Miguel Colmenares

After a scant two years kicking around Miami and DJing scattered gigs

there and abroad, Miguel Colmenares founded the music-and-art crew

Future Collective, got his hands on production software, and from there, it

was only a matter of months before labels and listeners alike fell for

the Venezuelan producer's singular brand of intensely syncopated

minimalism. Inspired as much by Latin bandleaders like Cheo Feliciano

and Eddie Palmieri as by fellow South American technophiles Ricardo

Villalobos and Pier Bucci, Colmenares emerged fully formed, armed to

the hilt with percussive grooves that bounce like digitized conga

drums shimmying through a steel pipeline.

Colmenares' 2006 debut, the slithering come-on of "Sure You Do,"

caught the ear of Sweden-based netlabel Subtropical's Vincent

Casanova, who remixed the track as the b-side to "Carta Roja."

(Matthew Dear has been known to drop that particular track into his

sets, calling Colmenares "a perfectionist of the simple yet

oh-so-addictive house groove.") A pair of releases on Pinksilver

followed. But after spending time in Sacramento and reconnecting with

Auralism's Jason Short, the producer knew he'd found a spiritual

home—even though he now lives half across the globe in the

Netherlands. Lately, Colmenares has been constructing his elegant

odysseys the old-fashioned way. "I've started doing more jam sessions

in the studio where I just turn the machines on and start recording

long parts on the sequencer, drum machines, and real synths. I've

found it's a lot more interactive, as well as a lot more open to

error…which in techno can sometimes be good!" Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.