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Christian Smith
as a DJ and a producer, more so than any other has come to define
the new tech-house and funky techno sound. The result being a man
now very much in demand on the international DJ circuit. However,
don't be mistaken, this new found popularity is borne primarily
of hard-work, commitment and a genuine love of electronic music.
All that aside, lying at the heart of Christian's popularity as
a DJ is an innate ability to combine a diverse mix of hard pumping
house and tribal funky techno, all segued with a foundation that
includes tight 3 turntable mixing and creative scratching and programming.
The path to today has been a long and meandering one for Christian who first got the electronic music bug at age 15 listening to Sven Vath at Dorian Gray in Frankfurt in 1987. First it was DJ battles and then at age 17 Christian got his first break with a guest spot at the legendary Omen. After completing university in Washington DC, Christian moved back to the place of his birth, Sweden, and set himself up in Stockholm alongside his Swedish contemporaries Adam Beyer, Cari Lekebusch and Joel Mull. Together they have brought Swedish house and techno to the world. The last 2 years have seen Christian Smith travel the length and breadth of the world headlining events every weekend throughout Europe and North America and in places as diverse as Australia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand and selected South American countries.
On the production front, Christian had his first release on the then new US label Music Now (Music Now later went on to release artists like BT) as Neuromancer in 1991. Thereafter followed releases on Yoshitoshi, Nervous, and Primevil before Christian's own label Tronic Music was born. Since re-establishing himself in Sweden, Christian has focussed on releasing tracks on Tronic and his subsidiary house label Strive. Such releases have included collaborations with Jean-Phillipe Aviance that resulted in the (Carl Cox favourite) Goldrush EP and with John Selway that resulted in the MOVE EP on In-Tec (included on Sasha's IBIZA compilation). Despite focussing on his own labels Christian Smith has still continued with strong releases on other labels including Primevil; Smile US/UK; Rotation; Yoshitoshi; LOOP; Jericho; and Primate. And so it was in 1999 that all this lead to Christian Smith's signing to Carl Cox' new In-Tec label. The first fruits of this collaboration include an EP released by Christian and John Selway which turned out to be In-Tec biggest seller to date.
On the remix front Christian together with John have done successful remixes for HOOJ - Datar (Danny Tenaglia), NEO, Yoshitoshi (Flim Flam) , EC (Secret Cinema) and many more.
So the future
is looking very bright indeed; with a settled production and DJ
career and a personal mantra that aims to produce and push challenging
electronic music. Christian's career is now moving at a bristling
pace... jump on board for a taste of future headfunk.
