Over recent years, Sam Geiser aka Deetron has emerged as a rising star in the Techno world. His popularity as a Producer has flourished in tandem with his reputation as a dynamic three-deck DJ, and as the latter discipline propelled him across the globe, his work for a growing roster of record labels further cemented his position as a genuine talent within the International scene.
His list of musical achievements stretch back to the early nineties – and on paper it makes for quite an impressive body of work.
Born in Bern, Switzerland, Music was a constant in the Geiser family home. Sam’s father’s activities as a jazz musician ensured that he was surrounded by music from a very early age, sewing the seeds of his own musical interests. But it was Hip-Hop that encouraged this to flourish into an active involvement in music, during his teens. Sam soaked-up the music of Gangstarr, A Tribe Called Quest, and Prince Paul like a sponge, and was quick to realise the role of the turntable within this context, taking up DJing in 1992.
Early Hip-House producers, such as Todd Terry, also captured his attention, and Sam began to make the transition to more 4/4 orientated sounds – picking up on the now classic output of Chicago and Detroit-based electronic musicians and introducing this into the sets he was, by now, playing around his home town, and further afield in Switzerland.
This led, in 1994, to his first big break – securing a residency at Zurich’s reputed club, Trax at the Rohstofflager. Once reaching this position, Sam felt it was time to make his own forays into music production and began building a studio, drawing on his experience as a DJ to create his own tracks. A meeting with Stefan Reisen, head of the fledgling Phont music, led to the release of Deetron’s first single – as Soulmate, in 1997.
Things snowballed from there. Geiser’s production activity put him on the map, which in turn assisted the growth of his DJ profile. A trip to Japan led to a collaboration with DJ Shufflemaster (again, for Phont), and pretty soon the requests from other labels began to come in. During the late nineties, his work for other labels saw Deetron finding his audience (including a string of International club jocks) and developing his own sound. In later years, Sam’s production touch has graced labels including Cosmic (as Karakter), Ongaku (the ‘Lorraine EP’) and SLS. In addition, he received a deluge of remix requests – resulting in work for Samuel L. Session, Ben Sims, Damon Wild, Steve Bicknell (as Karakter), K-Alexy Shelby, Orlando Voorn, Paul Mac and others.
Possible the most fruitful partnership of his career so far is that with Belgium’s Music Man label. Beginning with the ‘Dolls For a Diva’ 12” in 2001, and including several more 12”s and a superb mix CD that acts as ample testament to Sam’s skills behind the turntables. Music Man are also the label that Sam has chosen to release his debut full length release.
Geiser has come a long way in a relatively short period of time, but it’s no fluke ascension given his considerable talent and hard work. What’s more, he shows no sign of flagging. Whilst 2003 has been a very busy year, with extensive worldwide DJ dates, singles for Music Man and Intec, and high profile remixes for Ennio Morricone, Victor Simonelli, Gary Martin, and Mark Broom, 2004 and 2005 have taken his DJ-schedule to yet another level and he released the massive “Miss Suave EP” on Intec in 2004 as well as “The floor jackin’ theory” on Music Man in 2005. Furthermore he remixed Funk D’Void, Joris Voorn, Smith & Selway and Detroit Grand Pubahs to name but a few.