Sen-Sei

Sen-Sei plays keys first. A Gen-X Brooklynite of Italian and Puerto Rican roots, he started classical piano at five and was playing recitals and competitions as a child. He had twelve years of training, and a Carnegie Hall performance, behind him when New York and Brooklyn warehouse parties introduced him to old-school house in 1989. In 1991 he established himself in San Francisco and took his artist name, with a hyphen that always stays between Sen and Sei.

What he does is unusual: live house keys played completely freehand over a DJ's mix, with no sequencers. He stays in tune and in time while layering Rhodes, Latin percussion or a warm B3 organ into a track until it sounds like part of the record. The job, as he describes it, is finding a track with sonic space, finding the right sound for it, playing with one hand while mixing with the other, and knowing when not to play. His first vinyl appearance came in 1996, and his keys and hooks are on more than 50 labels, from "20 Minutes of Disco Glory" with Garth and ETI on Wicked to "LA Sessions" as Atwater Syndicate on Yoshitoshi, with stops on Nervous, Imperial Dub, Siesta, Soma, Tango and Delve Deeper. In 2000 he appeared on Kinetic Grooves' Shack Traxx with David Coleman and John Howard.

On Red Melon he joined Dano and David Coleman as Shack Attack for Use What U Got and Something Wonderful, and he is credited on keys on the Cloud City record. In 2015 he and Dano made Dig Deep (That Look) for Delve Deeper. In 2025 they reunited on Red Melon for Keep on Dancin', a deep-house original with sunrise vocal chops and muted-brass color, paired with Jason Merle's eight-minute Sunrise Reprise.