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Biography
Maya Jane Coles is nothing if not an exciting presence in modern music for a variety reasons. However, one of the more unique is how she’s become such a big name and how people have been listening to her music. She’s not a big name because she’s had a number one single or won a BRIT Award, people are listening because she’s an auteur, and her fans have cut out the middlemen of promotions or record labels by listening to the music that she’s put out herself. In the history of popular music nobody’s ever been able to reach such a large audience without any outside help, and with artists as talented as Coles around, that’s a truly exciting prospect.
Coles, a Londoner her whole life born to British and Japanese ancestry, was a music obsessive from an early age. She was fascinated by everything from soul to punk to jazz and everything in between, so wasn’t totally satisfied with the idea of picking one instrument and learning to play it the way that other people had done before. As a result, Coles naturally gravitated towards producing, learning how to use the Cubase software and producing a number of hip-hop tracks by the time she was 15. By 16 she was branching out into more experimental, dub-influenced territory, and influenced by the music that she was hearing at East London clubs and warehouse raves, she had her first record “Sick Panda” released on the label Dogmatik in 2007, when she was a mere 20 years old.
That release alone led to appearances at the BBC’s Electric Proms and Bestival, and over the next two years she worked extensively with fellow producer Lena Cullen as the dub duo She Is Danger. However, it was in 2010 when she saw her big solo break with the title track from her “What They Say” E.P, which was a critical and commercial smash on the Beatport charts and was in the top three of the Resident Advisors chart for three months running. The acclaim that she got for that track and its accompanying E.P came from sources as varied as Skream and Groove Armada, and suddenly Coles had momentum, and anyone could see she was onto something very special indeed.
Since then she has built a reputation for herself as a true artist. She’s involved with everything about her releases, writing, recording, mixing, engineering and producing the tracks herself before usually coming up with the cover art herself as well. 2011 and 2012 saw her as the recipient of a number of awards from the Beatport Awards, Mixmag and DJ Mag, while 2013 saw the release of her highly acclaimed debut album “Comfort”. Her more recent work has seen her on the cusp of genuine world-wide success as “What They Say” was sampled by Nicki Minaj for a track that featured Drake and Lil’ Wayne. The idea of Maya Jane Coles as one of the music worlds producers du jour is an incredibly exciting one, but whether she achieves that or not, she still comes highly recommended.
Live reviews
I first discovered Maya Jane Coles when she played a live show at a popular club in Ibiza via a live feed on Resident Advisor. That show motivated me to buy tickets to a show when she came to my city on tour.
This show consisted of a few other DJs besides Coles so the show did meander for a few hours due to the hour-long sets from the openers. She was worth the wait though because when she came out, she dropped the darkest, glitchy track in her arsenal.
The darkness of this songs and a few that followed led to some lighter tunes and more signature dub step that got some of the crowd moving. From there, the house started to drop and that really got the crowd moving and sort of woke them up from their dubstep slumber.
The crowd really got going when she dropped some house jungle unexpectedly and everyone screamed throwing their hands in the air. I think the most impressive thing about Coles is that she mixed everything live and doesn't use a laptop like most DJS of her caliber. It takes skill to mix live and it makes for a much more interesting live show if you are not too busy dancing.
Heading up a trend of female artists taking the electro circuit by storm, London DJ and producer Maya Jane Coles has been making waves since appearing in 2008. She has great knowledge of a variety of dance music outputs including house and dubstep, which she dedicates an alias called Nocturnal Sunshine to.
With a weighty reputation and pre-existing fanbase, she has no issue packing out festival tents and venues across Europe who all seem to be very aware Maya is one of the most technically gifted artists to emerge for a while. Although she only has one studio album to her namesake, she occasionally dips into the Nocturnal Sunshine releases during the set to accommodate for all fans as well as remixing the likes of The xx and Little Dragon. The atmosphere within the whole tent goes off for the entire set and after 90 minutes Maya does not want to leave the decks and neither do the fans.
sean-ward
Maya has been DJ'ing since she was 15? and you can see those years of experience she appears and at the same time meticulously mixing with the sound paramount to the rest of her performance. She responds to improptu fan hi-fives and at the same time can tell how she is judging her own mixes. I have heard her perform 5 times and none of the sets have been identical nor could I trace an overall structure so I would agree she puts care into the prep for her sets. Hope to enjoy her performances for years!
The show was phenomenal. From opening acts to of course, Maya, who is literally my favorite producer/performer - she had such a cool vibe going with the crowd and as always her music is like mana from heaven - original, beautiful and bright. The intimate venue was up close and personal and felt like a bunch of friends celebrating. Thanks Maya!
joelshick
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