Roman Belavkin, Solar X, became the first star of Russia's post perestroika techno scene after his unprecedented debut 12" on American Defective Records in 1995. He has been described by The Face magazine as "a stereotypical russian genius" for apart from being Russia's own "Aphex without a tank" (De-Bug), he has also achieved gold medals in martial arts and PhD in Artificial Intelligence. His music has been compared to Varese, Stockhausen, Tom Jenkinson and Richard James and was praised by the Guggenheim museum, the John Peel show while Roman performed his live sets at nuclear reactor raves in Crimea during solar eclipse. Roman is the founder of the russian Art-Tek records label and he has been named by the local press as the most influential person in modern russian electronic music. Born in Moscow, he started experimenting with russian synthesisers during his school years in the mid 80-es. His early musical influences include Georgio Moroder, break-dance music as well as Bach and Chinese chamber and percussion orchestras, which he got into when he travelled to China as a member of the USSR national martial arts team. In the early 90-es, he studied physics and mathematics at the Moscow State University, and he did not take his musical hobby seriously until 1992 when after a terrible car accident he had to spend two years imprisoned in his flat. During this period Roman adapted his computer and Soviet analogue synthesisers, and recorded his first full-length album. He sent this tape to some new friends he met on analogue synths forums. American label Defective records was so impressed with his bubbling sonic science they put out his utterly spaced 'Outre X Mer' 12", which became "release of the week" in the Front Page and Techno Today magazines. Solar X immediately became the centre of attention of a new post-perestroika media, and soon he became an icon of russian underground electronic scene. His second album, X-rated, employed everything from speedy robodisco to funkified gabba, all wrapped in gorgeous melodies. It was re-released in 1997, and it made The Wire to "pronounce the former Soviet Union a goldmine of undiscovered talent". In 1998, Roman signed to London's Worm Interface records, and his third album "Little Pretty Automatic" was named by many as one of the best albums in electronic music ever written: "what gives this album it's distinctive quality is neither the sounds, the rhythms or the arrangements...it is the way all the elements are fused into the whole with an almost classical sense of form, and the precision, and balance that results... an astonishing piece of work."