German DJ and producer Steve Bug is head of a family of record labels releasing minimal, tech house and deep house by the likes of Trentemoller, Martin Landsky, Guido Schneider and John Tejada. The operation is split into three labels: Poker Flat concentrates on a tight cluster of tech house artists, Dessous Recordings releases more house-oriented material, and Bug’s latest baby Audiomatique looks outside the Poker Flat family for new producer talent.

It makes sense then that Bug’s DJ sets sit somewhere in between these varied styles – as a spinner he takes pride in being able to move the room seamlessly from one genre to the other. In his top ten Bug even lists a track he doesn’t particularly like, recommending it as tool rather than a track in its own right.

As a DJ, Bug is also known for using Final Scratch technology, which lightens his baggage load considerably. RA asked Bug whether mixing on a computer now means he’s stopped buying records: “No, I'm still a big collector. Even though I do buy some stuff on Beatport, I still buy the vinyl to put in my studio. I encode all of my files from vinyl using a nice phono pre-amp because I think the sound is better.” And how big is that record collection now? “Well, I just moved house so I sold a lot of it. I definitely want to get rid of more promos though because I have so many records that I’ve bought. Let’s see…I packed up sixty boxes so around six thousand to seven thousand?”

RA asked Bug what the best place for vinyl addicts to shop in Berlin was: “Since I moved to Berlin I buy my records at Melting Point. I also sell my older vinyl there and then they resell it so it goes back into the circle. I like that idea. I go there with all my friends every week. They save the records for us so it's not like just going anywhere. It's very close to my house too.”

Bug is a hard man to track down these days. His 2007 DJ schedule is taking him to Argentina, Europe, Japan as well as Global Breakthrough in South Africa in February. When we finally located our target, he was in a hotel room in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His top ten went something like this... 1 Comment