S O H N is S C H Ö N

“What a big stage,” the new prodigy of the British post-dubstep scene posted on his Facebook page when he saw the Castello tent in which he was to enthral a maximum capacity audience at Pukkelpop last summer. Earlier this month, he was again on cloud nine about the two million “hits” he got on his SoundCloud page: “Wow, thanks… What a year,” we read on his Twitter account. And soon after: “At the airport, alone, contemplating on the start of a tour that will take me 25,000 miles around the world. Grateful.”

For the time being, these sound bites are all we’ll be getting from the London-born producer who currently operates from Vienna, and who calls himself S O H N (i.e., John with an “s”). He is currently preparing his first full album on the renowned 4AD label that is only slated to appear in 2014, and he is consequently not giving any interviews at the moment. His intelligent dance music, which alternates between a soft background of slowly slumbering delicate ambient layers of analogue and digital tones, soulfully speaks to your hips, but pulses especially to the rhythm of the heart.

If you’ve already been introduced to his fragile, trickling sound and his mysterious voice, via the EP The Wheel, for example, you’ll know why the space between the letters can sometimes also be very beautiful. Whether that space is dark or light is not so important. This is someone to whom harmonies are important – as a child he listened to Michael Jackson, Paul Simon, Fleetwood Mac, and Buddy Holly – but infuses them with something we might describe as very 2013 and yet also timeless somehow, precisely because he sounds so personal.

S O H N • 15/11, 19.30, SOLD OUT!, Botanique, Koningsstraat 236 rue Royale, Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, 02-218.37.32, www.botanique.be