Frederico Aubele is an Argentine singer-songwriter whose music blends a variety of genres and styles: Jamaican dub and reggae, American ambient and hip-hop, Mexican bolero, and Argentine tango. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, he started playing music at 12, with his early musical influences coming from his mother, an amateur guitarist (although she was a notary by profession). He moved to Berlin in 2001 (during the Argentine economic crisis), where he lived for several years (he speaks German). After submitting a demo via email to Thievery Corporation's Eighteenth Street Lounge Music, he was signed quickly to the label, and released his debut album Gran Hotel Buenos Aires, produced by Thievery Corporation, in 2003. In 2006, he played at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. His song "Esta Noche" was featured in the 5th season of Alias (TV series) (episode 8). After Berlin, he moved to Barcelona where he began working on his new album, Panamericana (a title to indicate the many musical influences and in part named after the Pan-American Highway), which was released on September 18, 2007, also produced by Thievery Corporation. He now lives in Barcelona, Spain, although he frequently returns to Buenos Aires. Federico Aubele performed an acoustic set featuring some of his most melancholic tunes at the Perrier Chillout Festival.

www.myspace.com/aubele

Wolfgang Voigt, the Cologne-based co-founder of the Kompakt label empire, is behind Gas, his best-known project. Voigt was a prolific producer of seminal German techno in the 90s under a huge number of aliases, some very well-known including Mike Ink, Blei, Love Inc. and Grungerman, others fleeting or one-off, like Panthel, Riss and Strass. He has released music on a wide range of labels including Warp, Harvest, Raster-Noton and Force Inc. but is probably best known for his ambient project Gas, and as co-founder of the hugely influential minimal house label Kompakt along with Michael Mayer and Jurgen Paape.

www.kompakt.fm
www.clubtransmediale.de

Their very name, 'Ancient Astronauts,' implies a mash-up of the distant past and the far future; traits exemplified in their melding of old school hip hop, funk, and dub reggae with forward-thinking flair and production technique. The Ancient Astronauts are Kabanjak and Dogu hailing from Cologne, Germany . . .via outer space! Coy with their true origins, the duo can only confirm that they returned to planet Earth in 2001 after traveling the musical cosmos for thousands of years.

Those familiar with the phenomenon of 'ancient astronauts,' a belief that extraterrestrial beings visited Earth in ancient times to mingle and trade ideas with early human civilizations, won't be surprised that upon returning this particular spaced-out duo quickly set up a terrestrial sound studio, a record label (Switchstance Recordings), and a successful production, remixing and DJ career dropping sound bombs all over the world.

Already having remixed for Fort Knox Five, Up Bustle & Out, Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets, Zion I, and Dr. Rubberfunk, the Ancient Astronauts have linked up with a variety of new sonic collaborators including Bootie Brown and Imani of legendary hip hop group The Pharcyde, Azeem, Tippa Irie, Bajka, Phat Old Mamas, Ulf Stricker, Raashan Ahmad and Entropik to record their debut album We Are To Answer! A block-rockin' boom-bappin' sonic tour-de-force, We Are to Answer is a musical vision of life on Earth and beyond!

www.myspace.com/ancientastronautsswitch

"enoughrecords is a Portuguese netlabel. We promote and distribute music from artists who agreed to release through us - for free.

We feel the world has been littered and missguided with ergonomic pop formulas for too long. We can't really guerrilla market ourselfs to popular stardom against the music industry, but we still strive to provide alternatives for artists and listeners who might share our taste in music. We believe music should be free. So if you enjoyed listening to one of our releases, share it with your friends, share it with the world. Just don't collect money on the work of others and try to mention it was released at enoughrecords. Above all, if you like something you hear let the artists know their music is beeing played, heard, understood and enjoyed by others across the globe.

We have a strong demoscene background. We slowly came to realize a special interest in electronica, IDM, postrock, industrial, noise, glitch, drone and dark ambient. Howhever, we are open to other genres as long as it sounds good and clicks something inside of us. We are not an experimental music label but we like sound with a certain character, not more of the same. We do not follow a specific genre or esthetic line, check the tags cloud if you're looking for something specific. Our plan for world domination is to simply release soothing sounds, emerging landscapes, from Portugal, Europe, World, into the cyberspace for whomever will listen. We do this for free, because we can. We believe the listener will find other ways to support the artists."

enoughrecords.scene.org

Ambient DJ and underground musician Mixmaster Morris was born in Brighton but started his DJ career in 1985 with his 'Mongolian Hip Hop Show' on pirate radio in London. Morris began releasing material as Irresistible Force in 1987 and became involved with the emerging UK acid house scene, working with acts such as The Shamen, The Orb, Spiritualized, Coldcut and System 7. Morris toured with the Shamen for two years until the tragic death of bass player Will Sinott.



In 1990 he made what is widely regarded as the first chillout compilation, Give Peace a Dance 3 for the group Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), followed by the series Chillout or Die for Rising High. The Morning After became his first major-label mix album, followed by Abstract Funk Theory for Obsessive. As of 2003, his most recent mix is God Bless the Chilled for Return to the Source. He has produced many remixes since 1985, the most celebrated being Coldcut's 'Autumn Leaves' which regularly tops polls of chillout classics.



In the early 1990s he played a lot of pure ambient music as well as emerging styles of ambient electronica (see the ambient music article). His key residencies at this time were alongside the Detroit masters at Lost, Megatripolis the original festival-in-a-club, crusty capital Megadog and Tribal Gathering where he played alongside Aphex Twin.



Throughout the 1990s he wrote extensively about electronic music for New Musical Express, Mixmag, and i-D Magazine. He also ran very successful downtempo night Nubient for 3 years in Brixton. In 1994 he was one of the founders of The Big Chill which has grown into the UK's largest chill-out event, and recently celebrated its 10th birthday. In 1998 he joined the UK's Ninja Tune record label and multimedia collective, with whom he tours as a DJ and continues to release new material. 1999 saw him win 'Best Chillout DJ' at the Ibiza DJ Awards, and play at most of Ibiza's famous chillout bars like Cafe del Mar,Cafe Mambo. Kumharas, Las Dalias. Morris became friends with Ibiza chillout stalwarts like Rob da Bank, Chris Coco, Pathaan, Lenny Ibizarre, Jose Padilla. To this day he continues a busy global DJ schedule spreading his ambient vibes over dancefloors worldwide.

www.myspace.com/theirresistibleforce
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixmaster_Morris