Javier Lloret de Muller, known by his artist and DJ name Kastelo, has made a name for himself in the electronic dance music scene, thanks to his impressive production skills, high-energy performances, and notable achievements.
One of his most notable achievements is producing, co-writing and remixing the record “Giving It All” for NERVO, which was released on October 7, 2022, by the renowned label Thrive Music. The record received critical acclaim and was ranked as one of the “Top 10 records by ‘NERVO‘ of All Time” by Cultr Magazine. It was also supported by several major editorial playlists on Spotify, Apple, and Deezer, including “New Music Friday Dance“, “Future Dance Hits” and “New Dance“. The song was even supported on our BOTR, during episode 178.
In addition to his work with NERVO, Javier has also produced records for the Eurovision Song Contest, including “YOU” for the North Macedonian candidate Vasil in 2020. The song was widely praised and received coverage in several media outlets, including Eurovision TV.
Over 15 million streams around the world
As a main artist under the name Kastelo, Javier Lloret de Muller has released several notable singles, gathering over 15 million global streams on DSPs (Digital Streaming Platforms), and getting the records played by more than 50 international DJs on their shows.
“Coconut” with WEiRD GRRL was the first one to get the industry’s attention, released on the renowned label HEXAGON, founded by superstar World’s Top #9 DJ Don Diablo. The song was played by several high-profile DJs, including David Guetta, Afrojack and Timmy Trumpet.
Another notable single release by Kastelo is “Time” with Tom Budin, which was released on the renowned label SINK OR SWIM, run by #1 Dance Label Spinnin’ Records firm, and founded in collaboration with well-known DJ GUZ.
These records along with ‘Slow Down’, ‘Relax, Take It Easy’, and the rest of his catalog have put Kastelo’s music on Beatport’s Charts peaking #18 Future House, #10 Hype Picks: Tech House, #25 Bass House, and 33 iTunes charts with Top 100 Dance peaks in 21 countries.
This is a significant achievement since the Beatport Top 100 charts are widely regarded as an industry standard for measuring the popularity of electronic dance music.
Shows and performances
Javier Lloret De Muller has also performed at several notable events under his artist project ‘Kastelo’: at E11EVEN Miami, he performed alongside NERVO at one of the most high profile nightclubs in Miami, which has hosted some of the biggest award winning names in the music industry, including Drake, Diplo, and Calvin Harris.
At the F1 Barcelona Circuit for the Moto GP Race, he was a stage DJ at The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, showcasing his skills at one of the most notable and publicized racing events in the world. Additionally, he has performed for an audience of 2,500 people at the Spring Breakaway Festival in Puerto Vallarta (Mexico), sharing the stage with internationally acclaimed DJs and producers Loud Luxury and Dombresky.
In 2022, Kastelo joined #2 Billboard Latin Producer Tainy and Lex Borrero’s NEON16’s newly formed Electronic Division. Dubbed ‘About Last Night’, this new division focusing on fusing commercial house music with the Latin entertainment world. Kastelo was one of the first artists to join the management roster, and will be releasing the first electronic record under his new management at NEON16.
Read the interview with Kastelo
How did you come up with the name Kastelo?
This one was a ride actually. Once my music began reaching a global audience, I realized that my previous aliases were hard to pronounce, remember, and to write for people with different cultural backgrounds. So I had to look for something new that identified me as a musical creator. Originally there was a list over 100 names I made up, but none of them really resonated with me as Javier.
So I had an idea: why not just look into the name I was given? I did some research and apparently ‘Javier’ comes from the old Euskera language (in the North of Spain), and it meant ‘Castle’. Since that was not attractive enough, I translated ‘Castle’ into all the available languages on Google Translate until one of them met all the criteria – ‘Kastelo’ was the result, in the Esperanto language.
You are well known in Europe and also Latin America, as your music has ranked in the top 10 Dance songs on iTunes in Panama, Norway, Slovakia, among other countries. How did you get approached to produce music by global DJ’s?
Every collaboration has a different story in the background. Most of the times the approach is an organic process where someone introduces me to an artist/producer who might be interested in working together on a project. That person then might know someone else who jumps on the record, etc. That’s how things usually go in the studio or music conferences like ADE or Miami Music Week.
On the other hand, there’s the business-type approach where management teams, publishers or labels reach out to each other to set up production sessions or just send music around. The electronic music industry is very spread out genre country-wise, people from all around the world work together, so Zoom sessions or bouncing stems via emai or text are pretty common ways of working with global DJs.
Can you describe the style of music that you find resonates with audiences across the globe?
Audiences are quite different from one country to another. In Spain when I played at the F1 Circuit for the Moto GP Race I blended in records with Spanish lyrics and latin grooves, since those work better for this crowd.
On the other hand, when I played at the festival in Mexico the audience was mostly young American college students on Spring Break, so the focus was more on energetic basslines and well-known acapellas they can sing along to.
It is important to note as well that the context of the event determines a lot what resonates and what doesn’t with the crowd, factors such as venue size, set times, indoors/outdoors, or marketing for the event can make the crowd responses very different from each other.
The beauty of dance music, however, is that no matter where you go, a 4 on the floor kick with a good bassline, percussion and catchy melody will never fail on a dancefloor.
What’s next for Kastelo?
This is a very exciting time since we’re expanding our shows into countries I’ve never played at before. While the previous phase of the Kastelo project happened only in the studio, producing new records, remixes, and mashups, we are now bringing all that music to the actual dancefloor.
The team and I are putting most of our focus on reaching new audiences via live performances, however, the music releases will not slow down at all – get ready for new music dropping every month!
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