Started Dj-ing in 80s at indie gigs and then on pirate radio/tv station Network 21. Opened his first club in 1985, Toured as DJ with The Shamen, then signed with Rising High Records for the albums Flying High, Global Chillage. Joined up with Pete Namlook to record two albums as Dreamfish. Did two sessions for BBC's John Peel. Residencies at underground clubs like Lost and Megatripolis. Remixed Coldcut's Autumn Leaves which went on to become a classic. Played at Love Parade and Glastonbury festival throughout the 90s. 

Wrote for NME, Mixmag and i-D magazine, presented The Chill Out Zone on Kiss FM.Toured Europe, USA and Japan repeatedly, made mix CDs like The Morning After, Abstract Funk Theory, God Bless The Chilled. Signed with Ninja Tunes and made the album Its Tomorrow Already and singles Nepalese Bliss & Fish Dances. Got involved with the Big Chill at the very beginning in 1994 and played every year since for them. Appeared in the cult movie Modulations. Recorded an album in Japan with Jonah Sharp and Harry Hosono of YMO. Made a TV commercial, soundtracked a play on Radio 3 and remixed the Dr Who theme for the BBC. Talked about Brian Eno on C4. Moved his Nubient club to Big Chill Bar. Won Ibiza Chillout DJ of the year - twice. Did two mixes for Rob da Banks show on Radio 1. Remixed Anne Garner and 6th Sense. Made an Altermodern podcast for the Tate Britain.  2010 won Best Downtempo DJ again, and started new job running Apollo label as part of R+S...

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Independent music site since 2013.

Email: kyle@wearesoundspace.co.uk
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Modyfier is an Artist’s platform: it’s an idea acting as energy, it’s an experiment in accrual (as a collection), it’s an attitude that rides creativity and freedom. The Process Series relies on referral as people who participate each suggest someone else, creating its form, shifting in directions I would not be able to steer alone. Matthew Barney once said this about his early ‘Drawing Restraint’ work that really struck me: “I was thinking about how the body functions in training – how the muscle breaks down under resistance and then heals larger and stronger. I was trying to use that process of resistance to create form.”

What is techno? Scientists and philosophers have long since pondered the concept of its musical definition since it burst out of Detroit in the mid-‘80s. Is it that notion of the “ghost in the machine”, of soul from electronics that its inventors elicited? Or is it more the repetitive throb and thump of 4/4 beats and slow-burning momentum that the Berghain generation are proponents of? Croatian producer Petar Dundov’s stunning music manages to marry both ideals in the most explosive of fashions.

To Dundov, “techno is music that precedes movement. It is dance music, solid enough to carry emotions through the dance floor and abstract enough to be a template for ever”. And indeed his breathtaking productions embody this ethos, serving the inherent function of making your body pulse spontaneously while also challenging your brain with its complex melodies and slow-burning, hypnotic progressions. It’s the antidote for anyone who thinks that techno is about senseless, dull looping.

Although maybe the word “techno” doesn’t give enough detail about his style, it’s probably the nearest ballpark to whose principles his music adheres – and he is keen to expand the horizons of what people know and expect of the genre. But it’s that sense of his tracks being alive, forever evolving and expanding and increasing in intensity, which gives his music its unique sound and has seen his work crossover into a myriad of different areas of the global electronic music scene. The last two years have seen his mind-bending single Oasis (played by everyone from Dubfire to Sasha to Ben Klock to Prins Thomas to Timo Maas) take the scene by storm with its intricate, ever-changing melodies, John Digweed snap him up for an epic rework of Alan Fitzpatrick’s Reflections, and Gregor Tresher squeeze a deep, mesmerising remix of his track The Life Wire out of him.

His music shows you that he’s a producer with more than churning out mindless, functional and dispensable drivel on his mind. There’s a philosophy entrenched in his productions that breathes the very spirit of life and dynamism into them: “My ultimate goal as a producer and musician is to bridge the world of inspiration and physical world to the extent where the listener wouldn't be able to distinguish between the two. Music has this unique property to communicate deep emotions that are inherently in all of us. We just forgot how to use them, and my search is an attempt to revive those emotions where we all resonate as one.”

Born in Zagreb in the early ‘70s, his career in dance music stretches back the best part of 20 years, but it’s only in the new millennium that he’s been using his own name for his productions. Over the years he’s graced many of the world’s most prestigious and best-loved techno institutions – including mega-festivals I Love Techno, EXIT, Awakenings and Wire, and cutting-edge clubs like Berghain, Matter (RIP), Womb, Air, Fuse and Space. He counts a longstanding relationship with Belgium’s legendary Music Man label amongst his achievements, an imprint that has also played host to releases by everyone from Jeff Mills (for whose label Tomorrow he created the Sculptures mini-LP) to Green Velvet to Robert Hood, and after completing his acclaimed debut album Escapements in 2008, he’s got the follow-up in the works (for completion by the end 2010).

Petar Dundov makes intelligent electronic music that breaks boundaries, moves feet and twists minds. He is without a doubt one of the most inspiring, original and daring producers in electronica, and with the likes of Sven Väth, Francois K, Laurent Garnier, Adam Beyer, Josh Wink, Guy J, Glimpse, Hernan Cattaneo, Brendan Moeller, and Danny Tenaglia amongst his fans, it would be hard to disagree.


***booking: wellenklang@online.de
With my music I am trying to find the right transformation between mood-based color changes and tonal changes in music, usually in cooperation with a clean and nearly touchable bassline.

MNML SSGS co-founder; in search of beauty. お爺さん テクノ。 Booking / info: chris.ssgs@gmail.com

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