Mat Playford (GB)

Mat's passion for music began at the tender age of 5 years old, where he took it upon himself to be the tape operator at his mother's aerobics classes. This was a huge signpost of what was to come, and accordingly, throughout his teenage years and to the present day, Mat has spent many hundreds of hours and their equivalent in pounds tracking down keyboards of all ilks and vintages. It's clear that Giorgio Moroder and Jean Michael Jarre count as his most prominent influences. After building, creating (and curating, considering it's contents) a small studio in his mid-teens, Mat followed his inspiration and enrolled at Leeds College of Music for 5 years, opting to study Commercial Music Production & Management. By the 4th year he had been asked to lecture at the college. Around this time Mat had taken a couple of driving jobs for a dj agency and it was through this outlet that he met two US house producers who would further shape his future. It was 1996 when Mat met Sandy Rivera & Angel Moraes, and it was also in this year that he went to stay in Brooklyn to hang out, soak up their advice & skills, and generally have his mind blown by what was now possible. Experiences like this breed life-changing moments, and these times fuelled Mat's mind and gave him the confidence and drive to keep pushing forward. A tour with Sandy Rivera came about, and further experience was gained, with overall the most important thing to Mat being the ability to see beyond his surroundings. Indeed in his hometown of St Albans he had spent time with many producers who were breaking through in the world of drum n' bass, 1996 was a pivotal year for this form of dance music, and the likes of Photek and Source Direct were local boys who had truely transcended their surroundings. From those moments onward there would be no mental barriers to overcome.