Growing up in Melbourne’s eclectic cultural society, Daniel was exposed to many forms of music at an early age. His first taste of electronic music came in the late ‘eighties hearing early dance acts such as The KLF. In the early ‘nineties he turned his attention to the growing hip hop scene in Melbourne & immersed himself in the sounds of a Tribe Called Quest, Leaders Of The New School & Public Enemy.

Around this time while in his early teens he started taking drum lessons – his first active involvement in developing beats. It was his first taste of the tribal rhythm he would learn to love over the coming years. After high school he jetted off to university for further studies. It was while at university that he first came to experience the sound that would eventually touch him the most, that of house music in all its glorious guises.

Attending nights at Melbourne’s Mansion Bar he would hear DJ’s such as Kasey Taylor, Sean Quinn & Anthony Pappa spin deep progressive sets. At this time local radio station Kiss 90 FM was also a big influence. Once he graduated from university, he bought himself some turntables to go with the records he had begun collecting. With time came a progression into more conceptual & abstract sounds that incorporated not only musical tastes, but also other cultural facets such as architecture, fashion & technology, based around the whole minimal ethos.

"My music reflects my personality, and that’s what music should be about - inspired, raw, abstract & open for individual interpretation".

Daniel is a lover of all things deep & pulsating: dub, down tempo through to minimal house, tech house and a splattering of electro & deep techno taking in labels such as Karmarouge, Iron Box, Treibstoff, Substatic, Pokerflat & Traum Schallplatten, showcasing these sounds on a bi-weekly basis as resident at e55 in Melbourne alongside Lance Harrison. He also writes for Dutch website www.mnml.nl conducting interviews with some of the more varied producers & artists in the underground house scene.

His plans heading into ‘05 involve the completion of his home studio & getting to work on creating the kind of music he draws inspiration from, encompassing producers such as Gabriel Ananda, Maetrik, John Tejada, Dominik Eulberg & Richard Davis.

Gene Hoffmann’s sound is constantly evolving. After flirtations with everything from acid techno to psychedelic trance in the late 90’s; Gene now finds himself spinning music with predominant techno, house, electro and minimal flavors.

Playing his sets using Final Scratch, Gene is comfortable playing on 2 or 3 turntables; often fusing his techno styled sets with quirky acid, tough house, glitchy electro or dark and dirty bass driven beats. All of what he plays is geared towards the dancefloor, and Gene is happy to experiment and cross genres during a set if the end product is complementary, entertaining and unique.

As an enthusiastic supporter of the Melbourne techno scene, Gene has drawn his influences from local Melbourne DJ's including Slack, Slieker, Sam McEwin and Mike Callander and International DJ's and producers such as Cari Lekebusch, Speedy J, Adam Beyer, Richie Hawtin, Jesper Dahlback and Luke Slater.

After an apprenticeship playing house parties, outdoor events and pub/club gigs around Victoria, Gene founded Panic Stricken Bovine in 2000 and began running dance parties alongside ‘Decimal’ Dan Rachele and Matt Van Diemen. The Bovines have ran many big and small scale events around the state, and are probably best known for their Wild Things 2 party, which attracted 4,000 party goers to Kryal Castle.

Gene has played around the globe; making noise at full moon parties in Thailand, discotheques in Indonesia and squat parties in the UK. He has played on invitation at Australia’s biggest and best dance music festivals; including Earthcore, Two Tribes, Enchanted Forest, AdventJah and Hardware events. Over one hundred thousand electronic music fans worldwide have downloaded his online DJ mixes.

Gene has been a regular guest on Australian radio and he has supported the very biggest names in the dance music business; including Richie Hawtin, Adam Beyer, The Advent, Chris Liebing, Joel Mull, Oliver Ho, The Hacker, David Carretta, Adam Jay, Tiga, Miss Kittin, The Prodigy, The Crystal Method, Slam, Mike Humphries, Heiko Laux, Lawrie Immersion, Thomas Schumacher, Ben Sims, DJ Misjah and many more…

As a passionate and tireless worker in the Melbourne scene, Gene is working hard to constantly develop his sound and get his unique style of techno, electro, minimal and house heard to a wider audience.

Since purchasing his first 1200 in late 1999 Sam McEwin has very quickly emerged as one of Melbourne’s finest talents. After holding a short residency at the weekly house night Confusion and playing at odd parties around Melbourne it was in 2002 when Sam formed free party crew The Melbourne Techno Collective with close friends Peter Baker and Matt Radovich as an outlet for unknown Melbourne talent. Gaining recognition for their endless hard work and dedication to the Melbourne scene, by 2003 MTC became one of the only outlets for techno, in Melbourne, performing on a regular basis. It was also in 2003 when Sam formed a partnership with another local Dj and close friend Craig McWhinney and together, under the MTC banner ran the weekly night Jack the Basics.

As a dj Sam’s style is always diverse, known best for his chunky, driving dancefloor friendly techno, and has supported the likes of Technasia, Ben Sims, Chris Liebing and Adam Jay as well as playing at the infamous Earthcore Festival amongst many other parties.

You can catch Sam playing at the Melbourne Techno Collective on the last Saturday of every month and at Sundae day club every second week.

Music is a journey which has taken people to various places. For RobWu, it has translated to destination Chicago via Detroit. For the past 8 years, RobWu has been inspired by DJ greats from both these destinations: Derrick May, Stacey Pullen, Kenny Larkin, Theo Parrish, Derrick Carter, Mark Farina & Stacey Kidd to name a few.

A fusion of funky basslines, jackin beats, jazzy riffs, RobWu's DJ sets contain all the elements of sounds from the past, present and the future. As a DJ RobWu has played in various places around Melbourne: Club Filter@Lounge, HonkyTonks 5 Hour Challenge, ElevenA, Deep11, HiFi Bar, Pony, Candy Bar, and on the airwaves of Triple J, PBS, and Kiss FM. Rob Wu was also the Soul'sa Grand Pooh-bah DJ Champion of 2000.

Every day Polish born Melbourne resident and house head Mike Jules find himself waking up and thinking about music. It could be one of his records, or something from the radio, but in most cases he’s improvising – the music gets made up in his head, on the spot.

“I suppose my musical brain can remember this kind of thing happening as far back as when I was a 5-year-old boy. I used to tell my parents to switch off the radio in the car while driving anywhere, just so I could sing or make whatever beat-boxing noises that popped into my head at the time... That was in the late 80s”, says Mike.

During that time his brother, Daniel, was a major influence on his musical tastes, and a man who Mike looked up to; he was a great pianist and began playing clarinet too. Daniel was into various forms of music, from classical, to rock, and pop – the then popular Roxette, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson.. Being in Europe though, the two got sucked in by Italo disco and synth-pop from cheesy artists like Rofo, Mike Mareen (whose biggest hit was called ‘Don’t Talk To The Snake’ – you figure it out), and the slightly more popular London Boys. There was a minority of awesome producers in those times too, like Koto & Proxyon, Syntech, Lazerdance and Vangelis, which made it into their tape collection. They were the ones to open Mike’s eyes to electronic music as a child.

Later on, after moving to Australia, Mike began to use a computer to listen to and experiment in making his own rhythms and melodies, and continued to develop his musical ear. Following several years of attempting musical production, Mike finally started mixing – around 1998. It was some time around that era when he got into house music, and mixing vinyl.

“I can’t remember exactly what got me into it, but it’s weird because my history with music goes back to fairly electro-like roots, so I think I should be listening to trance or something instead, but house music just appeals to me the most. It has this warmth about it that I really like…”

And so, years later Mike Jules is still at it. He’s defining his own sound, and spinning his way around bars in Melbourne, where he gets to express himself through records. Initially inspired by some of the greatest artists in house music (Mark Farina, Derrick Carter, Sneak are just a few of the more famous names), he takes his quirks and bumps seriously enough to let down punters who ask for anything else.