July 9th, 2009
DeadMau5 Returning To Philly With New Album In Tow
Toronto’s Joel Zimmerman — better known by his superstar DJ handle Deadmau5, and the giant, red, grinning mouse head (or “mau5head”) he wears while performing live — raised some serious hackles in the global electronic music community last year when he told an Irish newspaper that all DJs are “fucking cunts,” adding, “To say you become this massive up-on-a-podium performer by playing other people’s productions at the same speed as someone else’s productions and fading between the two of them, I don’t get it.”
Whether or not his point is on point, the upstart, prolific 28-year-old – who really only launched his music career some three or four years ago – has spent the bulk of his time crafting and spinning (via laptop and Ableton) original progressive house, trance, and electro, churning out a ridiculous amount of singles, remixes, and collaborative work since 2005. Last fall’s Random Album Title was his first “proper” full-length, though it features a handful of tracks – most notably “Faxing Berlin” and “Not Exactly” – which had been out there, topped charts, mega-downloaded, and spun nearly to death in the clubs for more than a year prior to its release. Still, RAT was mixed and stitched so cleverly and magnetically that it’s a pleasure to hear those familiar tracks in the context of the entire trip, which is at various points hypnotic, dreamy, pulsating, moody, exhilarating, and, well, Daft Punk-y. If Deadmau5’s attitude — or his narrow definition of what a DJ should be — is off-putting, his music is anything but.
We’ll see if he can follow up that creative success with his new album For Lack of a Better Name, which drops on September 22nd. He’s supporting it with a just-announced tour that comes to the TLA on November 22nd. That’s a ways away, but tickets go on sale this Saturday, July 11th, at noon, and given Deadmau5’s stature these days, it’ll probably sell out pretty quick.
