Concert in your area for Electronic.
Find out more about Electronic.
Hailing from Stockholm, Sweden, Eric Prydz was born on 19 July 1976 and is also known by other popular names, Pryda or Cirez D. The producer and artist started to gain a lot of attention with his track “Call On Me” which featured a sample of Steve Winwood’s “Valerie.” The track charted fairly high in Germany and England, but despite it’s popularity, it had gained more attention by the “salacious” video, so Prydz tried to move away from the track and work to gain the proper recognition: for his music.
In 2006 he released a remix of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 2” entitled “Proper Education.” By 2012 Prydz released his full album via, Virgin Records, featuring all of his previously unreleased songs and other songs from his Pryda catalogue. The three-disc album titled “Eric Prydz Presents Pryda” peaked at number fourty on the charts in the UK and eighty in Belgium, however it was still his live performances that people seek out.
2014 proved to be another successful year for Prydz. He celebrated the ten year anniversary of his label, Pryda Recordings, and announced the third instalment of Eric Prydz in concert, complete with large indoor holograms.
Estornel was born 11 July 1978 in Cuba, but established his career in Miami. Not long after he got this start in the industry he began setting trends on his own, exposing the city to a blend of hard hitting low end mix, topped with subtle pulsing synth swashes. His music also featured strong dance influences integrating bass lines dripping with acid house influences and heavily syncopated guitars treated with flanger effect, which seemed to beckon the work of Chic guitarist Niles Rodgers.
Over the years Estornel has used a number of aliases in addition to his most recognized stage name Maceo Plex. The others include Maetrik, Mariel Ito, Plaex, Tali Wackas, and Eric Entity. Some of his earliest documented material was released in 1999 under the latter two monikers, both through Illmatic Records. He put out a variety of 12” singles and two feature lengths under the name Maetrick, some which dated back to 2001. As Mariel Ito, he released a studio album through SCSI-AV in 2005 as well as an EP entitled “Indexed”, which was issued by Manchester label Modern Love Records (whose list of artists include the likes of Andy Stott and Demdike Stare).
It was not until 2009 that Estornel began releasing material under Maceo Plex. Within a few years time he already developed a profuse catalogue with this project. He released the EP “Clubs” in 2009, which was followed by the 2010 single “Vibe Your Love”. 2011 saw the release of his first studio album “Life Index” as well as an additional 7 releases including 2 DJ mixes, 4 EPs and the tech house single “Your Style”.
Though Estornel fell into the rave culture in America in the early 90s and his sound was largely classified as techno and house, he has since progressed into a more classic driven electro funk sound, channeling the influences of Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic, and Isolee.
This change in framework was somewhat evident with Estronel’s move from the US to Valencia, Spain. During Estornel’s career as Maceo Plex he has toured multiple festivals such as the Amore Festival in Roma and in 2014 he factored in at No.5 on Resident Advisor’s poll for the “Top DJs of 2014”. Maceo Plex has also been involved in remixes throughout his career, editing material for Royksopp and having his own compositions revised by artist such as Nicolas Jaar who treated the single “Gravy Train”.
Adam Beyer was born out of Sweden’s burgeoning techno movement in the mid-90s. His years developing his sound in his home country have led him to become one of the most respected techno DJs across the globe, and he is invited to play sets all across the world. Adam is a busy man for sure and there is rarely a week that goes by without him playing live somewhere.
Adam Beyer’s techno sound is heavy and enveloping. His music is characterised by its rhythmically pulsing percussive beat which acts as a the skeletal system of his work and holds all of his other sound together in a tight package.
“Lovecraft” is one of Adam’s best-loved tunes and crowds will instantly recognise it as soon as it appears within his set. Adam Beyer’s following is so strong that you can visibly see crowds perk up and dance harder when one of his hit songs gets mixed into a set. Prepare to dance for hours at an Adam Beyer gig. Tracks such as “You Know” and “Teach Me” will definitely keep you on your feet until the early hours.
For contrast, the way Prydz dropped his remix of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" -- a seminal dance track -- was as undramatic as possible. When Armin van Buuren uses the same remix in his festival headlining gigs, it's often cause for fireworks and certainly functions as a dramatic peak. It's the same with "Every Day," which landed Prydz at the No. 3 spot on Billboard's Hot Dance Club chart but is presented as just another chapter in the development of the night. The man knows his way around an anti-climax. What he gained in quality and credibility he may have lost in impact, as the crowd -- observed from one of the balconies -- certainly wasn't going too wild. Prydz' mastery is his ability to command and then educate audiences who might walk into a concert with more commercial, big-room understandings of dance music. If there's a downside to not doing hand-hearts and telling audiences to sit down before blaring, obvious drops shake the walls of the venue you're DJ'ing in, it's that you risk having to touch a crowd on a deeper level than the "rage" metric too many of today's top dance acts are still trying to approach. But as a dance music observer, this writer was impressed by what's either Prydz' natural credibility or insistence on not changing his format. For fans with slightly deeper tastes, the show is a solid night of club music, an almost wordless opera with many acts, messaged and divided by visuals as much as music... For mainstreamers simply buying tickets to every "EDM" show in the tri-state area, it was probably just a fun night with plenty of Instagram-ready moments.
Maceo Plex’s house music is trippy and oh so satisfying. His rhythms have almost a Latin feel to them, which he mixes in with elements of funk, electro and deep house. Maceo Plex also uses samples of conversation within his mixes, which can be cool but also creepy. Anybody who has seen the official video for “Conjure Superstar” will have encountered this darker element within Maceo Plex’s work.
In a live setting, Maceo Plex is able to conjure the same kind of trippy and sinister effect within his deep house remixes. It’s a sound that I haven’t come across that many times within dance sets – so often a DJ is too timid to take the tempo below a comfortably dancey and, often, mainstream level – but it’s a sound I really like.
Maceo Plex is always very chilled and in control on the ones and twos. I could listen to him spin for hours, drink in hand and ready to roll into the weekend. “Can’t Leave You” and “Stay High” are some of his more up-tempo tracks that are a lot of fun to get down to during a gig, but, to be honest, no matter what Maceo Plex mixes during a set, you really can’t go wrong.