Ricardo Villalobos

As far back as the early '90s, Ricardo Villalobos began building an impressive discography of 12" releases on respected dance labels like Playhouse and Perlon, and around the turn of the decade he was one of the most revered producers and DJs in dance music. In his youth, the Chilean-born Villalobos moved with his family to Germany in order to avoid the military dictatorship of Pinochet, and he eventually fell in with the country's fertile house community. A minimalist at heart, he trotted the globe to study percussion in order to apply his knowledge to his productions, which almost always sound remarkably expansive despite their simplicity. In addition to his own solo material, he has recorded with fellow expatriate Dandy Jack as Ric y Martin and with Luciano as Sense Club; additionally, he has taken part in Markus Nikolai's Hombre Ojo project. Two excellent mixes — 2002's Love Family Trax and 2003's Taka Taka — were released as his profile was significantly increasing, but the apex of his career was Alcachofa, a 2003 full-length released on Playhouse. A second full-length, Thé au Harem d'Archimède, arrived on Perlon in 2004 and was nearly as astonishing as its predecessor. Long-form releases that followed include the double 12" Achso (Cadenza, 2006), the two-track/72-minute Fizheuer Zieheuer (Playhouse, 2006), the compilation Salvador (Frisbee Tracks, 2006), the Villalobos-production-centric mix Fabric 36 (Fabric, 2007), and Vasco (Perlon, 2008). In 2011, Villalobos released Re:ECM, in which he and fellow electronic producer Max Loderbauer rework tracks from such artists as Arvo Pärt, Miroslav Vitous, Bennie Maupin, John Abercrombie, and others.