Mike Z

The lockdown due to COVID-19 measures may not have been the initial reason for Michael – or Mike Z, as he likes to call himself under his DJ moniker – to retreat back to his basement and make music, but it certainly helped a lot to focus. For several years he‘d been making electronic music, but a professional career as head of the multimedia division of an important German retailer kind of stopped him cold. He’d do some DJ-ing once in a while, making himself a name as „connaisseur“ of French House, Electronic Dance Music, Soul, Jazz and Krautrock - but in terms of producing music himself, his synthesizers mostly were stowed away in the basement of his provincial home near the Bavarian Alps. That is, up until he „ finally found the device that enabled me to