As the branches of house music stretch further and further out across the universe of sub-genres, it's quite easy for many artists to be pigeonholed into this or that sound. It's seems quite the opposite for Brooklyn’s Nick Chacona. Over the years Nick’s productions have evolved into a mélange of styles from across the world of dance music, melding the arpeggiated sounds of Rimini, the trackiness of Chicago, the minimalism of Berlin, and the dubbed out vibes of Kingston, often all in the same song.
Nick began producing in 1999 but it was in 2003 that he released his tour de force in “Band Practice,” the b-side to his mysterious promo-only Pool Party project. The song effortlessly fused together all of Nick’s disparate influences - from punk to house to dub reggae - and formed the foundation of his future output. Discerning DJ heroes such as Harvey, Prins Thomas, the Idjut Boys and Rub N Tug supported “Band Practice” to no end, causing the limited run, promo-only 12” to become a much sought after commodity.
Since then, Nick’s produced for a wide breadth of respected labels, including Buzzin’ Fly, 2020 Vision, Saw, and Bearfunk, amongst others, provided the inaugural release for Prins Thomas’ much-hyped Internasjonal imprint. His music has been featured on some of the world’s top DJ mixes, including Ralph Lawson for Fabric, Danny Howells for Global Underground, Mark Farina for Ministry of Sound, Behrouz for Nervous, and Satoshi TomIie for Renaissance. The man’s been tapped by everyone from Fever Ray to the Compost, OM, Gomma and Tiny Sticks labels for remix work, and even the legendary Andrew Weatherall saw fit to include his rub of Fever Ray’s “Seven” on BBC Radio.
Despite Nick’s hectic production and DJ schedule, Nick runs the Hector Works label with childhood skateboarding buddy Anthony Mansfield, which primarily serves as a conduit for collaborative productions by the duo. Their quirky output has found favor with Dimitri from Paris, Doc Martin, and Greg Wilson, to name but a few. Speaking of dance music notables, Nick’s shared the bill with more than a few of them over the years. DJing since his teenage years, the former reggae-obsessive has traversed the globe, performing in such hotspots as Jakarta, Sao Paolo, Berlin, Barcelona, Warsaw, Ghent, Bucharest, and Stockholm, not to mention New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
