Ben Deitz is not just another pretty face. As honest as he is talented, the Bronx-born,
Brooklyn-based producer and DJ also known as Math Head and Passions is very direct when he talks about putting dreams of being a writer aside at the age of 17.

 “I’d just been kicked out of school, I was going through a lot of drug problems and I was getting sober around that time,” says the 20-something-year-old, pleasant and chatty despite spending his day shivering in an apartment with no heat.

 “I stopped writing because it almost seemed like a prerequisite that you had to be drunk all the time, and I started making music instead.”

Whatever his reasoning, this rocker-turned-raver — who cites influences ranging from Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine to The Prodigy, Metalheadz, DJ Shadow and DMX Crew — chose well in turning to the tools of a “cheap sampler and MPC drum machine.”

He began by creating atmospheric downtempo and IDM as Math Head, with his first track released in 2002. A number of singles and remixes for various labels followed, with Deitz branching into breakcore and dubstep productions while also dropping drum ’n’ bass and hip-hop as a club DJ.
He landed a European tour, but it wasn’t until the summer of 2006 that Deitz really started making noise. Two key things happened that season: he and high school friend Luca Venezia a.k.a. Drop the Lime started the Trouble & Bass label as well as throwing parties together, and Deitz started a second recording project.

Dubbed Passions, the “amorphous five-piece” with Deitz at the songwriting centre, has already had an underground smash with “Emergency,” a riotous electro-punk single released by French label Kitsune this past April. The song blew up on blogs and in clubs, and Passions’ recent remixes for The Teenagers, San Serac, Shit Disco and others secured the group’s place on the dancefloor.
 “At first, Passions was just about making music that I could play for anyone on the street and have them want to dance,” says Deitz of the project’s origins. “I just wanted to make fun party music. Now the focus has shifted towards more personal stuff.

 “The things that have been inspiring me the most have been a lot of late ’70s, early ’80s post-punk and pre-goth stuff, like early Cure and particularly Joy Division. I’ve always been inspired by New Order — to me they’re the perfect marriage of sentimentality with danceability — and I feel that more and more I’m moving towards wanting to make music that evokes an emotional space. A lot of the new stuff we’re working on is darker and isn’t even really made for dancing. I’m still making dance-oriented tracks, but there are more intense things that I also want to express. I just finished a remix for Fischerspooner, which is the first thing heading in that direction.

 “I guess the point is that I want to make music, not just tracks,” Deitz quietly concludes. “Also, I honestly think that people will move away from the ‘Neon, parties, drugs, yeah!’ mentality. Not that it’s bad, but I think you can’t have that solely. I know that I can’t.”

Clearly working to balance his interests both as a person and producer, Deitz does not care to align himself with any one sound or superficial understandings of club scenes. I appreciate his introspection and the fact that he cares to push both Math Head and Passions beyond the confines of grime, dubstep, nu rave or any of the other genre tags he’s currently associated with.

That said, Deitz doesn’t distance himself from clubbing; in fact, he heats up when telling tales of performing live PAs outside New York and DJing within the city, especially at the incendiary Trouble & Bass parties.

 “The way I’ve seen people lose control is amazing and it’s exactly how I want parties to go,” he enthuses. “People hang on the walls they’re so excited and so unable to contain themselves! It’s an amazing thing to see and I think that’s what dance music should provide to people — that moment where you’re no longer in your head and it’s pure muscle reaction. Amazingly, we’ve been able to provide that, and we get to feed off of people’s energy in return. Now the bar has been raised really high for what I think a good party should be.”