Seattle producer Bruno Pronsato (aka Steven Ford) took several giant steps in 2005 toward the peak of the experimental techno mountain. Both on vinyl and onstage, Pronsato kept up a hectic pace of production and performance, catalyzing listeners and crowds in Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Mexico, throughout the United States, and a triumphant set at Montreal’s Mutek festival. Twelve-inches on esteemed labels like Orac, Musique Risquée, Milnor Modern, Philpot, and Telegraph further elevated his stature and built his international fan base.

A sound scientist whose work is equally playful and rigorous, Pronsato deploys a canny use of space and idiosyncratically fashioned rhythms to disorient and build suspense—like some 21st-century Miles Davis or Eric Dolphy of the laptop. Despite being a minimal-techno artist, Pronsato offers a palette that’s as full of unexpected patterns and meticulously rendered textures as a Wassily Kandinsky painting.

Pronsato’s compositions unsettle in original ways, yet they also slyly tickle funnybones. Often both humorous and erotic, his cuts are the wild cards that adventurous DJs pull out when they want to take the dance floor to strange new levels of motion. Therefore, Pronsato’s releases have become elite selectors’ secret weapons of beguilingly baffling quirkiness that still move asses.

Unsurprisingly, 2006 is promising to be as eventful as last year. As demand for his music has waxed, Pronsato has accordingly increased his productivity while maintaining his usual exacting quality control standards. March will bring Pronsato’s debut 12 for Hello? Repeat while summer 2006 will see EPs issued by Orac and Telegraph (watch for the last two editions of the four-part Limeworks series), plus another collaboration with Argentinean Franco Cinelli for Milnor Modern (Picaro, their first joint effort from late ’05, contains some of Pronsato’s most flavorful club bangers). A new residence in Berlin has enabled Pronsato to spend even more time since 2006 devastating European audiences with his uniquely psychedelic and funky techno live sets.