Life and death. Mortality. Pretty heavy subject matter for dance music, right? But then, it’s not really conventional dance music that’s being put out by the Life and Death label. This is heady, brooding, emotional stuff. It might be carried by that uhntz-uhntz beat, but it will bend your mind…
Soul Clap loves Miami. And we can’t lie — we love them right back. These past couple years, the Bostonian boogie specialists have made the 305 their home, and they even wrote their debut album EFUNK down here, as we told you back in March. Now local and international fans…
If Nicolas Jaar has been pigeonholed as a dance music producer, it’s primarily because his auspicious first releases were put out by NYC deep house label Wolf + Lamb. Admittedly, these were records with a four-to-the-floor beat. But Jaar’s ever-evolving sound has since eluded categorization, instead offering a kaleidoscopic tapestry…
If house and techno are the roots of EDM, then few artists have been more enduring exponents than Chicago DJ-producer Curtis Jones, AKA Cajmere, AKA Green Velvet. That’s because Curtis has preserved the raw, body-jacking essentials of those sounds for as long as he’s been making music. Whether it’s perky…
Earlier this summer, we here at Crossfade included Murk in our list of the 50 Best Miami Bands of All Time. And with good reason. The production power duo of Oscar Gaetan and Ralph Falcon is among the most commercially successful acts in the history of house music. But also…
Parisian DJ-production threesome Apollonia borrowed its name from Prince’s ’80s backup group Apollonia 6. It’s a nod to that raunchy Minneapolis funk sound, which the trio has infused with European tech-house. This signature sound is currently all the rage on international dance floors. And Resident Advisor even picked Apollonia for…
Art Basel Miami Beach … For wealthy locals and jetsetters, it’s a chance to shop for additions to their already extravagant art collections and attend velvet-rope receptions in chic new getups. But for us uhntz-uhntz heads, it’s just another excuse to put on our tattered dancing shoes. In fact electronic…
Disc jockeys are the new rock stars. Hence, many a teen dreams of being a superstar DJ. Well, that dream happened to come true for brothers Chris and Steve Martinez from the Bronx, New York. With a little mentoring from veteran house DJs like Dennis Ferrer and Jerome Sydenham, the…
Toronto electronic dance music outfit Azari & III reek so much of style that it’s disgusting. Pure unadulterated chic wafts off flamboyant vocalist-frontmen Fritz Helder and Starving Yet Full. And it oozes from the group’s intoxicating cocktail blend of classic house and electro. Azari & III exploded onto the international…
DJ-producer Morgan Geist has no special qualms about you calling his sound retro. After all, his work as Metro Area with Darshan Jesrani boasts unmistakable strains of vintage disco, P-Funk, and ’80s synth-pop. But when it comes to his latest incarnation as Storm Queen with vocalist Damon C. Scott, Geist…
Bobby Peru. Special Request. Hip Therapist. Wooly. Those are just a few of the guises that UK DJ-producer Paul Woolfoord has assumed over the years. And his sound is just as elusive as his artistic identity — straddling house, techno, UK hardcore, and bass. Nevertheless, in spite of his sonic…
You’d be hard-pressed to find a greater authority on house and techno — and the area where these two EDM genres overlap — than Steve Bug. As head honcho of the seminal Berlin imprints Poker Flat, Audiomatique, and Dessous, he’s emerged as one of the transatlantic scene’s foremost tastemakers since…
It’s been a hell of a year for James Teej. The Toronto-based producer has been busy burning up international dance floors as one-third of My Favorite Robot, while curating some of the international tech-house charts’ most forward-thinking releases on the act’s eponymous label. But Teej is a veteran of the…
Perhaps not since the Beach Boys has a musical act been as evocative of Southern California as Los Angeles production duo Poolside. The title of the pair’s 2012 debut album — Pacific Standard Time — gives it away. And the sun-kissed laid-back disco grooves are pure Californian leisure — a…
House music is supposed to jack your body. It’s supposed to make you lose your mind on the floor. In a word, it’s supposed to be fun. Cerebral EDM nerds tend to forget that fact, but Heidi Van Den Amstel is here to remind them. The UK — light years…
Dirtybird might just be the most fun-loving collective in electronic dance music with its BBQ parties, ass-clapping bass music, and lively gang of artist pals who are always down for laughs. But among the Dirtybird boys — Justin and Christian Martin, Claude VonStroke, Worthy, etc. — one character stands out…
American-Swedish threesome Thieves Like Us borrowed its name from a 1984 song by New Order, quite fitting because the outfit offers up the same sensitive type of electronic indie pop as the iconic ’80s band. Add to the members’ mixed nationalities that Thieves Like Us first formed in Berlin, then…
DJ-production outfit Visionquest and its eponymous label are pretty much the biggest thing in underground EDM right now. But as the foursome told Crossfade ahead of WMC 2011, it all started with four friends from Michigan who shared a penchant for psychedelic mind expansion, esoterica, and Berlin techno. Now Lee…
If you’re a true house head, then Lisa Shaw needs no introduction. Since the mid ’90s, this beloved Canadian-born singer has put her soulful golden touch on records by deep house luminaries like King Britt, Q-Burns Abstract Message, Fred Everything, and Andy Caldwell. Of course, Shaw is also a prolific…
French producer Wax Tailor (AKA Jean-Christophe Le Saoût) usually gets pigeonholed into the the trip-hop and downtempo music categories. But the epic proportions of his work more often than not put him in a category all his own. This is a guy who writes lofty concept albums and music for…
Iconoclast, philosopher, auteur — these are words that come to mind to describe Francis Harris. Iconoclast because he came into the electronic dance music game through the back door as a former hardcore punk rocker hell-bent on defying EDM’s musical conventions. Philosopher because he was literally a university philosophy student,…
Are you club rats sick of the ’90s house revival yet? We didn’t think so. After all, nothing gets those fist-pumps and footwork going like some classic jacking house — it’s not even a guilty pleasure anymore. Just ask Belfast DJ-production duo Bicep. The pair got started spreading the love…
