Michal Štofej aka Mike Lark started his music career in 1996
as a frontman, a song writer and a producer of the Slovak punk/pop/ska/world music group Hudba z Marsu (Music From Mars).
They released 5 albums : Supervýlet (SQ Music 1998), Cosmodisc (Monti/Warner Music 2001), Trávnice (G.A. Records 2005),
Idoli (G.A.Records 2009), Orchester z Marsu (Lark Records 2010).
Their songs were well accepted by critics and some of them became so popular almost every Slovak can sing them.
They played hundreds of gigs including concerts at Slovak biggest Pohoda Festival and Czech biggest Colours of Ostrava Festival.
However they still remained an indie band.
The fifth album "Orchester z Marsu" is a compilation of songs in different styles Mike Lark has written and produced for top Czech and Slovak singers and actors.
Mike's first foray on the charts outside Music From Mars was under the name Dynamo Team with a catchy song Roll The Dynamo sang by his wife Lucia in 2011. This song supported by a sunny video clip filmed in Barcelona was very successful on important Radio FM4, airing in Austria and Germany.
Slavia, Dynamo Team's debut album, has been mastered in Abbey Road Studios in London.
Dynamo Team received the Slovak Radio Head Award as a newcomer of 2011.
Mike had been performing at various festivals in Belgium, Austria, France… (Europavox, Glimps, Electronic Beats, Waves Bratislava, Pohoda, NouveauNu…)
He gradually worked on developing a style of his own , an optimistic dance music known as "dynamo".
After a great success with his track "OK Let`s Go" in North America (it was used in large American Hyundai campaign made by Innocean Los Angeles) he decided to renew a band and continue in live playing.
Nowadays Dynamo Team rolls as a four member band: Mike Lark - guitar, vocal & programming,
Barbora Martinkovičová - vocal & microkorg,
Ramon Esteves - bass guitar, Daniel Kravec - drums.
The band`s second album, "1977" ,
was released in November 2013.
Analogue synths and surf guitars, girl shout, claps, vocoders and ethno samples all mixed together in "dynamo" style that`s the second album of Dynamo Team.
The track "Can`t Stop Me" was used in Texas Tourism campaign in 2013. Moreover the "1977" album includes another hit "Just Dance" used in an American indie movie "Big Significant Things".
Mike composes also the music and songs for theatrical plays. He cooperated with the theatre Divadlo Jána Palárika
in Trnava and wrote the music for plays: "The Island of Discoveries - Ostrov Objavov" (2007), "Adele's Journey to Happiness - Adelkina cesta za šťastím" (2009),
"Language Land - Jazyková ríša" (2013).
Furthermore his song "Na hubách" was used in HBO`s documentary "Erotic Nation".
In parallel with his music career Mike devotes his time
to art activities too.
He had been a teacher of photography and graphics at Trnava University, a photographer and a photo editor
at Slovak leading daily newspaper Pravda, an author of hundreds of illustrations and comics for several newspapers and magazines like Národná Obroda, Zornička, Šarm, Nota Bene, Pravda Ženy, Eurotelevízia…
His photo reportages from India
were published in prestige magazines:
OK!, Týždeň and Katolícke Noviny.
Mike is an author
of almost all official music videos
of Hudba z Marsu and Dynamo Team.
He had been creating videos for his online TV show on Sme TV called
"More Than Folklore".
In 2012 he shot and produced a social documentary
"Diamonds From the Junkyard"
about street children from Nairobi Kenya.
Currently he is living with his wife Lucia and daughter Gréta in a small village under the Karpaty mountains. Composing new songs while looking
through the window of their shabby chic house at splendid inspirational vineyards, mountains and fields.