Martin Landsky

Artist bio

Being a hobby break-dancer back in the days was the first step for eleven year-old Martin Landsky to discover his passion for black dance music. Using the pause-key of his tape deck he started to create minimal loop tracks of early funk and rap classics for his performances on the street as well as in contests.

His interest in manipulating sound was unstoppable. Young Martin Landsky spent all his money to buy a second tape deck and a primitive mixer. After that he took his father’s pitchable turntable and "raped" his family‘s Bontempi organ to design rudimental megamixes of his favourite tracks.

Influenced by an older friend who was DJing as well, nightlife became more interesting for Martin, he started to spin at school parties and similar events at the age of fourteen. His improved skills led to frequent bookings at private parties in Hamburg.

Moved to Hamburg in 1986, he soon made new friends, whom he joined visiting legendary Hamburg-based club "Front" in 1988 for the first time. Although he was still into funk music which he continued to spin at parties this can be seen as the initial point for his interest in electronic music.

While he was caught up between these different styles of music he became a regular at Front, which started to become a meeting point for House-, Acid- & Techno- heads. At that time Martin was not even dreaming of becoming a professional DJ. After leaving High school successfully in 1990 he was instructed to become a commercials- and synchronizing audio engineer at Studio Funk HH in 1992.

Being infected by the hypnotic grooves of House music Martin played several Fridays at Front and finally managed to introduce his own "Insidefront"-nights in 1994. Also he was booked to play at other parties in Hamburg.

Leaving Studio Funk in 1995 he became part of Container Distribution, fresh founded distribution- department of Container Records. During summer of 1995 his sample CD "Sampled House Vol. 1" was released by Container.

Due to his work as distributor Martin got in touch with people from all over Germany, eventually starting to spin in other cities more frequently. A highlight for sure are his performances at the famous Berlin-based E-Werk where he DJed several times from 1996 until its closing. Monthly bookings at Globus/Tresor followed, also residencies at Hamburg clubs like Unit, Duschbar, Lounge or Tempelhof.

In the meantime his interest in producing grew and Martin did some remixing for Studio 33, a more commercially oriented studio. Martin also started working on his own tracks, using a friend’s equipment. As a result, 12" "Horner Corner EP" was released under his moniker City Nord on the London-based MC Projects imprint in 1997.

1998 saw the origin of Martin‘s own label Effortil Records, where his "My Hidden Basement"-12" was the first release. Another City Nord-EP called "Broken Glass" followed on Critical Edge, soon after that another M:Landsky ("Love-Fourty") on Effortil.

In 1999 he left Container Distribution for a job at also Hamburg-based distributor Word and Sound. But knowing that this job plus DJing and producing would take more than 24 hours a day, Martin eventually decided to break up with Word and Sound in late 1999 to become self-employed. He also moved to Berlin, setting up his very own studio and changing the name of his label - Intim Recordings is born.

In 2000 his Berlin-connections work well and he is spinning regularly at clubs like Pfefferbank, Tresor and Casino. He also sets up a regular "Poker Flat Night" on Fridays alongside Steve Bug and Clé at Sternradio club.

Also he introduces his first Berlin-produced releases to the world "Effortil EP" / Intim, "Wild EP" / Dessous, "Crude Clay" / Poker Flat, Steve Bug‘s Remix of "Bloodhound" / Intim and starts working on his first full-length album.

The new single "Follow Me" was released on Intim in February 2001 and just as much successful as "Blood- hound". Also he finished working on his album titled "In Between" on Poker Flat in autumn 2001.

In 2002 Martin starts with his great DJ-Mix of the Poker Flat material for the 2nd label compilation "Vol.2" and ends 2002 with his lovely single "Mission Upskirt". Half a year later, in Summer 2003 he released "Reject", with vocals by Hamburg-based Filip G on Poker Flat. This single quickly became a global club hit, being supported by tastemaking DJs, with great performance in the official German Club Charts.

His single "Housed" was exclusively produced for the "5 Years Of Poker Flat" compilation; the production "Fools (They Don‘t Know The Time)" was released in late spring 2004. His new 12" is out end of January '05. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.