One of the currently hottest names in electronic dance music, Ricardo Villalobos was born in Santiago de Chile, but raised in the vicinity of Frankfurt, where his family moved to after the military coup of 1973. Villalobos has become something of a global techno evangelist in recent years, travelling the world with his record bag always in reach. While Villalobos has been active as a producer since the early 90s - recording for Frankfurt's
Playhouse label as early as 1995 - he owes much of his remarkable popularity to his qualities as a DJ, his endurance at playing ridiculously long DJ sets being the stuff of legends. Stylistically Villalobos can be subsumed under minimal techno and micro-house, but he takes those genres beyond the generic by skilfully adding surprises and experimental interludes to his sets. The same holds true for his production and remix work, which often polarises - take the folkloric elements of his 'Fizheuer Zieheuer' release or his remix for
Shackleton's 'Blood On My Hands' - but never shies away from exploring the boundaries of the techno genre and its usual media formats.