Umek
By Kit Macdonald
Uroš Umek's career as Slovenia's premier techno star began as soon as it realistically could have.
Though Yugoslavia took a relatively liberal line with Western music and freedom of expression (the industrial band Laibach, with whom Umek has a long-standing association started there in the mid-80s), there was no techno scene in the capital, Ljubljana until Umek himself helped to create it in the early 90s with his involvement in the nascent illegal rave scene. Fast forward three decades and his place in Slovenian music history is secure, as is his reputation for being able to delight crowds from the darkest Berlin techno dungeon to the sunniest summer festival with equal aplomb.
He may sound an imposing proposition - two metres tall and equipped with thudding, pitch-dark beats - but the grinning, shadow-boxing figure he cuts in the booth speaks to the fun he still has there after all these years.