Fed Conti aka Mahjong
(aka Mr Gone / Nardis / Joe Velvet / Laisla)
Fed Conti aka Mahjong starts his life in music at a young age. His father played classical & jazz music on the harp (harmonica) in the late 50's with the HOHNER BOYS, the official Hohner Harmonica quartet winners of several international championship. At the age of 8, Federico studying modern jazz with the famous American organ player Shirley Scott from Philadelphia and with James Williams from NYC for piano specialization. Adding bass, he worked with studio sessions and doing arrangements for orchestras and big bands.
In 1999, DJ Daniele Baldelli introduced Federico into the Italian club culture listening to Uk Garage and 2 Step. Soon after, he began playing and producing live-set with grooves machines & real time sequencing, playing funky-house, 2 step, uk-garage and hip-hop. In 2000, he started to play as a DJ and combined the use of turntables and PCs and sequencing them together.
As his club world was getting bigger, Federico was still tuning his piano and organ talents on his own and working with other jazz artists such as Zucchero Sugar Fornaciari, Benny Golson, Charles Bowen, Lannie McMillan, Mike Stern, Buster Williams, and Mel Gaynor from Simple Minds.
In 2004, he became part to the project "Cube Guys", with Intrallazzi (from FPI project) and Luca Provera, producing the Ibiza hit "TE QUIERO" for the Roger Sanchez's label (Stealth Records), which landed in the Top 10 list on the European House Charts as well as working on a single from Kym Mazelle's LP "The Pleasure Is All Mine".
During the 2005, "Mahjong Music" partnered up with Mediaset Group, the biggest private TV network in Italy, to launch libraries production activity, working on important TV programs soundtracks.
During the 2005 winter Mahjong Music became a digital distributed label releasing several records on I-Tunes, Beatport, Napster, Sony Connect, Juno Digital, Trackitdown and many more mp3 stores / mobile providers. If Mahjong Music remains a dance / house label 2 brand new sublabels born: JuJu recordings (Downtempo – elettronica – chill-out) and Shema (crossover electro music).
In the same period Mahjong Music started to license its catalogue on american movies and european Tv commercial. The Lancia Y campain featured the track “Watcha Gonna Do” by Denim J, written, produced and performed by Fed Conti and Sam Wood. Later he will start to compose and produce original music for international adv campaigns in collaboration with agencies such Leo Burnet Uk & Italy, Miracle, Synchlab, Machiavelli Music and Images.
In the 2006 Federico Conti found and produced the house project called “Eyes Of Love” featuring the beatiful singer / songwriter Sarah Grimaldi. The 1st single My Love Is U (licensed in North America to Act2 Records) has been charted in the top 20 Billboard Usa Club Charts for 2 months and now it’s charted in the world top 50 dance tracks of the year.
During the summer of 2006 he sold out the exclusive license of his own project "Mr Gone” to Rebirth Records, the 1st single “Do 4 Love” has been charted and reviewed by: Laurent Garnier, Tom Novy, Tony Senghore, Mike Monday, Oscar G, Tom Neville, Freeform 5 and it appeared as SUREPLAY review on the June edition of Dj Magazine while the DMC definied this release an essential record for the year 2006.
Active as remixer since 2005, especially working for American house labels. Some of his latest remixes are: Amuka – I Want More (Kult Records) [1st place on Billboard Usa Club Charts], Colette – If (Om Records), Jason Walker – Move On (Junior Vasquez), Maya Azucena – Make it Happen (Kult Records), Nick Fiorucci – Mr Dj (Hi Bias).
Fed Conti has recorded and produced under more pseudonyms: Mr Gone as electro-house artist, Laisla as latin-house producer, Joe Velvet talking about the breakbeat releases, Nardis for the chill-out Lps and compilations. As Fed Conti he’s working on a soloist project playing new-age & nu jazz music with acoustic piano and percussions, no bass and other sounds, a pure duet. As Mahjong the most of his past and present house works and remixes.
Requested from Vip artists such Bob Sinclar and Mutya Buena (Sugababes) for his skills in vintage sound productions and recreations.
Because of his love for making music, up through 2006, he has produced, co-produced and sold records for "Universal – Island Records" (Uk), Universal Italy (It), Universal Portugal (Pt) Ministry Of Sound (Uk), "Stealth Records" (Netherlands), Cafè Del Mar (Sp), “Oxyd” (It), “Time Records” (It), "S2S" (Japan), "David Gresham Group" (South Africa), "KULT" (Usa), "Born To Dance" (UK), “Music Plant” (USA), “Rebirth-Motivo” (Italy), “Stefano Cecchi Records” (It), Nick Holder's "DNH Recordings" (Canada), "M.O.D.A. Music / Warner Music" (It), "Media Records" (It), “Umm” (Uk) “Halidon” (It) to name a few.
