Umek is excited. He's just finished working on a new compilation for Toolroom that will be out early next year. He's got some hot new tunes from artists he's excited about coming out on his 1605 Records label, and just yesterday he heard a batch of new tracks that he says he can't wait to play on his weekly Behind The Iron Curtain radio show.

"All of it - the label work, the radio work, the production and the DJing is equally exciting to me," says the Slovenian DJ/producer. In the past 11 months Umek has done over 100 DJ gigs, covering every continent. Highlights for him, he says, were supporting Carl Cox for his Revolution residency at Space in Ibiza and playing his "most ever USA gigs" in the space of a year. As one of Eastern Europe's most famous dance music exports, Umek is as excited about what's going on in that part of the world in terms of dance music as he is about his own career trajectory. "It's all about music for me," he says. "It's what keeps me going."