Producer & DJ · Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, USA
Kevin Yost
Kevin Yost is the Pennsylvania producer behind 1998's deep house landmark One Starry Night, known for jazz-inflected, keyboard-led house music.
Kevin Yost built his career on a genuinely unusual combination for house music: a percussionist's sense of rhythm and a jazz keyboardist's sense of harmony, applied to deep house rather than the fusion records he grew up on. Working out of Waynesboro, a small town in south-central Pennsylvania far from any dance music capital, he became one of American deep house's most distinctive voices of the late 1990s, and has kept releasing steadily in the decades since.
Drums, Jazz and an Unlikely Hometown
Yost picked up drumsticks at four years old and discovered DJing and house music around age eleven, in the mid-1980s, drawing early inspiration from jazz and fusion artists including Chuck Mangione and Miles Davis. By his early twenties he had settled on a concept that would define his output: fusing jazz and electronic production into dance tracks a DJ could actually play, rather than keeping the two worlds separate. He sent demo tapes to independent labels in 1995, and his first release, the EP "Unprotected Sax," came out the following year on the Chicago label Guidance.
One Starry Night and a Deep House Landmark
Yost's breakthrough arrived in 1998 with "One Starry Night," released on Yoshitoshi Recordings, the Washington DC label founded by Deep Dish. Built on Caribbean-inflected percussion and jazz improvisation, the record became one of the most widely cited deep house tracks of its era and the title track of his debut album the following year, which reportedly sold more than 50,000 units, a substantial figure for an independent house release. The record's success gave Yost a following that skewed heavily European even as he remained based in small-town Pennsylvania, a contrast he has spoken about in interviews over the years.
A Deep Catalogue and an All-Original DJ Set
In the decades since "One Starry Night," Yost has built out a catalogue of close to 100 single releases and eight albums, alongside a run of mix CDs, working across labels including I Recordings and KID Recordings in addition to his early Guidance and Yoshitoshi releases. He plays keyboards and percussion on his own records rather than working purely in the box, and his DJ sets are built almost entirely from his own productions and edits, a format that means hearing him live is, in practice, the only way to hear some of his material at all.
Live at RTS.FM
RTS.FM's archive includes a Kevin Yost DJ set recorded at the channel's Moscow studio in May 2009, part of a run of sessions from that period that remain among the channel's most-viewed recordings, an unusually durable audience for footage recorded over a decade and a half ago.
FAQ
Who is Kevin Yost?
Kevin Yost is an American deep house producer, keyboardist and percussionist from Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, best known for the 1998 single and 1999 debut album "One Starry Night" on Yoshitoshi Recordings.
What is Kevin Yost's most famous track?
"One Starry Night," released in 1998 on Yoshitoshi Recordings and later the title track of his 1999 debut album, is widely regarded as his signature record and one of the defining deep house tracks of its era.
What instruments does Kevin Yost play?
Yost is a keyboardist and percussionist as well as a producer, and he plays those instruments on his own recordings, a jazz-informed approach that sets his production apart within deep house.
Does Kevin Yost play other producers' music when he DJs?
Rarely. He is known for building his DJ sets almost entirely from his own productions and edits, giving his live shows a distinct, largely unreleased character.
Has Kevin Yost performed at RTS.FM?
Yes. RTS.FM's archive includes a DJ set he recorded at the channel's Moscow studio on May 3, 2009, one of the most-watched sets from that period of the archive.
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