It was five years ago that a then-relatively obscure DJ threesome by the name of Droog put its hometown of Los Angeles on the underground dance music map by launching what would become one of the global scene’s most hotly tipped house and techno labels. “The basic idea behind [Culprit]…

DJ Qu (AKA Ramon Lisandro Quezada) didn’t start releasing music until the mid-2000s, but the New Jersey native already commands the sort of respect from underground house heads reserved for legends who have been doing it for decades. That’s partly to do with the fact that Qu is by no…

El_Txef_A (pronounced elchefa) is quite the odd moniker. But it turns out to be a play on words based on the last name of its owner, Aitor Etxebarria, which means “new house” in his native Basque — rather fitting, considering this celebrated young producer’s decidedly new house music sound. Of…

As half, along with Morgan Geist, of seminal NYC production duo Metro Area, Darshan Jesrani helped spawn some of nu-disco’s most timeless groovage. With its sleek, modern interpretation of vintage disco and boogie sounds, the pair’s eponymous 2002 debut long-player is widely considered one of the decade’s best dance music…

Maayan Nidam may be a celebrated house and techno DJ, but that’s only scratching at the surface of her musical interests and talents. For one thing, she’s always kept a soft spot for live musicianship. “As a teenager, I listened to a lot of rock — all sorts of rock:…

Dutch producer Martyn Deykers already boasts releases on groundbreaking electronic music labels like Brainfeeder, Otsgut Ton, and his own 3024. But signing to the legendary Ninja Tune label puts him in the company of some truly seminal acts, especially of the boundary-pushing and genre-defying variety — think Coldcut, Amon Tobin,…

As part of Hercules & Love Affair’s original lineup, Kim Ann Foxman helped rekindle the flames of our passion for classic house sounds in the late 2000s. But as a solo producer and DJ, Foxman is showing us house music’s future, and it sounds sexier than ever. Sultry vocal hooks,…

“Nomen,” says Kompakt Records cofounder and DJ-producer Michael Mayer, “est omen.” Or in other, non-Latin words, one’s moniker is a sign of destiny. So while “Kompakt started out,” Mayer recently told us, “as a record store in 1993” by the name of Delirium, it was soon relaunched, relabeled, and began…

If Germany has dominated techno since the turn of the millennium, it’s thanks in no small part to the enduring influence of one label: the legendary Cologne-based Kompakt Records. Launched in 1998, Kompakt artists would marry ambient electronica’s abstract, hypnotic sound design with driving four-to-the-floor beats to spawn the minimal…

A disc-jockeying virtuoso, a veritable scholar of the selector’s craft, Daniel Avery doesn’t subscribe much to dance-floor formulas as a producer. “I grew up listening to guitar music,” Avery tells Crossfade. “I loved anything with a psychedelic edge, whether that was My Bloody Valentine, Black Sabbath, Mogwai, Neu!, Death In…

Young overhyped producers are a dime a dozen in the electronic dance music capital of Berlin, not to speak of the wider global dance music scene. Far more rare are seasoned production veterans like Alex Krüger, who has stood the test of time and stayed ahead of the curve for…

Ron Morelli’s music is not for everyone. But that’s how it usually goes with artists that make few compromises in their work. Ostensibly a techno producer, his records can be arrhythmic, atonal, and murkily atmospheric — caustic machine noise experiments more akin to the power electronics subgenre of industrial music…

Hundreds of international DJs will soon be in town to provide the soundtrack for the world’s most massive hedonist orgy, also known as Miami Music Week. But one of them is here on a decidedly nobler mission than making molly-addled ravers gurn. Canadian DJ-producer and DV8 label boss Daniel Dubb…

Last week, we here at Crossfade got five predictions for the biggest hits of Winter Music Conference, Miami Music Week, and Ultra Music Festival 2014 from none other than Pete Tong, BBC Radio 1 host and the world’s chief electronic dance music tastemaker. And with EDM’s biggest week coming up…

Ten years into its run, there’s no denying the indelible mark that’s been made by Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels label on electronic dance music. In a way, a spot on the label’s roster has become a rite of passage on the underground house and techno scene, with the label having…

As the esteemed host of BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix and Essential Selection programs, Pete Tong has kept a finger pressed on the pulse of global dance music for the better part of two decades. Though broadcasting from the old continent, where electronic dance music dominates the mainstream airwaves, Tong’s…