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Michiel van der Kuy (born 10 July 1962) is a Dutch music producer. His most successful music projects are Laserdance, L. A. Style and Koto.

Career

Laserdance

Van der Kuy was studying at the VWO when he was approached in 1984 by Erik van Vliet, who at the time had a well-running record shop in Rotterdam. Van Vliet imported his records from Italy, but also wanted to do more in the Italo Disco genre himself and Van der Kuy was hired as a musician. Under the alias Laserdance (also spelled Laser Dance or Lazer Dance), numerous singles and albums were released, which featured rhythmic, danceable electronic music. Van der Kuy made the music with analog synthesizers, drum computers and vocoders.

The first two singles sold well and the debut album, called "Future Generation" from 1987, proved to be a commercial success with approximately 150,000 copies sold worldwide. The album is seen as one of the most successful albums in the Spacesynth genre, and includes the singles "Humanoid Invasion" and "Power Run". In the late 90s, Laserdance's sales declined, after which the project was shut down.

Side projects

In addition to his productions for Laserdance, Van der Kuy worked on multiple Spacesynth projects. In 1987 he was active with Proxyon, a collaboration with Rob van Eijk. In 1988, two singles were released under the name Rygar, and in 1989 Van der Kuy also went on to record under the alias Koto. With this, multiple singles and albums were released.

In 1991, Van Der Kuy had a big hit with the song James Brown is Dead, which was released under the alias L. A. Style. This was a music project where he collaborated with Wessel van Diepen. The song caused a chain reaction. Not much later, other music producers also made similar songs.

Return

At the end of 2015 Van der Kuy rejoined Laserdance and it was decided to release new material. That resulted in the album "Force of Order" which was released on september 30, 2016. The compilation album Greatest Hits & Remixes also appeared that year. In 2018, a new album was released under the title "Trans Space Express". And in 2024, a longplay "Mission Hyperdrive" was published by ZYX Music label.

Instruments

Van der Kuy used such synthesizers in his electronic music productions, as:
- Roland JX-10
- Roland Juno-60
- Roland Juno-106
- Roland TR-808
- Yamaha FB-01
- Korg M1
- Korg Polysix
- LinnDrum LM2
- Oberheim OB-Xa
- E-mu Emax
- Ensoniq ESQ-1
- Kurzweil K2000

Discography:

Michiel Van Der Kuy's Projects - Cosmic Thematic Set 3 In 1! (published on 10.07.2024)


Tracklist:
01. Rygar - Cosmic Choir (05:13) [The Album 2001];
02. Laserdance - Cosmo Tron (Remix) (04:46) [Discovery Trip 1989];
03. Koto - Cosmic Connection (04:21) [From The Dawn Of Time 1992]

Michiel Van Der Kuy - Especial Synth Space (Megamixed by DJ Diablo Mayo'20) [published on 06.07.2021]