Motor

Motor is a primary alias of an experimental musician, composer, and producer, Vadim Ugryumov, from Moscow, Russia. He's the founder of top-40.org and quietzone.in labels. Vadim Ugryumov has been producing and releasing electronic music since the early 1990s. He co-founded Techno Dance Club duo and hugely popular Triplex project, also active under numerous other aliases, including Leonardo D.K. and Navigator; his tracks appeared on the best-selling "Dance Paradise" CD compilation series and saw heavy rotation on Station 106.8 FM, the first post-Soviet radio channel solely focused on electronic music. Besides solo productions, Ugryumov was a prolific mastering and studio engineer working for many renowned Russian bands and pop musicians. Around 1998, Ugryumov recorded his first demo tape under the "Motor" alias, privately distributed among friends and collaborators. One of Vadim's acquaintances operated a small-scale but reputable mailorder, and a few tapes made it to Europe. Frans de Waard was so impressed that he decided to publish Motor's EP as the inaugural release on his newly launched minimal techno label, Audio.NL. The label subsequently released four 12" records and Motor's debut full-length album, 52182 — hailed by Michael Mayer, one of Kompakt's founders, as "maybe the most wicked and euphoric record on Earth." In 2002, Motor launched a private imprint, top-40.org, which subsequently expanded and developed into a netlabel with a broad catalog of international artists, from Gultskra Artikler and TV Pow to Cisfinitum, Alexei Borisov and Jeffrey Surak, among others. In June 2006, an addendum Quiet Zone netlabel was launched, focused on lowercase ambient, field recordings, drones, and other similar "quiet" genres.