Matoma brings tropical to L.A.

              Tropical house has seen a wave of mainstream uptake in recent months through the success of producers like Thomas Jack and Kygo. For the past year, the Norwegian producer Matoma has been introducing his own flair to the tropical house craze, appealing to audiences through his dreamy revisits of nostalgia-inducing hits from artists like Sean Paul and Snoop Dogg. Touching down from New York where he played at Webster Hall the night earlier, Matoma showed no signs of jet-lag as he took the stage at the El Rey in Los Angeles this past Saturday night on March 7 for the closing event on his debut U.S. tour.

              I had the opportunity to speak with him before the show, and sensed the endearing warmth he has for his fans. The producer from Norway felt grateful for the opportunity to travel after spending the past year building a following on SoundCloud.

             “Look at the crowd outside tonight,” he murmured, wide-eyed with anticipation as he began walking towards the stage. The openers, Petey Clicks and Neo Fresco, did a great job loosening the audience for Matoma’s arrival, and they were ready to dance from the beginning of Matoma’s set onward. It was a lighter show: not about grandiose lighting, but more about sensual crowd vibes, and who you were with. The staging was minimal: two palm trees, one on each side of his DJ booth, with multi-colored spotlights trailing along them. His stage production captured the essential energy of his sparse, string-plucked music, and as soon as he stepped onto the booth, the whole room could feel him.

               For more than 90 minutes, the crowd basked in his sun-kissed grooviness, The first hour of his set included a lot of tightly-curated deep house selections, glued together by a bevy of unreleased original music. It was his deftness at invoking nostalgia, however, that defined the smooth build of energy he accomplished throughout the set.

               Covers of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and the Sam Smith-featuring “La La La” energized the crowd, but it was nothing compared to the moment he dropped the Aston Shuffle’s remix of the Young Money smash “Truffle Butter” (featuring Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, & Drake). The entire crowd went berserk, the response seeming to be a cathartic release of emotion that Matoma had been building up over the past half-hour. The set’s last half-hour was jam-packed, starting with the unexpected Jack Ü/Justin Bieber thumper “Where Are Ü Now” before jumping around to Matoma’s remixes of Eminem’s “Business” to The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Big Poppa.” Indeed, Matoma cites Biggie as one of his biggest influences — perhaps that’s why he chose to save so much of his voluminous Biggie back-catalog for the end.

               After he went about five minutes overtime, the venue’s operators began closing the curtains, but Matoma pleaded for two more minutes for his fans. They granted his request, allowing him to close the set in high fashion with another B.I.G. remix (“Old Time Back”). Even when the show ended, the crowd persisted through their incessant chants: “one more song!” Though Matoma couldn’t oblige with his music, he could certainly maintain his presence.

               He rushed outside the venue so that he could say goodbye, take several pictures and wish his audience a safe ride onward. Even at the close of a nationwide tour, his grace and excitement beamed through as hallmarks of his refreshing personality.

                “All I want to do is spread my energy and show love for my fans,” he had told me earlier before stepping onto the stage. With upcoming gigs at Ultra Music Festival and Electric Forest this year, among others, Matoma stands on the first step of what will surely be an exciting climb.