Michna (born Adrian Michna) is a world traveler, seeking knowledge at all points along the way. He has gigged everywhere from Shanghai to Budapest, and has spent most of his life between the extremes of NYC and Miami. In return for his adventuresome spirit, these travels have blessed him with musical influences in spades. New York City is the place young Michna cut his teeth. Whether DJing parties with tapes as a teen or sneaking in to play with his band at CBGB a few years later, Adrian found his way as a DJ under his Egg Foo Young alias, earning him a URB "Next 100" nod in the process. Production gigs for Bonde do Role and Diplo followed, allowing Michna to put his deftness at both the drum machine and the trombone to good use, creating tracks out of dense blankets of sound and texture. Apart from the tightly woven musical amalgam of hip-hop, booty and electro, it's the detailed process that makes Michna's debut album, Magic Monday, move. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the album is its rich element of musicality; in an era when hip-hop tracks have devolved into two-note keyboard loops, songs like "Skunk Walk" live up to their name with full-bodied funk and live horns. When Ghostly owner, Sam Valenti IV, asked Adrian which samples to clear, Adrian replied, "What samples?" With its solid backbone of sound collage, Magic Monday pulls together Michna's variety of influences to reveal the sound of New York City in transition. At a time when so many New Yorkers complain that their fair city has been sanitized beyond recognition, this is a record that keeps a nice layer of grit beneath the fingernails. After all, it's the details that matter in the end.
