Deadmau5 – Some Chords

Joel Zimmerman doesn’t like being called a DJ. The 28-year-old dance music phenomenon from Toronto, better known as Deadmau5, rolls his eyes a the description, which he sees as a hopelessly outdated way of describing what he does. His sets are closer to live performances. He plays mostly his own material, assembling tracks on the fly, using cutting edge computer technology, including software he’s helped write himself. “There are no CDs involved,” he explains. “It’s a technological orgy up there and I try and keep it more my music than anyone else’s. If people come out to see Deadmau5 I want them to hear Deadmau5 music.”
It’s an approach that’s catapulted Deadmau5 into dance music’s A-list. It’s no exaggeration to say that he’s the most exciting name in clubland right now. Over the last three years he’s released a string of club hits, starting with the trance-house hybrid Faxing Berlin in 2006. It was followed last year by the euphoric filtered keys of Ghosts N Stuff, while this year he reached Number 14 with the lush atmospherics of I Remember, his collaboration with American producer Kaskade — the track has now sold over 120,000 copies. This October, Zimmerman releases his new album, For Lack Of A Better Name, which brings together the best of his single releases from the last 12 months. It’s not hard to see why the the pulsing dance groove of Hi Friend! featuring MC Flipside and FML’s military percussion and hard-hitting bass hook continue to fill dancefloors around the globe. The first single will be a new version of Ghosts N Stuff, featuring vocals from Rob Swire, one half of drum’n’bass/rock fusionists Pendulum. It’s electrifying stuff.
Hard to believe that three years ago, Zimmerman was all but unknown. He grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, 75 miles south east of Toronto. As a kid he was obsessed with computers. When he was 15 he started making chip tunes. “They’re musical compositions made using the chips from old computers,” he explains. Fellow chip tune alumni include Jesse Keeler from MSTRKRFT, while hipster duo Crystal Castles are heavily influenced by the scene. When Zimmerman was 18, his chip tunes attracted the attention of the nu metal musicians in Los Angeles. At the time, artists such as Marilyn Mason were exploring a more electronic sound. Zimmerman ended up contributing to Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee’s 1999 rap metal album Methods Of Mayhem. Ten years later they remain friends as well as collaborators; last year they released two electro house singles — Chicken and Redic — under the name W.T.F.?



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