscapes define the unmistakable sound of Tom Baker.
 
Writing his chapter in the electronic dance music culture, Baker injects genius and creativity into every piece of soulful storytelling and acute technical finesse.
 
A first-choice remixer/remixed producer, Baker has coupled with the likes of Perfect Stranger, Electrypnose, Käse Kochen and Doppel. As a core member of the Stone Seed label family, he also consistently collaborates with distinguished imprints Recovery Collective, Digital Structures and Open Records.
 
Masterfully formulating signature dancefloor experiences across Australia and around the world, Baker has landed an array of top tier festival bookings across Boom Festival (Portugal), Fusion Festival (Germany), Bucht Der Traumer (Germany), Groove & Bass (Canada), Rabbits Eat Lettuce, Earth Frequency, Esoteric and many more.
 
Without any further ado… Listen, and let the music do the talking.

DJ Artist & Producer. Head Of Senso Sounds

Melbourne based producer and DJ,  experimenting with psychedelic, melodic and progressive sounds.

Craig’s journey began at art school in the late eighties. Over a six year period he attended Bournemouth school of art, St. Martins School of art and the Royal college of art. 
Artist, record collector, DJ, producer, festival organiser and gentleman of the night - Craig Richards can be described in many ways but most of all he is a storyteller. His ability to bring life, breadth and narrative to everything he does is the secret to his success.
As artist in residence and Musical Director at Fabric for 15 years he was responsible for the modern approach taken to the programming of Saturday nights and as a DJ his unique and uncompromising sound provided a unique identity for the club. His early morning sets at the club were legendary, never the same and always challenging. He is as an originator and a DJ held in high esteem by his peers.
His label THENOTHINGSPECIAL has released music by Schatrax, Calibre, Trevino, dBridge and Mathew Johnson to name but a few. Craig’s paintings and drawings appear on all of the covers. He has an ongoing collaboration with studio genius Howie B. In 2006 they created the soundtrack for the award winning animation Rabbit and released a limited edition boxset of music, poetry and drawings to accompany the project. Craig’s own notable releases to date include “Sleeping Rough’ and ‘My Friend Is Losing His Mind”.
In 2017 an opportunity came about for Craig to curate a new festival in Norfolk. Craig was so impressed by the venue Houghton Hall and the existing sculpture park that he decided it should be an arts and electronic music festival. The first edition of Houghton was a huge success. Craig’s ethos of doing things simply but to the best they can be was a winning formula.
After 3 years of cancellations due to extreme weather and the pandemic, Houghton made a grand comeback this year and with some 230 artists from around the world. This instantly reinstated the significance of Houghton within the underground electronic music scene.
To accompany the festival, Craig illustrated a book of drawings representing every artist who performed at Houghton 2017. The work was exhibited in a disused building opposite the Bank of England. The exhibition was entitled ‘A Show of Heads Inside and Out’. Craig’s paintings, drawings and handwriting are synonymous with the festival.
2018 saw the launch of Craig’s project ‘I Want To Like You But I Find It Difficult’ a three part series of events which took place at the Fondazione Prada in Milan. His curation explored the relationship between juxtaposition and preconception.
In recent years Craig formed a project called Collisions. Again exploring the idea of juxtaposition and contrast within Dj sets, it involves infamous back to back sets with Ben UFO, Ricardo Villalobos, Nicolas Lutz and Ivan Smagghe. It takes place bi monthly at Fabric, at Wonderfruit in Thailand, Love international, The Lion and Lamb and every so often around the globe. His solo DJ sets are varied and highly considered. They continue to inspire and excite in equal measure.

DATES:

16.05.25 Ketoga | Köln | Odonien 
12.04.25 Tempest | Hamburg | Südpol 
15.03.25 Ketoga I Münster I Sputnikhalle
01.03.25 Expedition | Hamburg | Südpol 
25.01.25 Easily 30 Years on Planet | Dolten |Olten 
25.10.24 Ketoga | Köln | Odonien 
04.10.24 Nichtgeburtstag | Berlin | Sisyphos
07.09.24 Tempest | Hamburg | Südpol
24.08.24 Moyn Festival 
16.08.24 Bucht der Träumer Festival 
10.08.24 MoDem Festival 
23.03.24 Bladehouse Showcase | Hamburg | Südpol
24.02.24 Tempest | Hamburg |Südpol [b2b Sheila]
16.02.24 Expedition | Hamburg | Südpol 
09.02.24 Pirates I Köln | Odonien 
08.02.24 Karneval der Kollektive | Köln | BüZe
09.12.23 Cosmosphere I Olten I Dolten
01.12.23 The Dark Night | Hamburg | Club Naga
02.11.23 Kabinett d Kuriositäten I Mainz | Postlager
03.11.23 Entropia | Tübingen I Butterbrezel 
20.10.23 Ketoga | Köln I Odonien 
06.10.23 Club Charlotte | Münster | Sputnikhalle
30.09.23 Tempest | Hamburg | Südpol
27.08.23 Moyn Festival 
09.08.23 MoDem Festival
28.07.23 Mit Dir Festival
22.07.23 Expedition I Hamburg I Südpol 
23.06.23 Subios Showcase I Essen I Göthebunker
27.05.23 Contrast Festival
06.05.23 Hai in den Mai Festival
06.04.23 Variete I Berlin I Wilde Renate
24.03.23 Ketoga I Köln I Odonien
01.01.23 Tanzwut I Köln | Odonien
31.12.22 Silverstersause I Köln I Nieher Freiheit
17.12.22 Trance with friends I Waldfrieden
02.12.22 Expedition | Hamburg | Südpol 
11.11.22 Ketoga I Köln | Lemuria
11.08.22 MoDem Festival 
05.08.22 Zugvögel Festival 
04.06.22 Ketoga I Hannover I Indigo Glocksee
21.05.22 Mystic Creatures I Berlin | Mensch Meier
13.05.22 Ketoga I Köln I Odonien
18.03.22 Vortex I Goa I Rockwaves
14.02.22 Techno Monday I Zermatt I Cervo
26.11.21 Wackelkontakt I Köln I Hamsterdam
20.11.21 Berlin I Sisyphos 
13.11.21 Expedition I Hamburg | Südpol                           
22.10.21 Ketoga I Köln I Odonien
10.10.21 Ketoga | Berlin | Mensch Meier
16.07.21 Mystic Creatures I Berlin I Haselhorst

Mathew Jonson really is one of a kind.  
 
He's developed one of the most distinctive voices in electronic dance music: when you hear one of Jonson's tracks, you almost immediately know it's his. And yet there's no mistaking any given track for another. 
 
His music offers a rare fusion of populist intensities and nuanced musicality. With a keen understanding for the needs of the dancefloor and the universal laws of house and techno, he's thrown out the rule book time and time again, sneaking tricks learned from electro and even drum'n'bass into minimal clubs, and loading up his B-sides with tracks that do what they damned well please. (No kick drum? No problem.)
 
His standards for sound and presentation are exacting. Both on stage and in the studio, Jonson's fealty to analog equipment and real-time play—as opposed to mere playback—serves as a standardbearer for a kind of electronic music that goes way beyond the drag 'n' drop world of digital composition. Jonson has always been eager to get his hands dirty, and the music reflects that in gnarled bass sequences and long, intuitive lines. His sounds have serious teeth.
 
And despite his quick ascent through the ranks of the techno elite, Jonson hasn't just stayed personally grounded. He's devoted much of his energy to supporting his own close musical family, both in the groups Cobblestone Jazz and the Modern Deep Left Quartet, and with his Wagon Repair label, which he cofounded with Jesse Fisk, Graham and Adam Boothby, Frank Meyerhofer and Konrad Black.
 
He studied classical piano as a kid, plus jazz drumming, and played drums in a marching band —thus laying both the melodic and the rhythmic cornerstones of his music today. (Plenty of musicians claim to be "classically trained," of course, rendering the phrase all but meaningless. But here's something you might not have known about Mathew: he's actually begun studying piano again, which suggests a musical seriousness that's rare in the world of auto-didact button-pushers.
 
Thanks to his father's work with sound technology, he also got his hands on synthesizers at the age of 9. By the time he discovered hip-hop as a young teen, he was recreating its electro-based beats on his own rudimentary setup at home.
 
It was in Victoria, when he was 19, that Jonson met up with the crew that would help guide his musical trajectory: Tyger Dhula, Danuel Tate and Colin de la Plante, who were playing and DJing parties around the area. The four started playing in clubs together, an early version of the group that exists today as Cobblestone Jazz and the Modern Deep Left Quartet. (The Modern Deep Left Quartet was the original name for the foursome; after de la Plante moved to Montreal, the remaining trio carried on as Cobblestone Jazz.)
 
"It was all improvised," says Jonson of the group's early days. "We never really worked in the studio, we would just meet at the nightclub and jam. That's how it started. We did that for quite a while, and then it morphed into a residency at a club, once every two weeks." To keep it interesting, they would invite other musicians—on trumpet, violin, bass, sax, and rhythm sections—to join them.
 
After de la Plante left town, Cobblestone Jazz began focusing its efforts more squarely on the dancefloor, moving away from purely improvised sets to include composed and rehearsed passages. And Jonson gradually began honing in on his own sound, both in his productions and his DJ sets, inspired by a deeper, weirder sound that had begun filtering into the city's techno parties.
 
His first record, in 2001, was the first release on the B.C. label Itiswhatitis, appropritately titled "New Identity." Another followed in 2002, and in 2003. That year, he also made his first appearance on Perlon, "Alpine Rocket"—a track he recorded alongside Luciano during his first trip to Europe. And then, suddenly, Jonson was everywhere: Itiswhatitis, Sub Static, Arbutus, Kompakt, M_nus—and every track an anthem.
 
"I had all that music kind of saved up," says Jonson, "and then, just by chance, released it all at the same time. People criticized me for it, said that it wasn't a good idea. But it worked out for me. All the tracks did well. I wasn't saturating the market with bad music." He's right there.
 
In 2005, Jonson co-founded Wagon Repair, and it's been a blur since, a nonstop series of tours and recordings, solo and with his bandmates. Crucially, he moved to Berlin. Here, he and de la Plante—who moved over at the same time—have set up Cobblestone Jazz' European headquarters, providing not only the launch pad for European tours but, more importantly, the control center for the group's recorded activities. The studio is jawdropping, frankly: a semi-circle full of gear, from old workhorses like the 808 and 909 and SH-101 to unique beasts like their Cwejman and Roland System 100m modular system. Tate's Rhodes piano anchors one corner of the horseshoe, and everything feeds into a massive desk where tracks are mixed and recorded in real-time. Jonson makes his own music essentially the same way—only with two hands instead of eight.
 
Those two hands have come up with some remarkable material. Having perfected his brand of earthshaking epic with tracks like "Marionette," "Return of the Zombie Bikers" and "Symphony for the Apocalypse," Jonson has increasingly turned his efforts towards more personal, introspective music. He hasn't left the clubs behind—his new album, Agents of Time, features a number of tracks that are as hip-windingy wily as anything he's produced yet, full-on tracks like "Girls Got Rhythm" and "Thieves in Digital Land." But he's also taken advantage of the longplayer format to stretch out and indulge darker moods and slower tempos.
 
"I like to have phrases that sound like they're major, but then they go minor when they turn around," explains Jonson. "You think that you're in a happy place, but suddenly you're not. I like playing with that tension. When I look at the music I've made, the best music is always music that can stimulate any kind of emotion. It's more like a key, towards opening up whatever is inside of you -a gateway"
 
You can expect him to be unlocking even more emotions soon—ones you may not have even known you had—when he ramps up with Midnight Operator, a collaboration with his brother Nathan Jonson, aka Hrdvsion. With Nathan also based in Berlin, the two are finding common musical ground, expanding upon the platform they established with their lone, 2007 EP for Wagon Repair as they begin work on an album.
 
"Obviously, you can look at what I do with my label and the bands I have, to see what's important to me," says Jonson of keeping it in the family, so to speak. "I'm lucky because I have so many friends who are strong musicians. We can all feed off of each other.  You know, when you're doing music, it's such a personal thing. To have an outlet with the labels to be able to release our music, and be able to all stay together, I think there's a lot of strength in that. Everybody is stronger as a group." – Philip Sherburne


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