Promessed You A Miracle

Combine Daft Punk’s eccentricity and Justice’s religious imagery with soulful house and deep bass and you have the latest French electronic star – that mysterious DJ/producer Tchami, AKA Martin Bresso, who wears a priestly collar.

Bresso has made a huge impact in a short time with his “future house”. But, Bresso insists, he isn’t a dogmatic musical missionary.

“My mission, if I had one, would be to stay true to myself. It’s that simple. I want to keep my music evolving and explore new musical territories, so I just hope to keep it relevant.”

The Parisian, who acquired the name Tchami while travelling somewhere in Africa, maintains his mystique in interviews, requesting they be done by e-mail.

“I don’t feel mysterious with my biography [but] I understand curiosity,” he says. “‘Tchami’ is my first project as an artist. Everything that happened before led me to who I am today.” Oddly, there is a Martin Bresso credited on Lady GaGa’s ARTPOP… At any rate, ‘Tchami’ captured cyber house kids’ attention in 2013 with his Daft Punky remix of Janet Jackson’s Go Deep (a single off her last great album, The Velvet Rope). He’d then premiere an original tune, Promesses (featuring London vocalist Kaleem Taylor), on A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold, followed by an EP also entailing Shot Caller.

Beyond that, Bresso’s antecedents remain murky. He began DJing on vinyl but doesn’t say when. On SoundCloud, Bresso has a “tribute” to Chicago legend Marshall Jefferson’s mid-’80s piano house classic Move Your Body and he deems it important that fans (and other DJs) know the history of the music. “But don’t misunderstand me; I’m all about breaking the rules also.”

Bresso has touted his music as “future house”, but it’s more a philosophy than a sound, per se. The DJ concedes some have misunderstood what he meant by the term.

“It wasn’t meant to be a ‘genre’. Basically, ‘future house’ is about making house music blended with something that doesn’t exist in this genre yet. That’s why I called it future house.” Perhaps the biggest question is why Bresso, who recently uploaded a mix titled Confessions, styles himself as a minister. “It’s just the way I am and I wanted to show a spiritual side – in the largest possible way – with my music. And I love the outfit.”

Bresso, who last aired Untrue, is open to recording an album – “if I feel I’d have the maturity to do so”. He’s not necessarily a purist, either.

Bresso supported the EDM mega-star Skrillex mid-year and will tour the US with him next month. “Skrillex has been doing big things for years now and he also has an underground and open mind – which is fully compatible with today’s music scene. I think he started to play some of my songs and I guess he wanted me spinning on some gigs with him.”