Marc Romboy

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Working in electronic club music for over two decades, Romboy has co-founded and built internationally respected dance-music labels and projects, never tiring of coming up with fresh and innovative ideas to push the limits of electronic sounds.

At age five, Romboy was listening to The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and Pink Floyd via his parents record collection, at eight he bought his first record ‘The Robots’ by fellow Düsseldorf inhabitants Kraftwerk (“I’ll never forget singing it to our local record dealer, trying to find what it was”). And, at age ten, Romboy was djing. “I first began to spin records more or less when I was ten. I didn’t know that you called it djing, but I was always keen to play music at the parties of my friends or in my school class.”

Romboy first discovered dance music in the mid 80s via the ‘strange’ Chicago sound that became apparent around him. “I didn’t exactly know the background and roots of this music, but was really flashed when I did hear Steve Silk Hurley’s ‘Jack Your Body’ for the first time. I thought this was music from a different universe.” In 1992 - whilst studying human medicine - fascinated by the early Techno and House records on R&S, Nu Groove and Underground Resistance, Romboy decided to begin producing himself. Along with his friend Klaus Derichs, he bought the Akai sampler S 1000, the Roland TB 303 bass line machine and a mixing desk: “We spent our very last money and produced some freaky underground records for labels like See Saw, Adam & Eve and Rising High and when the musical success began I stopped studying.”

In 1994, Romboy and Klaus Derichs founded their own label ‘Le Petit Prince’. The label quickly became one of Germany’s most popular underground outputs, with Groove magazine charting it as the most popular label in 1995. It went on to release tracks from Microwave Prince, Emmanuel Top, Thomas P. Heckmann and Phuture until its demise in 2002.

Around the same time as he formed Le Petit Prince, Romboy also began djing, frequently playing at Techno parties in around his hometown of Düsseldorf and making his festival debut at the Tribal Gathering in Munich in 1994 (“One of the first great parties I played”). Now, Romboy regularly travels around the globe at clubs including Rex in Paris, Fabric in London, Watergate and Berghain in Berlin, Fuse in Brussels or Cocorico in Italy to mention a few. “Basically I love to dj all over the globe because I like the way that everybody understands and lives the same language, the universal language of Techno or House music.”

Romboy began his second label Systematic Recordings in 2004, with the first release ‘Every Day In My Life’ produced alongside Booka Shade. Romboy then went on to collaborate with people like Robert Babicz, Stephan Bodzin, Steve Lawler and Dusty Kid for the label, whilst also releasing EPs from Robert Owens, Blake Baxter, Chelonis R. Jones, Gui Boratto, Spirit Catcher and Phonique. Romboy also released his debut artist Album ‘Gemini’ on the label in 2006 to great critical acclaim.

Through both his solo releases and his collaborations, Romboy has also released on labels including Ovum, Simple, Brique Rouge, 100% Pure, Tronic and more. A regular collaboration is that of Romboy and Stephan Bodzin as the two close friends have released records together on Systematic, 20:20 Vision and Bodzin’s own imprint Herzblut, with ‘Atlas’ and ‘Callisto’, being two of their biggest releases to date. “Many of my other collaborations have been done with singers as I love to include the soul caused by the voice into electronic music; it’s definitely my style and passion which I personally call soulful Techno House.”

In June 2008 Romboy released his second artist Album on Systematic called ‘Contrast’, followed by the long awaited Triple-CD and Five-Records-Box-Set Album „Luna“ in 2011, including all songs Romboy produced with Bodzin plus more than 20 remixes of high profile artists from the likes of Moritz von Oswald, Robag Wruhme, Martin Buttrich, Pan-Pot, Roman Fluegel and many more.

Two new Albums are scheduled for 2013. First of all Marc ́s highly anticipated Album with Japanese Techno Superstar Ken Ishii called „Taiyo“ and afterwards a third solo Album he is currently working on...