As the founder and owner of the Toolroom Records stable, Mark Knight keeps himself on the cutting edge of what’s happening in electronic music, and as we head into the thick of the Ibiza summer season he’s pretty confident of what’ll stand out as the dominant trend for 2009 – house music. The island’s clubs have been in the grip of minimal and techno for the past few years, but Mark reckons we’ll see vocals and live instrumentation making a massive comeback.

“Things in Europe have gone back to being very, very housey. The techno guys are playing out and out house, if you go to a Cocoon gig it’s more like going back and listening to ‘94 or ‘95 house,” Mark told ITM.

“It’s very percussive and tribal, and it’s great that the grooves are back. Everybody got a little bit scared with the techno thing, and it all went very dark. But I think groovy house and vocals are back in vogue. Not so much full songs, but vocal elements in tracks. A lot of live instrumentation, getting session players back in the studio which is a good thing. I think that’ll be very much the trend for the summer, and moving right the way through towards the New Year.”

Earlier this month Mark Knight revealed he was planning an assault on Australia’s festival scene, with Toolroom Records branded arenas at some of our biggest events (read about it here). “We’re doing all the key festivals in Europe, like Global Gathering in the UK and Dance Valley in Holland where we have our own arenas. So hopefully we can be part of the touring festival brigade in Oz.”

Toolroom Knights, mixed by Mark Knight 2.0 is out now in Australia through Onelove, check out Part 1 and Part 2 of ITM’s interview.