Timo Maas shakes his head with laughter when told that a Chicago DJ brought a Muzik magazine photo of him to a hairstylist and said, “I want my hair like his.” It’s the evening after the German DJ played at Rednofive, and he is sitting at a table in the bar at the Radisson Hotel, where he’s staying while in Chicago. Asked if he has any tips on how to achieve the Timo hairdo, he laughs harder and says he will be happy to give his hairstylist Bert’s phone number.

“I’m good friends with him for 16 years,” Timo says.

Bert experimented with Timo’s hair before he had much experience, so Timo’s hair has gone through many phases: blue, green, red, orange, none and yellow, which was quite funky.

“Now he can manage it,” Timo says with a laugh.

Although he may have been a tad surprised to hear about the DJ who admires his hair, Timo is usually the one providing the surprises: You never know what to expect from one of his remixes or records, and it’s hard to predict where he’s going with his DJ set or what kind of music he’ll play next.

Timo rules because when he makes music, he takes the best elements of trance, techno, house, breaks and darkness and spews out some uplifting, funky, hard music. He layers funkiness with trancey soundscaes and the deep feel of techno to create beautiful musical hybrids. His remixes of songs like Paganini Traxx’s “Zoe” and Green Velvet’s “Flash” reinvent the tracks in an awesome, funky way. Timo’s forthcoming song, “Ubik,” which was inspired by Phillip K. Dick’s book about time travel and hallucinatory drugs, features beautiful guitar elements, funky basslines and a “cool vocal” that reminds Timo of Beck’s voice. It will be out in July on 48K/Perfecto. He has also begun his first album, which will come out on 48k/Perfecto early next year, and his double mixed CD, called Music for the Maases, will be on Hope Recordings in mid-September. It will feature material by Hope artists’ work from the last two years.

Timo is a funny character with a pleasant smile, thick lips, cool hair and a liking for Red Bull mixed with Jagermeister. He lives in Roecke near Hanover, Germany, and has released about 80 singles and remixes over five years on various record labels, including Silver Planet, Hooj Choons, F-111 and his Hope Recordings record label, which has been blowing up this year. Some of his recent works include the deep, dark, clanky “Der Schieber” and his remix of Josh Wink’s “Don’t Laugh.” He also has a remix of a BT song coming out this summer on Nettwerk.

Back to the surprises. Just when you think you’ve identified the kind of music Timo is playing, he cuts into another beautiful record that totally screws with any orderly categorization of dance music genres you may have. You think it’s techno. No, it’s trance. Now it’s percussive and tribal. Naw, now it’s definitely breaks. Call it what you like, but it’s a call to arms in the air. Un-fuckin’-believable. Timo gets the masses dancing harder and harder because he keeps coming up with surprises.

“I play just good music, and it doesn’t matter how people decribe it,” Timo says. “It’s just good dance music, nothing more. Music that makes you feel good, not cheesy.” He calls his music “funky and very sexy,” and he adds, “My music is similar to the sex I prefer.” We already know from the British magazines that he likes it “wet and hard,” but he doesn’t say that. Rather, he says that sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s boring, but “it’s still funky.”

Timo says that when he listens to a song before deciding to remix it, “there must be an idea from the first second.” He doesn’t take an easy, formulaic approach to his remixes either. His two remixes of “Flash,” the minimal, nerve-wracking classic with machine gun-like beats, take the peak of the song (where the vocal goes “Cameras ready, prepare to flash!”) and add layers of funkiness and driving beats to make it funkier and to smooth out the beats.

His wicked remix of Paganini Traxx’s “Zoe” turns the spacy, trippy, smooth-riding song into a chugging, bangin’ party song. His melodic middle section of the piece practically becomes a song within a song.

“For me, from the beginning, it was one of the best mixes I’ve done,” Timo says.

When Timo says, “It’s timeless” about the remix, he is being matter-of-fact and right-on, not being a “fuck-me-I’m-brilliant” producer. Although it actually came out in ’98, it just became popular earlier this year after England’s DJ Sasha bought it at the Massive Record Store in Oxford, England, and put it on his Global Underground CD.

Back in the ‘80s Timo would DJ at friends’ house parties while they were busy hooking up with each other. Eventually the crowds grew, and he scored a residency at The Tunnel in Hamburg, collaborating with resident Gary D to make “Die Herdplatte,” an aggressive trance record, in 1995.

After that Timo spent time at Peppermint Jam studios, where he learned about recording and distribution. While there he met Andy Bolleshon and Martin Buttrich, who he works with whenever he makes a song or a remix. The three recorded “Borg Destroyer” in 1996 under the moniker Kinetic A.T.O.M. The song sold about 8,000 copies without any marketing or press. And “Mama Konda,” released in 1997 under their name Orinoko in 1997, reached the Top 20 on the U.K. dance charts.

Then Timo got involved with Hope Recordings, which has a tightly knit crew due in part to the studio setup. Hope’s artists record almost all of their tunes in two studio complexes: Timo’s complex of six studios in Hanover, and a complex (with two studios) in Bristol, England, run by Leon Alexander and Steve Satterthwaite, the label manager.

Although Timo gets at least 50 remix offers a month, he will be taking a break to concentrate on his album. He plans to have more vocal-friendly tracks on the album and hopes to finish it in the summer, although he knows that creativity takes time. Asked who will be singing, Timo says, “Me!” Then he laughs and says, “No! Never! Maybe when I’m pissed in the shower!”

Speaking of being pissed, Timo gets a shocked, “how-do-you-know-that?” expression on his face when told that someone mentioned how he got so drunk and so high at the ’99 Winter Music Conference that he was wearing only his underwear at a hotel party. Then he confirms the rumor, saying, “[German DJ/producer] Tomcraft and I had a competition: Who can drink the most Long Island ice teas in the midday sun at the [Winter Music] Conference? After nine I think we had our underwear on our heads.” From there they ran to the pool at the Fountainebleau Hotel, Timo added.

The contest had been just a blurry memory until Tomcraft’s honey recently broke out some photos of the competition. Timo says he had hoped to try again and reach Long Island ice tea No. 10, but he says, “I didn’t find anyone who’s strong enough [to compete].”

When he isn’t in the studio, Timo likes “just hanging, smoking spliffs, hangin’ out on the beach, and having over-stoned conversations with people from around the world.” He says, “This is the only job where you have so much fun” and where one can meet “people who seem to be cool.

“It’s quite cool job. I love it. That’s why I’m here.”