We had a pleasure to catch up and chat with one of the techno scene heavy weights Christian Smith, hope you enjoy the interview! You have been in the scene for over two decades, and it’s hard to imagine a list of successful producers and DJ’s without your name being at the top. What do you personally think are the biggest turning points during your artistic career? I don't really think that there has been a big turning point specifically, but it has been more consistent over the years. I have been producing and DJ’ing for so many years and have been lucky do have an exciting and successful career from this. Music has long been a significant part of your lie. Did anything change your view of the music and the music scene through the last few years and what do you think about it today? The whole industry has changed a lot since I started out all those years ago. Back then, there were very few international DJ’s and when you produced a record, if it was successful –

Can you tell us how you guys got your stage name ‘ARTBAT’? It’s a combination of our names Artur and Batish. Tell us about what’s in the pipeline, Future releases, Shows? Our most waiting release «Uplift» will out 17th March on Diynamic Music. Also in May and July we have two upcoming techno releases on Eklektisch Label. Of course we a working a lot now on a new productions and will announce them soon. Future performances that we are looking forward to is a set after Richie Hawtin on Platforma that will be 12.05, also waiting a summer to return to Ibiza this season for a few gigs in Destino Tox. In end of June we are playing on the best Ukrainian electronic music festival OSTROV with Ben Klock, Mano Le Tough, Rodhad and many amazing producers. A lot of local gigs in Ukrainian cities and foreign countries are coming too. How is the nightlife in Ukraine what experiences have you had so far? Nightlife in Ukraine is going better and better every year now. Of course ther

How did you decide upon the name “Acumen”? I found my artist name in the English dictionary. I was looking for a name that sounded good. And I came across this one. We can say that I was quite lazy I did not even arrive at the "b"   Where did your love of music come from and how old were you when you first realised you wanted to work in the music industry?` Often music is a family affair. For example my wife has only musicians in my family. Father bassist, mother vilonist, brother drummer ... me this is absolutely not the case. But I listened to music very young with always my own tastes very asserted. I listened to a lot of rock and punk! My passion for electronic music came with clubbing. But to finish my studies as a pharmacist I had to go out less. I decided to build a label with the knowledge I had and people I knew. This is why Time Has Changed was born in 2007.   What’s more important, luck or design? I think very honestly that it takes a bi

Hi, is a real pleasure to have one of the underground dance music legends as our first interview of the year! Can you tell us what was 2016 like for you and your plans for 2017 & what you got in store? - Good to be with you guys. 2016 in a nutshell was an album year for me. I finally released the Retroactive album with an extensive tour to support it in June. It was an album that looked back at my influences over the years retroactively. It consisted of a lot of tracks I had been working on for the past few years. So I was very pleased with the end result and bringing all those tracks together under one album. It also set the stage for me to move forward musically. It was a cleansing of sorts. Since then I’ve started to take on some remixes and I’m also making loads of new music and some collaborations. A couple of new projects are in the pipeline that we will be announcing soon.   Where did your love of music come from and how old were you when you first realised