Artist Profile: Mathew Jonson

A Canadian-born artist now based in Berlin, Mathew Jonson is a study in balancing precision with unpredictability. He represents a space where the inherent chaos of improvisation meets the disciplined structure of house and techno, built via a mastery of analog hardware. While most modern producers have embraced the convenience of laptops and software, Jonson insists on manipulating hardware in real-time, giving his music a human, tactile quality. A prolific artist, savvy entrepreneur, and one-of-a-kind live performer, Mathew Jonson will join the 16th-anniversary festivities of Control Club on Friday, October 4.

Jonson’s interest in music began early, with formal piano lessons in his youth. But, drawn in by the futuristic sounds of breakdancing and early rave culture, it wasn’t long before he pivoted from classical training to electronic music. Curious on how circuits and wires could create something organic, for Jonson, music was never about pressing play and walking away; it was about the tactile interaction with machines that offered personality and unpredictability. Where most saw techno as cold and mechanical, he would find its human heartbeat.

He first gained significant recognition with the release of Decompression in 2004, an anthem in the minimal techno movement of the time. Its slow, pulsating rhythm and spacious production departed from the more high-octane techno tracks of the time. The following year, Jonson released Marionette, arguably his most famous track. Combining intricate arpeggios with a hypnotic, off-kilter beat, Marionette quickly became an underground hit and a hallmark of the mid-2000s techno scene. Since then, his discography has been released on a whos-who of esteemed labels—Perlon, Crosstown Rebels, M_nus, Kompakt, !K7, Sub-Static, Cocoon, and even Dreamworks with a Nelly Furtado remix.

But Jonson is more than a solo artist. He is integral to several groups, including Midnight Operator and Modern Deep Left Quartet. The principal among them, however, is Cobblestone Jazz, the improvisational trio he co-founded. Cobblestone Jazz’s 2007 album 23 Seconds embodies this approach, with recorded tracks mixed and engineered in real-time. Their fusion of jazz, house, and techno has also led to tracks like India in Me and Dump Truck, which were celebrated for their jam-like quality when tech-house was often criticized for being overly formulaic.

In 2010, Jonson released Agents of Time, an album balancing club-ready bangers like Girls Got Rhythm with more downtempo offerings. His 2013 album, On Her Blurry Pictures, took this further, using the long-player format to explore darker, slower-tempo music. Remix work of the time saw reinterpretations of Model 500, Inner City, Moby, The Chemical Brothers, and VCMG.

In recent years, Jonson has continued to tour extensively while remixing tracks for artists like Seth Troxler and The Martinez Brothers. In 2023, after a decade-long gap in solo releases, he returned with the Spaceport 23 EP on Half Baked Records. It is an EP that blends his signature cosmic, jazz-infused electronics through Jonson’s continued reliance on live elements. 2024 saw a return to Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels with the funky, kinetic, and refined two-tracker Tako Tako.

Following an early imprint, Itiswhatitis, in 2005, Jonson co-founded Wagon Repair. The label has since been a platform for Jonson’s releases and a broader community of forward-thinking electronic artists like Konrad Black, The Mole, and Hrdvsion. While it has slowed its output in later years, its legacy as a hub for innovation is undeniable through releases like Typerope and Magic Through Music. 2019 would then see the new Jonson label and alias Freedom Engine.

As a live performer, Jonson is comfortably in a class of his own, famous for taking his entire setup on tour, eschewing the laptop-heavy sets of today.

His performances, which often place him among the top-ranked live acts in the world, are renowned for their spontaneity, with Jonson constantly reinterpreting his tracks during sets. Whether playing to massive crowds at MUTEK or underground venues like Fabric, Jonson reinterprets his tracks on stage, letting them evolve in ways that reflect the place and moment. In fact, his Fabric84 mix, recorded live in a full-body Japanese bunny suit, maybe the closest recorded representation of this, featuring an extended mashup of Decompression and Ghosts in the AI, as well as unreleased tracks like The World Will Come Around.

Two decades after his debut release, New Identity, Jonson’s influence is seen in his technical innovations and ability to make techno deeply human. In many ways, he is an artist out of time—embracing the imperfections of hardware and the unpredictability of live performance in an industry that often prioritizes efficiency and ego over artistry.