Dutch producer Mason‘s musical output has spanned house, electro, funk, hip-hop, and disco over the years, but he will be forever associated with Exceeder, the crossover smash – later released as Perfect (Exceeder) with Princess Superstar – that stormed dancefloors 20 years ago this year.
Over the years, he’s collaborated with the likes of Roisin Murphy, Shingai Shoniwa (The Noisettes), Aqualung, Rouge Mary (Hercules & Love Affair) and Jocelyn Brown, while hip-hop legends such as Daryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels, Kurtis Blow, Bam of The Jungle Brothers and Sway have also found their way onto his tracks, with his label Animal Language representing a musical menagerie for his weird and wonderful creations.
Last month, he relaunched his Nite Rites series on Animal Language with the release of Nite Rite Alpha – check it out here. As with previous editions of the series, the focus is on deliberately left-of-centre club records, without constraints. With every fourth release on the series, an EP will be compiled and released on vinyl.
To mark the relaunch of the series, and in typical idiosyncratic fashion, Mason will offer a free music gateway each time the moon is full, including a track from the Nite Rites series and exclusive merch.
909originals caught up with Mason to discuss the resurrection of the Nite Rites series, his approach to production, his Rekorder Studios complex in Amsterdam, and the legacy of Exceeder, two decades on.
Hi Mason, thanks for talking to us. What led you to resurrect the Nite Rites series?
I try not to limit myself too much in the studio. I enjoy making more pop-leaning singles from time to time – I’m a sucker for songwriting at heart. I always really enjoy collaborating with vocalists, writers, and musicians, as that’s very much part of my background.
That said, I’m a DJ first and foremost, so I also like to put out club tools now and then – the kind of tracks I’d want in my own sets. I made a number of Nite Rites releases years ago, and they were a lot of fun because of their completely open, anything-goes approach, without any compromises.
You’ve deliberately positioned the Nite Rites series as ‘oddball club tools’ that will take the form of whatever the heck I feel like’. Would it be fair to say that this is a project without a defined strategy, ‘more a case of see where the journey takes you’?
Absolutely. Having my own Animal Language label gives me the freedom to release whatever I feel like whenever I feel like, without constraints. It naturally ends up sitting slightly left of centre – spanning a broad spectrum of indie house club music.
Your production process – creating fast demos and revisiting them later – must keep things interesting?
I see creativity as a muscle – you have to keep training it. Whether you’re a painter or a musician, the key is to keep creating and see where it leads. Not everything will be great, and that’s part of the process you need to embrace.
You often need to work through a lot of average ideas to arrive at something truly special, and you have to be willing to let things go along the way – ‘kill your darlings’ so to speak. When it clicks, it’s worth the wait. I think I release max. 1% o f the music I make.
The rest is.. eh well.. for my kids to figure out what to do with once I’m gone. But I also recycle bits and pieces – some ideas suck, but do have a good rhythmical element or little melody hook that you then use for something else.
What makes you decide whether a project is worth revisiting?
When you know, you know. These days, you can make almost anything sound phat and polished sounding, but if the core idea isn’t strong, you’re just polishing a turd.. I only finish records I genuinely believe in creatively.
Whether they connect with the market is another story – but first and foremost, I make music for myself.
You’ve just opened Rekorder Studios in Amsterdam – a massive undertaking. What gap in the market were you aiming to fill? What are your long-term plans for the studio?
We set out to build a community for professional songwriters, mixing engineers, and artists. The demand was clear – we quickly filled all 15 rooms, 12 of which are high-end, custom-built studios designed around the needs of the tenants. There’s now a growing waiting list, so we’re exploring the possibility of opening another location in a different city.
On a personal level, it’s also allowed me to create my own dream studio, which is a joy to work in every day. Being surrounded by so many talented people within one building has been a long dream and is incredibly inspiring.
Us composers and producers tend to stay in our own bubble, but to have people around to ask for feedback, help, or throw little ideas back and forth priceless.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Exceeder – arguably the track that defined you as a producer. It arrived quite early in your career – were you still trying to refine your sound?
I’ve never been too concerned with defining or sticking to a specific sound. I just make whatever feels fresh and right in the moment – and not the same like others are doing.
Back then, we were running Electronation events – electro parties across the Netherlands starting around 2004, with artists like Anthony Rother, The Hacker, and Oxia. Way before electro house became a thing – let alone the EDM turn later on for some of it.
As a resident, I naturally leaned toward the lighter side of electro, and Exceeder came out of playing those parties week in, week out. It really captured the energy of that scene at that time.
I read somewhere that Exceeder was largely produced in your kitchen? Do you think that lack of technical constraint actually contributed to the originality of the track?
It was indeed made on just a Mac in my kitchen, as I was moving from one studio to another. Production wise, quite rough in terms of production and mix. But I also think that gave it a certain charm and character.
Of course, there’s a place for polished, perfectly mixed records – especially in pop – but sometimes that can strip away the raw edge that makes a track special. It’s not always the right approach to aim for perfection – pun intended – in a mix.
Within a few months of Exceeder going interstellar, Perfect (Exceeder) emerged to give the track even more longevity. How did that bootleg originally come about?
The instrumental was already doing everything a club track could do in 2006 – top of the charts, huge in Ibiza, everywhere really. So it made sense to create a version that could work on radio. I tried a few ideas, but nothing quite landed.
At the time, blogs were massive, and there were loads of mashups floating around. One pairing with Princess Superstar’s Perfect stood out, even though it was rough jolted on top of each other.
I was already familiar with her work and had seen her perform, so I reached out to her directly. We re-recorded the vocals and properly developed the mashup from there, to release on Ministry of Sound.
What was the craziest thing to happen to you at the height of Exceeder‘s success?
I’ve seen that some people have even tattooed the track title onto their bodies, which is pretty surreal. Touring also had its wild moments – like playing and flying between four different cities within 24 hours.
But touring is always an adventure: I’ve been playing at military bases, at events for ‘small people’ only, been arrested as a DJ, been assaulted on stage, been playing in dodgy mafia type places, as well as for the richest of the richest. I’ll write a book someday, when Im old.
When did you become aware that Perfect (Exceeder) was going to be used in Saltburn, and what was the response like after the movie took off?
It was quite surreal. The track had been used in films, TV shows, and games many times before like any known record, but nothing had this kind of impact. I noticed a small spike in streams at some point, and my manager suspected it might be linked to a film we’d licensed it to – something I’d honestly forgotten about.
Then the numbers started doubling every day. Over the Christmas period, the team at Armada Music really got behind it, pushing it further with new mixes and momentum. I’m very aware revivals like this are rare, so it was amazing to experience.
Has it been difficult to distance yourself from being ‘the guy that made Exceeder‘, or have you embraced it?
In the second half of the 2000s that identity was a bit unavoidable, and it completely changed my life – suddenly I was touring the world non-stop.
But over time, I think people who follow my music have come to understand the broader scope of what I do. It’s totally fine if someone on the street only knows Perfect (Exceeder) – but my core audience is aware of the bigger picture, and luckily a bunch of other records done well too.
Maybe not in the hundreds of millions streams like Exceeder, but still millions – which I’m incredibly grateful for.
You’ve built a career on resisting being boxed into one sound – do you think you would have been able to have such creative freedom if it wasn’t for the success of Exceeder so early in your career?
That early success definitely gave me the freedom to explore creatively and not being stressed by paying the rent —who knows how things might have unfolded otherwise?
But I strongly believe that longevity comes from making music that feels genuine, fresh, and original, rather than chasing trends or writing for the market. Life’s too short to be preoccupied with that.
Thanks to Mason for talking to us. Check out Nite Rite Alpha here. Keep up to date with his latest releases here.