MIKE MONDAY (OM/Playtime, UK) Biography Start with Smorgasbord, Mike Monday's debut album. "A classic," said One Week to Live. "Album of the month", said IDJ - which also had Smorgasbord on "albums of the year" list. "An LP we just can't put down", said DJ mag. And that was only one of the successes Mike Monday had across 2005-2007 - an amazing two years. The label he cofounded, Playtime, came into 2006 described as "one of the best labels to come out of 2005" (DJ mag) and "label of the moment" (One Week to Live). Playtime's first release, "What Day is it?", was an early Berlin anthem, raved about by Djs from Steve Bug to Josh Wink, Mylo to Heidi, and Groove Armada to Ewan Pearson. Release three, Tooting Warrior, hit #6 in the German dance charts. Even tracks released on other labels were enormous, with Bhalobashi on Simple a favourite of MANDY and top 10 in DJ mag’s hype chart. As IDJ said, "not a week goes by in dance music when you don't hear someone new trying to imitate Monday's trademark wonky sounds". Which is why he's been in high rotation as a DJ since the first days of Playtime. Tours of Brazil, Asia, and twice each for Australia and the States, where he played with pivotal wonky house figures Claude von Stroke and Justin Martin at the Winter Music Conference. Then there's been the gigs all over Europe, two or three times a weekend since the release of Smorgasbord, from Spain to Russia, as well as nearly every city in the UK and an exclusive slot at Sonar with Jesse Rose, as well as headlining Playtime's own monthly night in London, which moves to Ministry of Sound from early 08. Now he's preparing for the release of album two, signed as a huge vote of confidence by one of the world's biggest indie dance labels, Om, and due for release May 2008. The album promises to see Mike yet again breaking new ground with his innovative sounds and forward thinking approach to widening the scope of the electronic scene. The album is heavily influenced by Monday's current club obsessions and his year since Smorgasbord, which he took out to spend as a touring DJ. Smorgasbord, Monday says, "took 33 years to write. I had to learn what I was doing, till my production was actually capable of expressing what I wanted to say. But after the album, I wanted to be a DJ and not a DJ / producer for a while. When you're not working on your own music continually, you buy and play records in a totally new way." Having done that year, Monday has a strong idea of what the next album will be. "Songs are overrated," he says. "The first reaction of most dance producers, when they start their first albums, is to say 'Oh, I need to work with a vocalist'. But why? Lyrics are so specific and narrow where electronics can be so much more emotional and meaningful. Dance albums aren't ambitious enough. There's few dance albums as good as Daft Punk's Homework or Leftfield's Leftism because producers are constrained by ideas of what a dance album should be." But in the meantime, there's still another big release to come, "Smorgasbord, the remixes", featuring choice underground European producers like Tom Mangan, Geoffroy, Tommy Four Seven, Leopold Gregori, U&K, Style of Eye and others. Then there's the monthly podcast from www.mikemonday.com and a bi-monthly Saturday night residency for Om at Corsica Studios, the small but perfectly formed club with a stunning soundsystem. And finally, the re-release of yet another track from Smorgasbord, Zum Zum, on Germany's Great Stuff with remixes from Peter Kruder and Jan Driver, plus more music on the label that made Monday's name, Playtime, and key European labels Freerange and Simple ... DJ Bookings: info@ovenready.net or call +44 (0) 207 870 3668 Production: sally@mikemonday.com PR/press enquiries: tania@omrecords.com Official Website: www.mikemonday.com