Mateo & Matos

One of the most gifted and focused production teams in the New York house underground, John "Roc" Mateo and Eddie "E-Z" Matos were both educated in the warm vibe of disco first-hand by listening to classic DJs on New York radio during the late '70s, among them Shep Pettibone, Tony Humphries and Jonathan Fearing. That original link from disco informed their own productions for Henry Street, NiteGrooves, Nervous and a host of other labels during the 1990s. The pair first met in 1985 and became DJ partners soon after. Later that year, they were introduced "Little" Louie Vega (several years before he joined Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez to become Masters at Work) and learned much from Vega about recording-studio protocol, including production and engineering. Mateo & Matos earned their first high-profile DJ gig at Hector Cruz's mobile House Nation club and spent much of the rest of the 1980s DJing in a variety of locales. By 1989, the duo began using what they'd learned from "Little" Louie Vega in their own productions. After recording half-a-dozen singles for their own Final Cut Records, Mateo & Matos' reputation began to spread and they recorded for Oxygen Music Works, Henry Street, Nervous, NiteGrooves, and Spiritual Life during the mid-'90s. Their debut production album, New York Rhythms, appeared on Scotland's Glasgow Underground label in 1997. One year later, the second volume appeared. In 1999, The Many Shades of Mateo & Matos earned domestic distribution through Glasgow Underground. ~ John Bush, Rovi