Passion, creativity, versatility and the way of combining musical elements might be the most important things distinguishing the newcomer talent ASKII. He’s a 21 year old producer from Dresden of different Trance styles, as well as Progressive House, Breakbeat and some parts of Techno and Minimal.

The main thing about ASKIIs music is his wide variety of different electronic dance music styles and the way of combing them. No matter if he tries bringing together driving Trance music with soundtrack-like orchestra breaks, surreal soundscapes with banging Tech styles or Rock-Parts inside of a Progressive House track – It’s always a sound full of potential!

Erik Rettig aka ASKII was born on May 10th 1989 in Dresden, Germany. His dream of being a music producer is almost as old as himself. From an early age he was interested in keyboards and ways of music production. Already at that time he was very passionate about electronic dance music, especially Techno, Trance and Breakbeat. At the age of 11 he got his first own keyboard – The foundation making his dream come true was laid. While making his first steps in digital production at the age of 16 by using computer software, he got more and more professional, learned more about sequencing, arranging, synthesizers, sampling and music in general.

The project “ASKII” was born in January 2009. The pseudonym was a variation of his earlier (general) nickname “ASCII”, adapted from the computer code. To make something more special and a link to his name ‘Erik’, he changed the ‘C’ with a ‘K’.
ASKII, who had driven his music to a certain level already, but was still showing his tunes to his nearest friends and family members only, wanted to know, how far he really was, and began spreading his music on the internet. The most mentionable platform he used for this was the German music community “Uptrax”. With his track “Cyprus 2009” he got a well known member there in summer 2009, as it reached rank 2 in the weekly charts and was played on the German radio “Sunshine Live” as well. His following 4 tracks were all ranked #1 in a row, and one track finally set the ball rolling: “Speed of Light”. It was the first tune together with vocalist ‘Katy Kay’ (Katharina Neukirch) and was very successful on numerous communities like YouTube and MySpace. Two months later ASKII was signed to the Electronic Dance Music label “Planet Bass Records”. According to this, he decided to put his focus on different Trance styles, Progressive House and Breakbeat, but still staying versatile and creative. His concept of combining existing styles with new components, using sometimes unusual elements for specific styles and always creating a completely new sound and feel with every new track, had finally worked.

Right now, ASKII is making his way to the top. He’s working on new concepts, reworking ideas from earlier tracks and producing and remixing new tunes, and he has also started to establish himself as a DJ as well. He already played on smaller events and got lots of positive reactions as well as requests. It’s his dream being live on stage on events like Sensation White or Nature One someday, and he’s struggling hard to bring this dream to life.