Soda Inc

 

Babak Shayan was born in Teheran, Iran.Due to the effects of the Iran-Iraq war, Babak went to Germany in 1985.His love to music started in the early days of his childhood with artists such as Depeche ode, Yello, OMD but thanks to his new residence, the music that was avantgarde then became accessible for him. He went into heavy music collecting, making it possible to experience the concept of DJing just one year later: beginning in 1986, he spread mixtapes among his schoolmates and was soon a requested DJ for an audience that was much more older than he himself. He played in clubs where he would not have been allowed to enter because of his age. Consequently, his love for music led him on the way to creating music. In 1998, he got the gear to get some tracks done and after gaining some experience in that field, Babak had his first release on the renowned TechHouse imprint Plastic City. His first Dualists productions found their way into the cases of many DJs and many compilations and propelled him to the top of Germany’s techhouse scene. While being on the producer’s side, he did not forget about DJing and while he developed the musical concept for Heidelberg’s Bar1, it was plain to see that a conserved form of his DJ sets there would find a broad audience. The Bar1 compilation series was born and Babak’s reputation as dj,producer and skilled arranger sky rocketed after the appearance of his reknowned Bar1-Mix-CD. The success story continues as the mix CD heads into volume 7 while having a strong impact on the deep Techhouse sound over the years. In 2001, when Babak was working as A&R for Plastic City (with hi class signings like Cevin Fisher, The Kelly Project and others), he got in touch with Jost Gerischer and immediate sympathy made the two guys do a lot of stuff together. The Basil project was born as well as Soda Inc. (of which the second should find its way back to Plastic City in 2004). It revealed to be a good preparation when UCMG (the company that held labels like Plastic City among many others) went broke in 2002. Babak moved to Cologne and founded his own label Shayan Music in 2003.Besides all of his projects and music-making Babak plays as DJ at international festivals and clubs regularly. Jost, as Jon's real name is, was born in Dresden, Germany in the hot summer of 1976. He lived there until 1984 when his parents decided to leave the then communist system in the eastern part of Germany. For a long time, he lived in the Stuttgart area in the southwest of Germany. When the time for first touches with nightlife had come, Stuttgart then was known as some kind of house city in Germany, offering legendary clubs such as the Red Dog, The M1, OZ or Nexus. Having learned to play the transverse flute at early ages, he discovered that playing music someone else had written down was not his focus. His first moves towards making music of his own began in 1989 with an Amiga500 computer connected to a portable keyboard (the Yamaha PSR-3500 for you techies). Still, tape recordings of his first overdubs done with two ghetto blasters exist. Still being a student at school in 1994, he got to know Len Faki aka DJ Lamonde, who should be his mate for the coming years. The two made music every day and when Jost was about to pass his a-levels, he already had brought out several 12" records. He did not study but went even deeper into music. Together with Len, he produced quite a pile of maxi singles, albums and remixes. In 1997, the two founded the label monoid with a focus on groovy Techno stuff and shortly after, they also brought the label [feis] to birth. In 2001, UCMG, the company that held labels like monoid [feis], Plastic City and many others went broke. The time was right to get pesto started. Jost went on to release stuff on his very own imprint Pesto, now with a stress on quality deep house bundled with singing and songwriting.