Isaac Spayes

engineer for I.S.M. Productions at I.S.M. Productions.

Finland's Jyri Kantanen moved to Stockholm, Sweden in '79 at young age. Whatever you do, don't mistake him for a Swede or he'll aim a hockey puck at your head. The move to Stockholm lead to his first deeper encounter to Disco, Reggae and especially Dub music, that left a fundamentally new perspective and a mind set of musical persception in general. His father managed a Stockholm discotheque called Skeppet in the early '80s that has been (justifiably) compared to New York's infamous Paradise Garage. Kantanen blagged plenty of mix tapes and vinyl from visiting DJs before running off to work for an electro-acoustic design firm. He spent almost 10 years building PA systems for rock and pop clubs before the electronic dance scene blew up in Stockholm in the early '90s. With a co-investment from a colleague, Kantanen designed and built a sound system specifically designed for reggae/dub and the new demands of electronic dance music that he hired out to raves, clubs and parties all over Stockholm during then '90s, thus securing his ticket into the dance scene... [Mainly adapted from Epitonic interview]