Saturday the 26th of April sees the return of the renowned DiabloTraxx Recordings to Milton Keynes' Beacon for another one of our insane free parties, this time going head to head with MK Hard Dance promotion Ultra Virus, joined by Casa Elisa and Funkylicious!

With the label's close ties with Finland's Hard Dance wildmen at FiNRG (DiabloTraxx in-house producer & engineer Rob O.T.T world premiered his Live PA for them in December), it made sense to further develop the relationship when it came to picking a headliner for the next event. So we're delighted to bring you FiNRG agency manager and all round legend, Mr Sergei Shkuroff!!

Hi Sergei, how's it going at FiNRG HQ? I hear you've been a very busy man?

Hello Andy! FINRG is doing incredibly well at the moment, both as a record label and booking agency. On the label side, boys are in the very near future gonna release Proteus' first artist album, called Nature of the Beast, which is simply a killer. The agency started off very good also, we are already very big in Russia and Scandinavia. So if you add my own gigs and production sessions on top, then it's starting to look busy a bit.

For those that don't know, FiNRG is of course home to many Hard Dance artists that the users of DSI will be familiar with, such as Proteus, Carbon Based, Alek Szahala, DJ RX, Swoosh and of course yourself - how much work is involved managing such a top notch roster of DJs?

All the FINRG artists, including Proteus and the CB boys, are a close team of good friends, which definitely makes our work much easier. But sure, loads of different stuff needs to be done on this front constantly. There are 3 of us working on the agency side - me , Swoosh and Meke, and it still
looks quite hectic!

The FiNRG roster also features a number of UK artists including Ephexis, Organ Donors, Phil Reynolds and K90 - with top talent from both countries, you must see the best of both scenes. How does the Finnish Hard Dance scene compare to the UK?


We work closely on UK market with Mainline Music, which is to my opinion one of the best UK agencies around. I've been working with Sam Findlay from Mainline for many years now, and we are happy to have all Mainline artists such as K90, Organ Donors and Phil Reynolds represented in our roster. We've also signed some of Australia's finest lately, including Mr S and Oddysey!

As for the Finnish hard dance scene, its smaller than in UK , naturally :)
Kids here are more into freeform , dark, fast and furious. That's why Proteus has been a god here for over a decade now :) All UK hard dance DJs have enjoyed Finland a lot though, since even a 100 capacity event here is completely mental, as clubbers are completely up for it.

I recently reviewed the new FiNRG Hakapeliita album, which totally blew me away in terms of sheer energy and production quality - can you tell the DSI massive what inspired you guys to put the album together and how you went about choosing such an awesome selection of tracks?

Well, we've just put together some of our favourites from recent DJ sets of the FINRG collective, combined with future classics, since it was originally made as a tour compilation. And it sounded quite massive. Its because we have Scandinavia's finest artists, i guess!

We've been seeing more and more of you in this country over the last 9 months or so, with appearances at Storm and many others too - what would you say are your favourite things about the UK?

I completely love the UK! I've read loads of stuff about it and brits ever since I was a USSR kid, so I always was very much into your country's history, culture and clubbing scene of course :) There is too many beautiful things to list about UK, but in a nutshell... its Storm, which is always an absolutely mental experience, its London, its the people here, who are very kind and special, its Robin Hood, Sherwood Forest, pirate stories and castles, Tudors TV movie, Guy Ritchie films..
Well, as I've said, I love the UK - did i mention fish and chips ? :)

Your genre-busting sets are something that are talked about loads - having seen you completely pull Storm Classics apart a few months ago, we're really excited to see what you do at the DiabloTraxx party. Describe what goes into a typical Sergei Shkuroff set for us.

I never prepare any sets upfront. I usually love to bring a great diversity of records along, and then just see what is the best for the special crowd. I love to play a mixture of dark twisted Finnish sound, UK hard trance, German style classics.. Quite hard to explain really - I try to avoid obvious choons and concentrate on some special moments people will bring me to their minds and will remember me by afterwards. Thats the key, I think :)

Your radio shows are also the stuff of legend - tell us a bit about what you've got coming up there

At the moment our radio show is on a break unfortunately, as I simply have no time to do any shows on a weekly basis as i did before. :( But I hope we'll be back online with our show by the end of the year.

With a busy few months ahead, you've obviously got a lot of highlights coming up - is there on thing you're most looking forward to?

Storm gig on 26th April, and my debute on Diablo event are definately the ones i'm looking forward to the most at the moment! Also, my second Ibiza season is making me quite happy, as I'm gonna play on the island this June. And finally, I will return to Slovakia for a gig with John
O'Callaghan on 28th June, which is massive as well. :)

Sergei Shkuroff appears at the DiabloTraxx vs Ultra Virus party featuring Casa Elisa and Funkylicious at The Beacon, Bond Avenue, Milton Keynes on Saturday the 26th of April - it's free all night and a great chance to catch one of the international scene's most exciting artists, joined by the DiabloTraxx Collective Live and many more!!