Grammy-nominated electronic producer
Mat Zo (
Matan Zohar) crafts a heady blend of trance, house, and neo-disco inspired by his love of '90s big beat artists
the Chemical Brothers and French house icons
Daft Punk. Making his slow ascent with a long string of EPs and an
Anjunabeats compilation, he issued his official full-length debut,
Damage Control, in 2013.
Born in London in 1990,
Zohar is the son of painter
Israel Zohar and violinist Wendy Caron Zohar, and the brother of singer Alma Zohar. Surrounded by a talented and musically inclined family, the young
Zohar first picked up a musical instrument at the age of eight after his father gave him a guitar as a birthday present. He lived in Cleveland, Ohio until the age of 11, at which point
Zohar returned to London and further explored his musical interests by forming bands and playing drums and bass. In his mid-teens, however, his attention shifted toward electronic dance music, with acts such as
the Chemical Brothers and
Daft Punk providing a significant influence.
Zohar began DJ'ing around London and soon progressed to producing his own material.
Creating catchy trance and progressive house, he released his first single, "Exodus," on a:LOUD Recordings at the age of 16. Soon enough, his productions captured the attention of established scene DJs such as Airwave,
Andy Moor, and Markus Schultz, who would play his tracks throughout the latter 2000s. It was during this same period that major trance producers
Above & Beyond and
Lange were praising his talents, and
Zohar continued to issue remixes and 12" releases. When not producing euphoric trance,
Zohar recorded drum'n'bass under the pseudonym MRSA on Hospital Records.
He soon found a home on the dance label
Anjunabeats and issued several solo ventures and mixes. He saw his stock rise further when a collaborative track with
Porter Robinson called "Go Easy" topped the Beatport Charts in 2012. That track would appear on his debut LP, which arrived in 2013, topping the Billboard Heatseekers chart.
Damage Control went on to receive a Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronic Album and featured appearances by
Public Enemy's
Chuck D and singer
Rachel Collier.
Zohar returned three years later with Self Assemble -- released on his own Mad Zoo label -- which featured
I See Monstas and Sinead Egan. The three-song Mad EP followed months later. Before returning to his own solo material, he branched out with a pair of electronic collaborations: Kill the Zo with
Kill the Noise and
the Mary Nixons with
the Knocks. Those projects kept him occupied until 2018, when he issued the single "Vice" and the No Words EP. The next year, he released another EP, Tracing Steps.
Zohar's third full-length album,
Illusion of Depth, arrived in October 2020 on
Anjunabeats. ~ Aneet Nijjar & Neil Z. Yeung