Ne.Hau Brings Audio Art to It'll Do Club With Massane

Ne.Hau, the deep-tech duo of Brazilian-Texan Ren Albieri and Colorado native Danny Marin, recently dropped a three-track EP just in time for a Friday, June 7, date opening at It’ll Do Club. The Void of Course EP is a trio of stompers rich with doorbell chimes, snare drum rolls and outer space tones.

Ne.Hau typically play originals exclusively in their sets, and while their catalog is varied, these two were DJs first and are skilled at creating pieces of audio art. At Dallas’ favorite little sweatbox on Friday, Marin and Albieri join a bill with headliner Massane for Big D double debuts.

The 2009-ish Afrojack-fueled Dutch house sound inspired Danny Marin to reach greater musical heights and enroll at the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences (CRAS) in Tempe, Arizona. Marin’s eventual music partner Ren Albieri arrived at CRAS from Dallas for similar reasons, but mainly the two DJ-producers simply wanted to improve as musicians. They wanted to make dance music with meaning and lasting power and weren’t so interested in jockeying the latest trend. Then on a random afternoon after class while chatting with friends, Marin overheard the mention of a DJ Mark Farina show in Phoenix from across the courtyard.

“Not that I’m a huge Mark Farina fan, but there weren’t many electronic musicians at CRAS. Most played guitar, keys or drums, but when I heard ‘Mark Farina,’ I went to learn more, and that’s when Ren and I met,” Marin says. “We ended up going to the Farina show, got to know each other, both graduated from the music school and officially formed our minimal-deep techno project Ne.Hau around 2013.”

Electronic music genres are cyclical by nature, and Marin has seen them all since he started DJing in the late '90s in his hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado. He prefers bass-heavy breaks from the U.K. with little “IMPORT” stickers on the CD jewel cases and was inspired by James Zabiela and DJ Hyper. He worked at The Finest CDs Tapes and Records shop near Colorado State University to support his music addiction. Pre Soundcloud, Marin was the first to receive and hear the freshest dance music, which he shared with Colorado dance floors.

Some years of turntablism yielded a Red Bull DJ contest title, but Marin was most comfortable playing proper dance music at festivals and underground events all over Colorado and around the U.S. As a solo DJ, remixer and producer, he has established himself as a fixture on the Colorado dance music scene for more than two decades. 

“I knew what I liked, and I knew what inspired me. I wasn’t hearing it at venues in Colorado, and that’s when I decided I needed to improve as a musician and produce the music I wanted to hear,” Marin says of his move to music school in Arizona and the creation of Ne.Hau.

The other half of Ne.Hau, Ren Albieri, is now based in Dallas and has his own war stories. He was 16 when he joined David Guetta in the DJ booth at the club Pacha in Ibiza in 2007. Albieri’s father was part of the Pacha management team and active at its White Isle and São Paulo locations, which helped spring his career. From that moment, Albieri regularly bought equipment and bounced around the world as a DJ-musician nomad.

“My first trips to Ibiza were incredibly inspirational. Guetta hosted a party at Pacha. His sound then wasn’t so hip hop and mainstream. He’s an incredible DJ. And Erik Morillo had a night, too, and I’ll never forget him on the CDJ1000’s working four decks, and he had CDs all over the booth with no labels. It was chaos and incredible,” Albieri says.
Ibiza is seductive, and Albieri fell in love with all aspects of dance music culture on Ventana Beach. Drum circles start in the afternoon there every day and peak as the sun dips into the ocean. Albieri returned to the island for the next few summers and came back a better DJ each time. He shuttled Euro tourists around during the day and played gigs at night under the moniker DJ Dirtyclean. He regularly played 8 a.m. gigs at Tox Club and in 2013 opened for a relatively unknown newcomer on the isle named Solomun.

Between Ibiza summers, there were stints in Brazil, Oregon, Miami and Austin. Albieri was sort of crate-digging around the world and subconsciously marching for the Ne.Hau grooves.

Ne.Hau has a literal and whimsical meaning. In Chinese, “ni hau” means hello, but it conjures other memories for the duo. Denver’s music scene has more interesting characters than Colorado has Californians, and the “anyhow guy” is one of those. Through the years, Marin has worked with every stage, sound and lighting person in the town, including the “anyhow guy” who’s one of those odd, adorable creatures of the scene.

“I’ve worked with him on sound equipment for years, and it’s always the same. As he makes his exit, he will serenade the room with a big ‘anyhow’ and then he leaves,” Marin says with a laugh. “He’s just one of those people that makes our community so damn interesting.”

Since forming, Ne.Hau has released more than 100 tracks on the who’s who of underground labels SUPERFREQ, Deeplomatic, Mavic Music and others. The duo has upcoming gigs in Austin, El Paso, Costa Rica and Tulum, and their latest EP is available on Bandcamp.

All music fans evolve through the years, and Ne.Hau is no different. Both Marin and Albieri still play shows as solo DJs, but when they get together, it means more. Together they produce music at an elite level. It’s a gear they didn’t have before they went to music school, and now they can create and share music with dancefloors that meet their standards.

Massane, with Ne.Hau, plays at 9 p.m. at It'll Do Club, 4322 Elm St. General admission tickets are $13 on Eventbrite.