It started with a radio signal. Growing up, Poloismz discovered electronic music through CFNY 102.9 out of Toronto — one of the few stations in North America brave enough to broadcast the underground at full volume. On Friday and Saturday nights, Chris Sheppard would take over the airwaves with live sets from RPM, dropping Hip Hop, Chicago House, Hip House, Acid House, and Detroit Techno to anyone tuned in late enough to find it. Then, around 3am on Saturdays, Deadly Headly would come on — and that was the moment the full depth of the house music world opened. Those late-night transmissions didn’t just introduce a genre. They rewired something permanent.
By 1988, Electronic Music had left its mark — shaping not only his taste, but the way he moves through the world. Electronic music became a constant: a place to reset, to explore, and to feel connected to something bigger than himself across genres, eras, and dance floors.
By late 1999, he was performing under the name DJ Marco Polo, best known for Acid Techno while also leaning into Progressive House, Trance and Breakbeat. He held down sets at Edmonton spots including Backroom Vodka Bar and The Apartment — later known as WunderBar — and could be found in the city’s after-hours circuit at venues such as The Studio, Therapy, and Climaxx.
Today, Poloismz is recognized for wide-ranging, thoughtfully curated selections that move fluidly through artists, textures, and tempos — always in pursuit of that unmistakable underground essence. More than playing records, his mission is to help strengthen the community within house music’s own ecosystem: creating spaces where dancers, DJs, producers, and listeners feel welcomed, energized, and part of something living.
He currently holds a bi-weekly residency at Cask & Barrel in Edmonton under the banner of Elevate Saturdays, continuing to build a local home for underground-leaning house and electronic music.