Basto!

Born in Hoogstraten, Belgium, Jef Martens has been developing since the mid-2000s the project Basto!, rooted in an electro house and progressive house aesthetic with clear melodic lines and a marked taste for club builds and choruses designed for large format dance. After a notable debut in the Belgian and Dutch circuits with Rock With You in 2005, followed by On My Own with Peter Luts in 2008, Basto! broadened his audience in the early 2010s thanks to the singles Gregory's Theme and Again and Again in 2011. His career also includes several aliases, including Lazy Jay, used especially with his brother Toon Martens for the production of 212 by Azealia Banks in 2011. Parallel to his solo releases, Basto works as a producer and remixer for artists and projects linked to the dance and pop scene, from Lasgo to Kylie Minogue, Moby or Sander van Doorn, and participates in the writing or production of tracks broadcast far beyond the Belgian scene. His album Live Tonight appeared in 2013, followed later by the EP 1 in 2017 and Sunrise / Shut Your Eyes in 2018. Since then, Basto has pursued regular activity between singles, collaborations and DJ sets, in a direct, melodic electronic style oriented toward the dancefloor.