Washington, D.C.- and Berlin-based production duo Benoit & Sergio ruled EDM charts and dance floors throughout 2011. And it wasn’t just because of the hype afforded by releases on hot labels like DFA and Visionquest. No, the pair’s mass appeal is directly connected to their music’s pop sensibility. A Benoit…
Virtuoso is a word that immediately comes to mind to describe Ben Westbeech. Singer, producer, DJ, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist — he’s even mastered the über-classy cello. And the breadth of Westbeech’s creativity is not limited to his solo work. He’s also a prolific collaborator whose 2011 long player There’s More To…
Miami, meet tINI. Who is she? Only one of the transtlantic tech-house scene’s most accomplished female DJ-producers. It helps that she’s a card-carrying member of Loco Dice’s beloved Desolat family, which means regular headlining slots at EDM hostpots from her native Berlin to Ibiza. Then there’s the matter of her…
Chalk Dirt EP (Dubporn Records) You need look no further than Crossfade’s picks for Miami’s Ten Best Local Albums, EPs, and Mixtapes of 2011 to see that the 305 is rife with diverse homegrown sounds. But it’s not often that we hear the kind of eclectic electronic fusion offered by…
There’s not a hell of a lot of electronic dance music DJs from the old school who remain hip with today’s young underground cognoscenti. But the UK’s Danny Howells is definitely one of them. Maybe it’s his boundless charisma behind the decks. Or his self-dubbed “deepsexyfuturistictechfunkhouse” sound, tasteful and eclectic…
It’s been a phenomenal year for underground electronic dance music in Miami. If 2010 was the year that we put training wheels on our EDM bike, then we were riding that sucker with no hands in 2011. There was a non-stop barrage of world-class bookings. And none of it would…
You can’t really talk about house music without mentioning “French touch,” the sample-delic filter-heavy style of Gallic producers like Daft Punk, Cassius, and Etienne de Crécy that ruled international airwaves all through the late ’90s to early ’00s. Now Fred Falke may not be the best known of the French…
“I’m a lonely Jew on Christmas,” sang South Park’s Kyle Broflovski, feeling left out of the holiday festivities enjoyed by his gentile friends. Indeed, the holiday season can be lonely and depressing for anyone without a special person in their life, regardless of your religious affiliation. But let’s face it:…
Miami’s best albums, EPs, and mixtapes of 2011
To close out the year, Crossfade is picking its favorite albums by 305 artists. Check out the full list of Miami’s Best Albums of 2011. Danny Daze Your Everything/Fall Away From Love EP (Hot Creations) Despite the 305 being a transatlantic house and techno mecca during WMC, we hadn’t really…
While it’s true that hype makes the electronic dance music industry go ’round, so does hard work. Just ask Inxec (AKA Christopher Sylvester), one of the most in-demand DJ-producers on the transtlantic house and techno scene. With releases on some of 2011’s most hotly tipped labels, including Leftroom, Culprit and…
According to doomsday fearmonger Zecharia Sitchin, the “12th Planet” (or Nibiru) is a hypothetical planet hidden in the outskirts of the solar system that will collide with Earth and destroy all life as soon as 2012. In a way, Nibiru is like dubstep. It came flying out of obscurity like…
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Miami’s underground EDM scene is on fire! This week alone, there are five world-class bookings. And there’s a little something for everyone, from the dark minimal techno heads to the leftfield live electronica connoisseurs. We’ve got the usual local crews –…
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more encyclopedic guru of house and techno than Chistopher Milo AKA DJ Three. And it’s no surprise, given he’s one of the most highly regarded tastemakers on the underground American EDM scene. The Florida native has been commanding dancefloors since the early ’90s, holding…
With all the world-class concerts and dance parties complementing the art fair and gallery action, Art Basel Miami Beach is becoming the perfect marriage of art and music. And none of the myriad international luminaries visiting Miami this week embody that more than Deniz Kurtel. She might be best known…
In 2011, it’s been virtually impossible to escape the sounds of Culprit on international dancefloors. Not that you’d want to, because the Los Angeles-based imprint is responsible for some of the year’s most banging cuts by tech-house luminaries like Lee Foss, MANIK, Shonky and Inxec. Behind the label is Droog,…
If there’s one way to tell the true old-school house heads from the posers, it’s by measuring the natural spike in their serotonin levels whenever Dubtribe Sound System hits the airwaves. That’s because the beloved San Francisco duo has been pulling heartstrings and expanding minds with their soul-warming deep house tunage…
Earlier this month, Crossfade’s sister blog West Coast Sound kicked up lots of controversy and a massive comment thread with a list of the World’s Douchiest DJs. And predictably, it was hotshot commercial EDM megastars like Tiësto and Paul Oakenfold who made the cut. Now we here at Crossfade have…
Electronica wunderkind Nicolas Jaar is many things. But he’s definitely not a genre purist. After all, this is a guy who name-checks minimal techno DJ Ricardo Villalobos and Ethiopian jazz maestro Mulatu Astatke in a single sentence. Jaar’s live sets, in particular, are kaleidoscopic sonic tapestries where you might hear pop…
Lazaro Casanova Our Kind of Love EP (petFood) Lazaro Casanova and his petFood label seem intent on taking over Miami’s underground house scene. And they might be accomplishing that goal through sheer production volume alone. Just this year, petFood has released a whopping ten EPs by various budding transatlantic stars…
UK DJ-producer Laura Jones will be making her Miami debut this Saturday. But in a way, it’s actually a homecoming. That’s because DJs like Matt Tolfrey (who would later sign her to his hotly tipped Leftroom imprint) introduced Jones to the world by dropping her tracks all over town during…
Science fiction, tribal rituals, transpersonal psychology … These are just a few of the ingredients that make up the metaphysical sonic force known as Portable AKA Bodycode, otherwise known by the name Alan Abrahams. Born and raised in South Africa, Abrahams soaked up the continent’s ancestral sounds. Later, he would…
