ALBERTO SOLA biography
When you mention Alberto Sola it is impossible to not talk about an innovative person, with a complete passion for all things music.
After studying composition and acoustics at University, Alberto merged his findings with his first passion of DJ’ing and performing which has lead him to where he is today. Throughout Spain he has defined himself as an eclectic artist, merging the best of each style in electronic music without truly attaching himself to just one type of sound. His appreciation of avant-garde and underground music have defined his tastes and interests and helped to form Alberto´s belief that a DJ must use his work to teach and produce.
Having played most of the prominent clubs in Spain alongside important artists of the world like Tania Vulcano, 2000 and One, Magda, Guido Schneider, James Holden, Anja Schneider, Troy Pierce and others, Alberto has used his time in the booth to shape the sound he represents both in playing and producing today. His club credits in Spain include Goa (Madrid), Danzoo (Madrid), Industrial Copera (Granada), Emporio (Seville), Fever (Bilbao) and internationally at Suburbia (Italy), Arma 17 (Russia), Tresor (Germany), Kindergarten (Bologna), Bonn (Germany) and London (UK). In addition, he has participated in the most important festivals of electronic music in Eastern Spain at the Palmeres Festival and Electrosplash Tour respectively.
Now in 2009, after a steady career progression, Alberto is ready to release his first works of production on the Barraca Music label. The first release ‘Big Cake’ alongside studio partner AFFKT is due for release in May and comes complete with a 2000 and One remix. Early support is already being shown by Laurent Garnier, Tania Vulcano, Lee Burridge, Matthias Tanzmann, Timo Maas, Mathias Kaden, Shindoe and Bill Patrick with more to follow.
KIKO MARTINEZ biography
His professional career started 20 years ago, when Valencia was internationally considered one of the points of reference of musical avantgarde. In his early years, combining his work as a DJ in various local clubs with his somewhat unknown radio Dj activity in local radio stations such as "Radio Libertaria", "Radio Actividad" or "Radio Spektra". His sets in that time were rich in state-of-the-art electronic music, mainly imported from center Europe labels, along with the guitar based music that nowadays is known as "Remember". These trends have always been of influence for him, and yet today he still highlights his sets with some of those big tunes. As a result, he was distincted in some DJ gatherings in which he took part in clubs like "Sirio", "Amadeus" and "Shock", just to mention a few.
His two main residencies in the 90s where at "Discovery" (1990 - 1993) and at "Extra Radio Bar" (1993 - 1997), where he made many good friends and most of all lived fine musical and personal experiences. After a year of musical inactivity, in 2000 he came back as manager and host of the radio program "Qué noche la de aquel año", basically devoted to avant-garde music of the 90s in the now extinct radio station "Onda Urbana Valencia", that later on became "My Radio Valencia", a station in which, and until 2006, he produced and hosted the program "Dubdivision" on Thursday nights.
He spent the first years of the new century with residences in much more commercial clubs such as "Plató", "Polvo Valencia" or "Iguana Blue", that he eventually dropped to devote himself to new trends. At the end of this period, he was invited frequently by Albert Sola (Barraca) to share his booth at "Bauhaus", making clear that he had a passion for the break-through electronic music no matter the time.
September 2006 saw the birth of his most succesful project to date, the radio project www.docepulgadas.com, where week after week he presents and describes detailfully the best of electronic music, new and old, let it be Detroit sound, EBM, Acid House, etc. Because of the quality of this production, he's simultaneously broadcasted by 5 radio stations in different parts of the country, with A1 collaborations from people like Alberto Palacios (Loft.Co, Gijón), Alberto Sola (Barraca, Valencia), Gonçalo (Emporio, Sevilla), Nuria Ghia (BeCool, La Cova, Zoom Club, Barcelona) y Carlos Palacio (Florida135 – Sala Moma, Zaragoza). As time went by and because of his ample professional experience, he's been invited to clubs as relevant in Valencia as “Spook”, “Látex”, “Flamingo”, “Flow”, “Noche sin tregua”, “Chemikal”, “Isonora”, “D.S.O”, and of course his residence at the now closed "Café Glacé".
Always looking for something new, Kiko created the club www.avantgardeklub.com, with two different musical ambiances and capacity to host up to 3,000 people, where he was not only resident DJ but also manager and lineup coordinator, booking both national and international artists. Nowadays he makes so in a new "mini-club" in Valencia called Plastik Club, a place where one can hear electronic music in the best of taste.
He has also worked as musical critic, both on plays and clubs in the now deceased Valencian magazine V30 and also in www.lamilk.com. Last but not least, he has started the project "DocePulgadas Management", where in 2008 he'll try to manage an agency not only for booking but also for promoting new talents.
