Conceptualist and DJ Ben Komor was born in 1985 in Tokyo, Japan. After a few years, he and his family moved to the United States, where they lived in Boston. While pioneer electronic artists where inventing techno and house music around that time, Ben spent most of his time in Kindergarten where classical artists such as Yo-Yo Ma musically rendered his perceptual development.

At the tender age 8 he moved to the Netherlands, where he now practised the violin, to further enhance his holistic understanding of music and the world of sound in general. The Chemical Brothers “Block Rockin Beats” release in 1997 marks a turning point in Ben’s life. A whole new immense electronic sound scape was now rapidly unraveling and expanding itself for Ben. Artists such as: Aphix Twin, Fatboy Slim, Orbital and the Prodigy where now starting to absorb his full attention. As a result in 1999 he swapped his violin for a pair of decks where he discovered and quickly flew with the infinite possibilities that electronic music now provided to him.

It was only a matter of time and in truth a foregone conclusion that he would become obsessed with the sound of techno, being heavily inspired by legends such as Jeff Mills, Laurent Garnier, Speedy J and Richie Hawtin. In 2002 his first gigs became fact and his alter ego “Kartikeya” was born. It refers to a Hindu god of war who was created by Shiva to destroy the demons, representing the negative tendencies and energies held within most human beings.

The symbolism of Kartikeya points to the ways and means of reaching perfection, a mission Ben strives to accomplish in music and life. After high school he moved to London for a year where he studied electronic music at the Academy of Contemporary Music. Musically this was a seminally important year for him being exposed to the nuances styles of UK’s electronic music.

He started experimenting with different genres like house and minimal, which eventually lead him to creating his own far more versatile approach towards music. In 2004 he moved back to the Netherlands and he started studying psychology in Amsterdam, the city where he has been residing ever since. By closely witnessing the revival of the underground techno scene in Amsterdam, he met lots of like-minded creative dare we say bohemian people.

During this period he teamed up with lifetime buddy and partner in crime Jop. Their mutual love for music resulted in the infamous Particle gonzo journalism; interviewing numerous artists across the globe, as well deciding to start organizing. Nowadays he’s the organizer and resident DJ behind the successful Carnivale nights at Studio 80. With bookings on Mr Stubnitz, Paradiso and Dance Valley Festival in 2009, his career appears to be lifting off at a rapid pace.

While constantly striving for innovation and a better understanding of music as a whole, he has developed himself throughout the years into an artist who knows his way with the crowd. Energetic, deep, rhythmic and the unexpected are the keywords that perfectly reflect Ben’s sound in no better way. In other words: “Simply be unhindered in expressing yourself.”