deadmau5

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phenomenon from Toronto, better known as deadmau5, rolls his eyes at the description, which he sees as a hopelessly outdated way of describing what he does.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 four years he’s released a string of club hits, starting with the trance-house hybrid Faxing Berlin in 2006. It was followed by the euphoric filtered keys of Ghosts N Stuff in 2008