Moon Harbour Artists
Matthias Tanzmann
Matthias Tanzmann started his DJ and production career in the mid nineties in Leipzig, playing regularly at the renowned club ‘Distillery’. These early days saw his first release as 'Gamat 3000' (with Daniel Scholz) on Dessous Recordings, which was quickly followed by releases on Freude Am Tanzen, Lo-Fi Stereo and FM Musik.
In 2000 he founded Moon Harbour Recordings, and since then scores of Moon Harbour releases have been playlisted by renowned DJ's all over the world. The label rapidly became synonymous with quality deep-house and tech-house, and has released many of Matthias Tanzmann’s own records as well as those from the likes of Luna City Express, Marlow, Martinez and Dan Drastic. In 2006 he founded the label Cargo Edition, where you can find regular releases from Michael Melchner, Ekkohaus, Markus Schatz, Sven Tasnadi, Vera and Juno6.
The success of both labels has seen the explosion of Matthias Tanzmann's DJ career, which now takes him almost continuously around the global club and festival scenes. Another factor in his success has been his residency at the famous party series Circoloco at DC10 in Ibiza since 2007. Playing regularly on both the Balearic Isle and at international Circoloco shows has resulted in 3 consecutive nominations at the Ibiza DJ Awards.
Between his numerous DJ gigs, Matthias Tanzmann also produces consistently ground-breaking music. In addition to a line of singles, his first solo album "Restless" was released on Moon Harbour in 2006, and beyond that his remixing skills are also in great demand - remixing for artists such as Moby, 2000 and one, Josh Wink and Booka Shade to name just a few.
Martinez
Martinez, by birth Martin Swanstein, was born in 1981 and raised in the southernmost part of Sweden. At an early age he discovered Techno and House Music. Since he already played various instruments it was a natural progression to begin producing music himself. He also got into DJing, started hunting down Techno records and got into mixing. At this time Martinez was too young to attend clubs, so instead he arranged his own Techno & House parties on the beach just on the seaside of Helsingborg, with himself and friends as DJs.
Some years later a demo tape earned him the opportunity to develop his production skills in the Wrong Steps Studio in Stockholm, where he coproduced some of his own tracks together with the French producer Manuel Perez. Since Martin still went to school this time, the work had to be scheduled for the holidays. One of these early tracks later appeared as “Late Night Groove” on Martin's debut 12" on the Swedish label Deeplay Music.
In 2000 Martinez moved from his small Swedish hometown to the more open musical climate of the Danish capital Copenhagen. This encouraged him to put even more time and energy into his music productions and not long after this he landed a record deal with the renowned Guidance label in Chicago. First out was the “Laidback Grooves EP” with its mix of Deep House and Broken Beats and two more were to follow.
He also made some wonderful remixes for the Physics Duo from Deeplay Music and the “Aquarium Jazz Dub Mix” on “Don’t Deny Me Love” was a particular success among fans, DJs, and reviewers alike. Other remix works included Danish Pop/House act Filur as well as Dalminjo, Silicone Soul, The Beard, Holmes ft. Dragonfly, Jussi Pekka, Dibaba, Spiro Projecto and - later on - Underworld. His remix of Nathan Fakes “The Sky Was Pink” was a big hit in the DJ world.
Martinez' sound begun in the deeper & jazzier fields of Electronic Music. In the middle of 2003 he began to feel a stronger passion for the techier and more experimental sounds of House Music. He started to work more with samples and electro-based sounds as well as introducing something he's coined as "Cosmic House" - a spacey House Sound mixing up Tech, atmosphere and colourful melodies.
Not long after this Martinez received a call from Steve Bug interested in a release on his Deep/Tech House imprint, Dessous Recordings. This resulted in the "Skywalker EP”, which inspired a whole new side to Martinez' music, edgier and more twisted. The more so the better!
In the summer of 2004 Martinez launched his own label Out Of Orbit Recordings, which has been a platform not only for his own music, but for his friends too: Trentemoller had a huge success with Beta Boy (orb003) and Zvukbroda, Nima Gorji, Robert Babicz, Jussi Pekka & Robert Leiner have also released material.
Martinez released two tracks on the Berlin based Get Physical label and in 2005 “Shadowboxing” came out on Steve Bug's new imprint, Audiomatique Recordings. In November that year Martinez also released his first album called “Internal Space” on his Out Of Orbit. It was praised and played by Sven Väth, John Digweed and Loco Dice, to name a few.
Towards the end of 2006 Martinez' music taste and productions began to develop in new directions again and he ventured deeper into his love for the minimalistic techno oriented sounds - more stripped down and focused on fewer sounds. After a while in the studio experimenting with this sound he launched a new label called Re:connected, an output for his more minimal and techno oriented productions. Martinez' first two releases on Re:connected exploded and were highly supported by major international DJs such as Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Sven Väth, Loco Dice and Miss Kittin. 2007 witnessed the continual success of productions in this vein. His inspiration in this vein has been so overflowing that he released his second full length album "A Chemical Imbalance" already in November. This release was a modern Techno album with influences of Ambient, Dub, early Deep House, influenced by his love for the label Guidance.
From that point on Martinez’ releases developed more and more towards Minimal Techno, until in 2008 when he returned to a more housy style, kicking off with his release “Momowha”. Within the same year he was asked to remix Miss Kittin’s track “Grace”, for her label “Nobody’s Bizzness”. Finally, in 2010 Martinez released his third album “The Paradigm Shift” on Moon Harbour Recordings. On this album Martinez rides the perfect balance between Dancefloor and Chillout tunes. Mainly influenced by Chicago House, "The Paradigm Shift" also covers Techno, Breakbeat and dubby Downtempo sounds.
Martinez also has great deck skills and this, along with impeccable taste, has given him a strong DJ reputation worldwide. He often is to be seen in the booths of various quality clubs and parties around the globe. He’s played together with major DJs such as Michael Mayer, Miss Kittin, Guido Schneider, Onur Özer, Loco Dice and Sven Väth, in clubs such as Weetamix in Geneva, Amnesia and Space in Ibiza, Nitsa in Barcelona, Cocoon in Frankfurt and Panorama Bar in Berlin, to name a few.
