EPISODE 96: Arto Kumanto – Long Count (Green Martian)

Arto Kumanto was born in Finland, year 1981. From the age of seven he started to play keyboards and later on Arto tried out composing. In mid 90s he began to explore the world of trackers and after hearing some techno music he was hooked for good. A couple of years later he expanded his knowledge to sequencers and synthesizers.

Year 2002 he went to study digital sound and commercial music, graduating in 2006. Soon after he send one of his tracks to Miika Kuisma and it was to be released on Miikas label Subtraxx. Nowadays Artos music can also be heard from Bonzai Music.

Arto achieves to include some magic to every track of his that drives the listener to go with the flow and be one with the music. Arto has always been open-minded towards all kind of music and tries to understand the key element of different styles. He pursuits to create his own style so that one can immediately recognize his music and remember it from the very first listening.

EPISODE 97: Miika Kuisma – Stellar (Progrez)

Miika Kuisma is a finnish musician, artist, philosopher, futurist and inventor who’s passion is to understand fundamental nature of the reality by exploring spirituality, science, history and technology.

In early 90’s he got big revelation in a small house club and walked out as a new person. From that moment he knew dance music was ‘for him’. His first electronic records which influenced him the most include works by Jarre, Cosmic Baby, Moby, Prodigy, Faithless and early Eye-Q releases. After falling in love with so many electronic styles by now, also his own productions have become somewhat unpredictable.

His tracks are usually somewhere between progressive and melodic, while not being not ‘too deep’ or ‘too cheesy’. On the DJ’ing side Miika was known for his perfectionistic approach to build his sets in certain way. Especially his “Intelligent Design” radio mixes were trips across different moods and genres.

Miika has spent most of his life playing around with technical gear but also loved to draw and play instruments from very early age. After getting his degree in electricity he turned around and took career paths in graphic design, programming, animation and user-interface design.

Besides music production and performances he played key role in the concept and interface-design with EKS in the development of the MIDI controller EKS Otus. He played his last DJ gig in April of 2009, sold his record label “Subtraxx Recordings” for Bonzai Music and relocated into South-East Asia.