Only a few days to go until KEYI Magazine is back at Berghain Säule on 27 August, bringing Bézier, L.F.T., Samantha Togni and Oppenheimer MKII together for a night of sound and movement.
are you in town?
Ahead of the showcase, Bézier takes us through the experiences and influences behind his musical world, from growing up in Southern California and finding community in San Francisco’s queer underground to reconnecting with his Taiwanese roots and developing his sound across East Asia. We also dive into his Berlin-based projects, label work and what he has in store for the Säule dance floor.
Who is Bézier?
Bézier is a ripple. It’s a sine wave moving in perpetuity. The music combines lineages, history and training, education to form my musical signature. It is the result of averaging multiple streams into one singular perspective.
How did California and especially San Francisco’s queer underground shape your musical identity?
Being in California I lived in proximity to the entertainment industry. There were aspiring child actors that attended my elementary school who had appearances on tv. Having access to all kinds of entertainment including music–from NIN to psychedelic rock, to brit pop imports to eventually discovering the Warp label at a Tower Records store in Newport Beach led me in this direction.
Moving to San Francisco soon after I came out of the closet and became more immersed in nightlife working with other nerds obsessed with synth music.
How have your Taiwanese roots influenced the way you understand identity, memory and belonging?
Growing up I felt very alienated from my own classmates. We had a very large Taiwanese-American community at my high school down to an “Asian parking lot” where all the spaces were filled with Honda Civics and Acura Integras.
I was very uncomfortable with myself the whole time being closeted, gay and stuck out like a sore thumb with repressed queer mannerisms. The suburb I grew up in was stifling. I didn’t feel welcomed at all. I think my presence made a lot of people uncomfortable. This forced me to look around smaller pockets for friends and as a result shaped my musical path in a very expansive way.
Your release 府城 (Fǔchéng) explores your ancestry and family lineage. What led you to translate this personal history into sound?
I have no history or background growing up in Taiwan. I wished I knew what life was like in Taipei between the 80s up until the early 2000s. I romanticize it sometimes, obviously not the day to day realities.
When I travelled Asia in 2016 for the first time as an adult, I wanted to dive in to understand existence other than what was in view for most of my life in Southern California. Visiting my mother’s childhood home I looked at traces of existence in photographs, rooms, streets and neighborhoods.
I tried to place myself in a different timeline where this was a place I’d call home. That formed the foundation of building a new sound vocabulary.
Do Taiwanese musical traditions, landscapes or family memories consciously enter your productions or do they emerge more intuitively?
Between 2016 and 2018 I placed myself in an environment and state of being as an artist living in Asia. More important, I wanted to make a strong connection to queer folks in East Asia. This was a huge black box for me and there are only a few spaces that actively welcome people like us in the world.
I travelled between Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong and China soaking in the sounds and what I could experience as contemporary electronic music. Making new friends I was introduced to the queer underground in a lot of cities I visited. This is how I came to interpret the sounds in what I would eventually make with 府城 (Fǔchéng).
Your work moves between softness and intensity, nostalgia and futurism. What connects these contrasts for you?
For me it’s reconciling dissonance in an artful and musical way. I grew up in Southern California training with Jazz musicians from 8 until I was 16 years old. The gaps in meaning between what is heard and what is not expressed is what I try to bridge in my work as a composer.
From braindance and IDM to Italo, EBM and techno, what are you most curious to explore right now?
Fascination with alchemy drives me to create. I’m looking for sustained reactions between elements in sound and composition that sound fresh to my ears.
All these genres are merely ingredients I sprinkle to the mix.
Bézier, Bodyzone and 羅伯特 each reveal a different facet of your practice. How do you decide which identity a new piece of music belongs to?
Bézier involved more thought process. The more I progress with this path the more I try to incorporate the music I loved growing up.
Bodyzone is improvisational one off compositions. It is a way to deprogram my own biases as to how my workflow should be.
羅伯特 continues with what I worked on with Fucheng and the releases at this point are all the B-Sides of those recording sessions.
Your labels Bodyzone, m-i-v and Piece of Work each carry their own histories and intentions. What can a label express that a single release cannot?
Each label for me explores a different approach to art collaboration with artists, photographers and specific themes.
These labels started during the outset of Covid lockdowns and was my way to refocus the practice. I really wanted to change how I pursue music after experiencing a very hectic tour schedule mindlessly running the gamut.
Analog synthesizers are central to your richly textured sound. Do you usually begin with a machine, a mood, a rhythm or an imagined scene?
I always start my projects by painting a picture in my head. And then whatever is in front of me– a keyboard, drum machine, bass guitar or effects pedal I start giving shape to the visuals through design putting it on paper.
DJ, producer, live act and label curator—which role feels most urgent to you right now?
I’m actively juggling a few event series with Berlin fam. I work on Gentle Reminder, Leatherette and BB_Only!.
Today it makes sense to focus on building things here in Berlin. It is something I have never stopped working on since I organized my first events in San Francisco.
A new label I started with my husband Len.Leo ‘Körperspannung’ is an adventure in physical music formats we’re starting up on here in Berlin. Our 5th release XELTA featuring our friends Sharlese Metcalf from Seattle and Bruno Coviello from New York.
What are you bringing to KEYI Magazine’s showcase at Säule on 27 August?
Night time romantic music, darkness and light, lyrics and poetry.
How does Säule’s intimate, industrial atmosphere influence what you choose to play?
I had a few opportunities to play Lab Dance and I love the interplay between what comes out of the sound system to what is reflected back to the crowd as tracks weave around the pillars. I plan on playing music that builds atmosphere in the space, but also to make sure the music makes the walls sing.
What side of Bézier will the audience experience that night?
A wild good time 🙂
Follow Bézier on IG
Tickets available : click here …
Our next event : Säule, Berghain – 27.08.2026
