Matthias Kertal (left side) and Simon Nola (right side) are mika. not to forget honorary mika Lea Sonnek, who joins the guys for vocal recordings and live-action when she's in town. Rainer Binder Krieglstein, Simon's recording-room-mate, joins mika as a on demand live drummer. well, that's mika in a Nutshell and a lot's of people supporting us over the years.

Mika's musical home cannot be defined clearly. There is no such thing as a clear-cut definition of Mika's musical style. Their music cannot be squeezed into any simple category of short term trends. Simon Nola's and Matthias Kertal's passion consists rather in catching special moments, moods and emotions. They take great care in fusing together diverse musical styles: electronic music somewhere between song and track, between dancing, sitting, standing or lying. All this is spiced up by a nice bit of pop, the wonderful voices and moods of Simon Nola and Lea Sonnek.

Electronica with soul.

A Once upon a time a tribe of toys occupied a room in a small village named 'Maerchenwaldsiedlung' (english: fairy tale settlement, far away from civilisation, in the eastern part of austria). They called the room the 'playmobilzimmer'. for about a century the tribe lived in peace, until playmobilzimmer - chieftain Matthias Kertal fell in love with other toys: guitar, drums & bass. after a while of abusing these new toys with neighbourhood friends, one of them Simon Nola, it was time to get rich and famous by recording a breakthrough record. so the guys gave money to local recording-stars, got a tape, listened to it once.... and never again..... tired of wastin' money, Matthiaswrote an email to the band laika, asking them, how they recorded their wonderful 'sounds of the satellites'. in a very nice reply, laika's margareth fiedler introduced him to a thing called homerecording. encouraged by this email, Matthias began to built a homestudio, simon discovered some old synthesizers in his closet, and together they started to produce music in a slightly different style.

B along with friends, the guys experimented with different styles in their very own way. from noise to house, from ambient to electro, and back. the first tape, simon dared to send somebody was called 'mika: texas'. and 'somebody' liked it: bto spider featured this track with massive airplay on his radio fm4-show 'high spirits'. that's the way mika started......... it was november 1998, when mika finished their first full-length-demo, and bto spider invited them to his radioshow, where they got to know christian candid, who had just decided to expand his label kleinrecords. on the same show, mika presented a new track, finished just a few hours before: tomorrow , and in spring 1999 it was released on klein........... after a short & crazy mika concert at a strange 'rock' ''festival'' in bulgaria, mika's playmate manuel gorkiewicz produced a no-budget-video to the single in viennas subways. surprise, surprise, mtviva played it, although mtv first consulted their lawyers, because they said, it could be dangerous for epileptics (?!)

C in october 1999 the guys left for vienna, to finish their album at t-on studio. 14-studiodays with t-on's great flow (twentysomethingrecords) 17 mixed tracks, lots of salad, eaten at vienna's naschmarkt, lots of pizzas and beer after each session, lots of discussion about austrias future (the days, weeks after the election, some thoughts about emigration, because the blue guys gained so much vots. hard work, joy & some stress... in november the studio work was done..... some time passed and several other kleinreleases.....until it was warm enough to release the mika album.... end of spring, beginning of summer 00... boiling heat in vienna.. the right time for refreshing tunes...

D in october 00 mika prepared the dessert for their first album, the opposite of silence. in april 01 they became nominated for the amadeus alternative award by the listeners of radio fm4. thank you for the buffet! :-). among several concerts in austria mika played at the opening of the museumsquartier in vienna one of their biggest concerts so far (among kleinrecords fellows mum and seelenluft) in september 01 mika and christian candid spend 2 freezing amazing weeks in an old factory near vienna to record the basic of their second album. it needed a lot of time to get it ready because in the meanwhile mika abandoned the playmobilzimmer, simon went to graz, Matthiastried to conquer vienna the second time (an succeeded) and lea spent some time in london. however, after lots of sessions, mika got finally where they always wanted to be: at the 'right place,right time'.

design: elisabeth richter

additional design and all the techiques: MatthiasKertal

content: mika and some pics and texts taken from our label www.kleinrecords.com

the name: mikaella is the name we used at our short tour in bulgaria.