The first lockdown due to COVID-19measuresin early 2020may not have been the initial reason for Michael –or Mike Z, as he likes to call himself under his DJ moniker –to retreat back to his basementand make music, but it certainly helped a lot to focus. For several years he‘d been making electronicmusic, but a professional career as head ofthe multimedia division of an important German retailer kind of stopped him cold. He’d do some DJ-ing once in a while, making himself a name as „connaisseur“ of French House, Electronic Dance Music, Soul, Jazz and Krautrock -but in terms of producing music himself, his synthesizers mostly were stowed away in the basement of his provincial home near the Bavarian Alps.That is, up until he „finally foundthe device thatenabled meto both arrange mymusicand perform it live“: The „Deluge“ groovebox by Synthstrom. After 15 years of mainly observing whatwashappening in terms of electronic music around the world, he got back to his initial passion for making mu