U-Bahn

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U-Bahn is a Maltese electronic dance music duo made up of Mark Grima and Matthew Agius.

History

A friendship between two high school students in 1998, materialized into a story of a band that has left its mark on the Maltese dance culture. Mark Grima and Matthew Agius, had both been studying classical music, and their musical knowledge encouraged them to set up a home studio and record their ideas on tape. By the year 2000 at the age of 18, they succeed to attract the attention of top club DJs with a number of demos, and in the same year they received an award for Best New Talent at the Club DJ Awards. 2001 saw their first hit on the air waves with the song Closer which was then followed with other releases such as Evening Falls featuring Enya’s angelic voice.

2002

In 2002 U-Bahn released their debut album Freedom - a collection of songs including hits like Rocket High, You Are Mine, The Only Way and Closer. With the success of these tracks came along a large number of requests to perform live in clubs, parties, award nights and also at a baroque theatre – the Manoel Theatre. Their performances, upshot in an attraction to clubbing enthusiasts who enjoyed live music and placed U-Bahn along side top international names.

2003 - 2004

During 2003 - 2004 Matthew and Mark started off their solo career reaching out different styles of dance music. This helped them experiment with new fresh sounds and styles. In 2004 Mark worked together with DJ Ruby on the award winning remix Love Me or Hate Me by Ira Losco.

The end of 2004, Matthew and Mark returned back on stage for a massive one hour show for 04/05 NYE concert titled U-Bahn LIVE Classics Edition alongside Jan Johnston and other international names entertaining 3000 clubbers in Gozo.

2005 - 2006

In 2005 U-Bahn were joined by a new member Keith, who accompanied the band during live performances and was the voice behind the hit single Prove Yourself.

2006 saw another collaboration with DJ Ruby, this time on Accident Prone by Ira Losco. Mark also made his way with Sway on the Pure Malta compilation released on the Holland-based record label Fektive.

U-Bahn ended 2006 with a surprise remix of "Sampei", the original popular manga cartoon melody. This track broke local Maltese records hitting the number 1 position in Maltese Top 40 radio charts.

2007 - 2008

Following the success of "Sampei", Matthew and Mark toured clubs and headlined major festivals. Summer 2007 saw the release of "Dirty Electro" which was influenced by the underground sound that took Europe by storm - electronic sounds with rhythmic drum beats all wrapped up with a fat bassline.

2008 was a relatively quite year for U-Bahn as they upgraded their studio.

2009 - 2010

While Matthew moved off to Ireland DJing at top clubs like The Academy and Andrews Lane Theatre, Mark got back in the studio. During summer U-Bahn released Beautiful Eyes, a song which took the band back to its roots - melodic sequences and enchanting vocals. Beautiful Eyes made over 12 weeks in the charts, reached stations in Russia and hit number 4 in the Top 40. Following this success was a new remix for Ira Losco’s song Something to Talk About included in the Mixed Beats compilation and radio released in February 2010.

On Wednesday 1 September 2010 they released a trance/dance track in collaboration with Jo Micali called Making You Mine, featuring the voice of Chess.

Live setup and production

Described as the island’s foremost live dance act, U-Bahn's large LIVE equipment setup varies from: sequencers, samplers, synthesizers and several FX modules all in total full control. Infact for U-Bahn working in the studio is one thing, but going fully live without using any pre-recorded tracks is truly a challenge.

U-Bahn are constantly working on new material, from House to Progressive, breaks and chill out tracks.

Awards

Nominations & Guest Appearances

External links