If it’s true that the electronic dance music industry is male dominated, with women facing unfair challenges, then aspiring female artists couldn’t choose a greater role model than Ellen Allien. As a DJ-producer, Allien has been at the forefront of the Berlin techno scene pretty much since the wall came…
As you read this, a lot of would-be Jimmy Edgar imitators are sitting in their bedroom studios scratching their heads and wondering why they can’t sound like him. That’s because nobody sounds like Jimmy Edgar except Jimmy Edgar himself. From the start, his sound was so freethinking that the Detroit…
It’s not often, if ever, that you hear of a reggae and dancehall artist crossing over into underground house and techno. But it’s not as random a makeover as you might think. After all, electronic dance music has big roots in Jamaican sound system culture and dub reggae. In the…
Chopstick at Delano Hotel January 22
It’s been a hell of a year for the Suol label, scoring international chart-topping success on the strength of an uncompromising A&R vision and formidable string of releases. And the man behind it all is DJ-producer, tastemaker, and all-around musical badass Chopstick, AKA Chi-Thien Nguyen. Suol can only get bigger…
Back in 2006, it was pretty much impossible to escape the filthy bassline and dark husky vocal refrain of Dutch DJ-producer Sander Kleinenberg’s “This Is Miami.” For obvious reasons, the electro-house scorcher became an absolute anthem in MIA — the theme song for our city’s status as a dance music…
Back in April, we here at Crossfade waxed enthusiastic about a growing breed of live acts redefining electronic dance music. Well, one local who sees eye to eye with us on the virtues of live EDM is promoter Anders Scherberger. And that’s exactly why he launched Massive Wednesdays at The…
Bass, bass and more fucking bass. If your main erogenous zone is that spot in your solar plexus that gets pummeled by low-end sonic frequencies, inciting your gluteus maximus muscles to start gyrating of their own accord, then look no further than Dirtybird’s label showcase at Grand Central for New…
By now, there’s not much King Britt hasn’t done musically in a career spanning almost three decades. As one of Philadelphia’s electronic dance music pioneers, Britt enjoyed massive commercial success in the ’90s, through his Sylk 130 project and as half of E-Culture with fellow luminary Josh Wink, with whom…
DJ-producer Danny Daze is an international player now, zigzagging around the global party circuit and throwing down at all the hotspots from Los Angeles to Ibiza to Melbourne. But for Danny, it all started in Miami — the place he still calls home. Back in March, he reminisced with Crossfade…
Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels is a world-class dance music institution by now — a regular shoo-in for best international label on yearly polls like Resident Advisor’s, and a permanent presence on the global scene through its myriad transatlantic artist bookings and formidable Get Lost and Rebel Rave lineups. It follows…
Punisher Talks EDM, Gender Stereotypes, and Moving to Miami
Miami’s Top Albums, EPs, and Singles of 2012
There’s a veritable tsunami of electronic dance music coming out of Berlin. After all, it’s the techno capital of the world. But amid this overwhelming wave of white noise, one of the artists currently standing out on the international charts and club bills is Till Von Sein. It helps that…
The commercial success enjoyed by Visionquest since the label’s 2011 inception might be a testament to how much the mainstream EDM industry underestimates people’s taste in music. The notion that the masses want to be spoon-fed the sonic equivalent of junk food via the likes of David Guetta and LMFAO…
The deep house genre label gets stamped on releases a little too liberally these days by producers and imprints jumping aboard the bandwagon of its current commercial popularity. But so many records saturating the market lack the substance and soul that characterizes the authentic classic deep house sound. With its…
A dark juggernaut of destruction is about to be unleashed upon the city of Miami. And we don’t mean the Mayan apocalypse. No, we’re referring to the unforgiving hard-hitting beats of Punisher, one of the Detroit underground techno’s enduring talents. Now we almost hate to kill the myth that Punisher…
From the mid ’90s to the mid noughties, there were few electronic dance music acts as big as Deep Dish. The Washington D.C. power duo of Ali “Dubfire” Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi helped lift house music from the underground to the mainstream via glossy pop production value and infectious vocal…
Ten Best EDM Parties During Art Basel Miami Beach 2012
Nicolas Jaar, as Part of Music @ MOCA at Mondrian South Beach, December 7
Circa 2007, an obscure underground UK sound called dubstep erupted like a volcano. And it left behind a crater flooded with the molten elements of bass music that have since solidified into post-dubstep or future bass. These aren’t so much distinct genres of music, as a generation of producers with…
Puerto Rico is not necessarily known as an electronic dance music hotbed, but the island did spawn one Jonny Cruz, a DJ-producer who has started making waves on the international tech-house scene these last couple years. It helps that Cruz is a card-carrying member of the artist collective behind hotly-tipped…
