UMEK (Slovenia)

For a long time, Slovenia is known for its great electronic parties, but as the local scene is of boutique dimensions, everyone, who wishes to take the art of mixing and producing to a professional level, has to go out there and enter the worldwide scene. Umek has done this step as early as in the middle of the 90s and so he became one of the most important techno players of the global techno scene, even before the end of the last millennium. Together with people, who shared the same views, he successfully captured the first era of researching and recreating the rules of the dance music in Recycled Loops, Consumer Recreation and Astrodisco platforms, which all put the sound of the Slovenian techno on the world map of electronic music.

In the beginning of the year 2007, Umek started a new 1605 Music Therapy - Sixteenofive, with which he marked the beginning of the second era of his music creation and what an era it is! After 3 years the label is already tagged as a great success, with an exemplary number of hot releases, pounding the Beatport Techno Chart.A huge success of the »Electronics Day „10« - the main 1605 techno event in Krizanke (Ljubljana, Slovenia) for the fourth year in a row, a popular summer festival »Disconautica« in 2009 (Koper, Slovenia) featuring 1605 Main Floor and with over 50.000 attending people only further deepened the 1605?s story of success. Furthermore the many astonishing releases and remixes already released in 2010, not to mention the crown jewel – Responding To Dynamic, Umek?a second authorial album (released in March 2010), are the best proof, that Umek stays focused on his primary goal – making high quality productions that stand out from the rest and to bring this music closer to people all around the world.

Nominations and winnings on world's prestigious music contests seem to just pour into Umek's pocket – he was voted to first place on Beatport's world Music Awards in techno category, not to mention he was one of the 2009's Best Sellers on Beatport. On last year's DJ Mag Top 100 DJs he was placed on 3rd spot in techno and on 39th spot in overall category.

Production-wise we can also count year 2010 as one of the most successful ones for Umek. In the last two months he had two tracks on Beatport's overall chart placed on the first spot – the banging OMGWTF track and Back In The Race, which he produced with Beltek.

But Umek?s success story is far from done. In the middle of December an interesting documentary named “Techno heavy-weights Umek & Carl Cox in back to back interview” will be released to the world in which he and Carl Cox debate about their past, music and the future of techno. A must-see for all who consider themselves electronic music lovers. Last but not least a totally new remake of his classic Gatex (named Gatex 2010) is coming to the digital shelves in just a week.