■ YOJI BIOMEHANIKA profile
In the late 1970s, the young man who would become YOJI BIOMEHANIKA immersed himself in advanced music such as noise, musique concrète, and overdubs. Later, he resonated with the futurist movement that rolled out in the ’80s amidst the evolution of digital technology in the form of MIDI. He found his identity in its technology-oriented, danceable sound-making opportunities and alternative appearance.
In the early ’90s, he started his career as a dance music producer and DJ under the name YOJI BIOMEHANIKA. He released numerous works on bleeding-edge labels in Germany and the UK as well as in Japan, and quickly gained attention. He rose to stardom as a leading figure in the NU-NRG scene and created a following known as “Hanikers”.
With the arrival of the Millennium in 2000, the NU ERA was filled with expectations for the dawning of a new future. YOJI BIOMEHANIKA expanded the stage of his activities globally, launching the label HELLHOUSE with London as its distribution base, and released a series of 12-inch singles of his original tracks. Each release has made the charts.
He has released many DJ MIX compilations in Japan and abroad, handpicking a list of popular DJs to participate.
In 2001, he released his first artist album ‘TECHNICOLOR NRG SHOW’ on avex (released overseas by ID&T in the Netherlands) and the first Japanese DJ live DVD ‘TECHNICOLOR NRG SHOWCASE’ in Japan. With a powerful stage presence and a string of original works that have become global anthems, he has jet-set across the globe to Western, Eastern and Central Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, where he broke out with an unprecedented run of performances including Mysteryland, Defqon-.1, Dance Valley, Tomorrowland, In Control, EDC, Creamfields, and many, many more.
He was the headliner at Sensation Black in Amsterdam for a groundbreaking two years in a row, and has frequently ranked in the DJ Mag Top 100, climbing to the 32nd position – unparalleled for a Japanese artist. In 2003, he won the Grand Prix at the Hard Dance Awards, established in the UK in its first year; and in 2011, he won two awards – Outstanding Contribution and Best International DJ Asia – in recognition of his contribution to the scene. His achievement in bringing hard electronic dance music from the underground to the mainstream market is a milestone in music history, and is one of the reasons why he is considered an industry legend.
He began performing under the artist name YOJI (without BIOMEHANIKA) since 2007, advocating a hybrid music style known as Tech Dance that shifts more toward techno. He has had many hits such as ‘SIX HOURS’, ‘TECHY TECHY’, ‘AIRPORT’, and others. After about seven years of musical exploration under this style, he returned to his identity performing a melodic big room sound.
In 2015 he returned to the name YOJI BIOMEHANIKA, rebooting his original persona with a full heart. He released his third album ‘CHAPTER X’ on avex EDM, his first album in 11 years, and all the single cuts from the album ranked highly on iTunes. In 2016, he launched the ‘BANGINGLOBE’ label (under dieTunes) as a platform for his overseas work. Releases from avex in Japan are released overseas on this label, and each release has entered the world dance charts. All three parts of the digital album ‘A QUARTER CENTURY OF YOJI BIOMEHANIKA’, a compilation of YOJI’s musical history released at the end of 2017, ranked in Beatport’s Top 5 albums.
In 2018, a rework of one of his signature tracks, ‘HARDSTYLE DISCO (2018 REVERSE BASS EDIT)’, was released and received a GOLD rating in a review from DJ Mag. The track is a huge anthem that continues to be loved by many artists around the world, and NWYR (W&W) performed a cover of the original track at Tomorrowland in 2017, where it became a scene sensation. The remix by Da Tweekaz and Sub Zero Project was released on avex EDM in Japan and Dirty Workz in Belgium, and became a mega hit.
In the same year, he supervised the production of Japan’s first major hardstyle compilation, ‘BANGINGLOBE PRESENTS SUPER HARDSTYLE’ (avex EDM), which reached No.1 on the iTunes dance chart on its first day of release.
