Riva Starr is a name that should be very familiar to anyone with an interest in modern house music. Having shot to the top after a string of head turning releases and remixes on some of the most talked about labels, Riva Starr couldn;t be hotter right now. What;s quite remarkable though is how quickly Stefano Miele, aka Riva Starr has established himself so prominently on a DJ/producer circuit that;s notoriously difficult to break into. It doesn;t hurt that Claude VonStroke and Jesse Rose, the two men who sit on top of the pile, happen to be two of his biggest fans. So, how did the man from Naples rise from unknown to major player in just 2 years? Well, the truth is that Stef is no newcomer to making music, in fact he;s been producing and releasing a wide-range of sounds under different guises for the past 10 years, including 2 albums. Like all good producers hes earned his stripes and his current status is down to two things, hard work and talent. Oh and the World Wide Web of course. Thas right, like so many successful new musicians today, Riva Starr isbig on the blogs and its exactly here, giving free music away that Stef was able to not only test-run new material but also form an army of loyal and excited fans before he had even released a record. With a love of reinventing any music that inspires him, Stef created the term Snatch! as a way of describing his bootleg remix style of snatching/pick pocketing other music styles for his own. Its also a play on words with the type of folk/Balkan/rock music he draws inspiration from, often carrying that gypsy spirit. Having given away a number of widely praised and blogged Snatch! mixes online (his recent remix of The End by The Doors has well over 10,000 downloads on Discobelle alone), it wasnt too long before some of them found their way into the DJ sets of some of the biggest names on the circuit. Two of those DJs were Jesse Rose and Claude VonStroke, who both approached Stef for official releases on their labels after witnessing the amazing crowd reaction for his Snatch! remixes, since then theres been no looking back. Having doted up his first two releases for ClaudesDirtybirdand JessesFront Room in 2007, he followed these up with another two for them in 2008 as well as two more for Fatboy Slims famousSouthern Fried Records and a 12 on Kindisch the more techy sub-label of the brilliant Get Physical label in Berlin.