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Spinnin’ Records president Roger de Graaf is retiring, a representative for the label has confirmed to Billboard. De Graaf co-founded the Dutch label in 1999 alongside Eelko van Kooten, maneuvering it through several eras of electronic music and quickly evolving consumption models, from CDs to DSPs. “In the beginning, we wanted to become the No. […]
Two years ago next month, Hayla stood on the side of the stage at the Los Angeles Coliseum, observing the 46,000 people assembled before her. There in the shadows, she kept repeating to herself that everything was going to be alright. Then, it was her cue.
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She maneuvered through the dark, onto the stage and into the spotlight. Suddenly, the voice booming out of the stadium’s speakers was her own.
The British artist was closing the set with “Escape,” the 2022 hit by deadmau5 and Kaskade’s collaborative project Kx5 which she co-wrote and contributed vocals on, forging the track’s emotional core. The album that the song came from was nominated for a 2024 Grammy for best dance/electronic album, and the Coliseum show was the year’s biggest ticketed global headliner dance event. The spotlight Hayla stepped into that night wasn’t just a literal one.
“It changed the trajectory of my career completely,” she says of the song while speaking to Billboard over Zoom from her place in London, cozied up in a black sweater and black horn rimmed glasses. “It’s been an interesting few years.”
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Born Hayley Williams, the artist has since sang on charting hits by producers including Sub Focus, Kygo and John Summit. The track with Summit, “Where You Are” landed on both Hot Dance/Electronic Songs and Barack Obama’s list of favorite music from 2023. “I thought it was a joke,” she says. “Blew my mind.”
Hayla co-wrote this song with the same group of collaborators with whom she wrote “Escape,” with the idea to get it to Summit after he did the “Escape” remix. “We thought that it might be nice to see if he would like something in a similar sound,” she says. He did, with the pair forging a working relationship that would contribute to the “domino effect” of Hayla collaborations with marquee producers over the last two years.
Now, after establishing herself as one of the defining voices of the current dance music moment, Hayla is releasing her own solo project — her debut album, Dusk. Out through Believe Music, the 10-track collection has already generated millions of streams, with singles like “Fall Again,” “Treading Water” and “Embers,” and finds Hayla fusing her love of ambient and electronica with the more progressive mainstream sounds that have helped make her a star.
She started writing the tracks that would become Dusk in 2021, in that moment leaning into the sounds of influences like Portishead, Bonobo and Massive Attack. During one writing session, she and a few collaborators came up with the topline of “Escape”, an exercise that was done “just for the love of writing,” she says. The song eventually found its way to deadmau5 and Kaskade, who decided to keep the voice on the demo, Hayla’s, on the final product. And as her singular voice became increasingly interwoven into chart hits, she found the writing on her own work shifted more towards those sounds.
“I started writing in this sort of more EDM/house way for some of the album,” she says, “I think it’s got a really nice ebb and flow of what I’ve been influenced by and what I’ve been listening to along the way.
Dusk is named for Hayla’s favorite time of day, with this vibe enhanced her X-Men meets haute couture aesthetic, which she calls “dopamine dressing” because it makes her feel good. The album amalgamates this twilight mood into a cohesive, moody, sometimes melancholic, often achingly pretty 34 minutes of music. songs were produced by a group of collaborators, although the album-closing title track was produced solely by Hayla. It’s the only album song she doesn’t actually sing on, although her signature is all over it in the lush, emotive vibe it conjures.
“I’ve always produced at a level where I can put an idea across,” she says, “but I’ve never had the confidence to be able to put it out there and show off my own skill set. ‘Dusk’ was definitely a feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway kind of track, because I had a huge amount of anxiety in putting this on the album initially, because it’s quite exposing.”
Many components of Dusk are examples of finding such self-assurance. While Hayla’s rich timbre is enviable, it took her a long time to get over her “incredible” shyness about singing in front of people.
That shifted “when I started noticing that singing was a healer,” she says. “I realized that I felt amazing when I sang, because it was a form of therapy for me. I realized that it may resonate with other people in the same way, and if I can make people feel the way I feel when I sing, I’ve sort of done my job.”
This same type of vulnerability exists in the album’s subject matter. “Treading Water” is about a breakup that “rocked my foundations of who I was as a person.” While “quite a heartbreaking one to write,” the song’s effect is soothing, like the hand of a knowing friend on your shoulder.
She says success for the album for her is simply the fact that it exists, with particular pride coming from having it in a tangible form on vinyl. She’ll perform her first-ever headlining show at the Roxy in Los Angeles on December 4, and while she’s coy about 2025 performances, she doesn’t deny that some big and stuff is on the calendar, with a few other collaborations also incoming. She’s also well into the writing of her second album.
Now, after once being too terrified to sing publicly and having to hype herself up in order to step onstage at the Coliseum, two years, many hits and one album later, she says singing live “is definitely where I feel most myself.”
Seventeen years before Justice brought a boundary-smashing stage setup to the Outdoor Stage at Coachella 2024, they were just two young producers from France wondering if their work would ever translate into a real career in live music.
For the duo — Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé — the answer became a definitive oui after their 2007 debut performance at Coachella, which was also their first ever live performance.
Now, the two are looking back on their four Coachella performances — which happened at the fest in 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2024 — in new mini-documentary produced by the festival. The eight-minute visual, titled …And Justice for All: Coachella Edition, is comprised of archival footage and new interviews with Justice, their team and a few of the many people who helped put the show together at Coachella 2024 this past April.
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“I remember after we played our first set we felt so relieved,” de Rosnay says of the duo’s 2007 set in the doc, “because we had spent the four previous years thinking, ‘Maybe we are just meant to make remixes and not even albums,’ and then here we were in the desert thinking, ‘Well, maybe we are actually a real band.’”
The doc puts a special focus on duo’s 2024 performance on Coachella’s Outdoor Stage. Justice and their creative team spent six months working with seven computer scientists to make the show, which they’ve toured the world with over the last six months. The doc features an interview with the group’s longtime technical director Manu Mouton.
The documentary was directed by photographer and filmmaker Connor Brashier, who’s worked on projects with artists including Shawn Mendes, Niall Horan and Kygo. The film was produced by Goldenvoice’s Ike Adler, Mikhail Mehra and David Prince as part of a new initiative at Coachella focused on creating original content.
“As this piece became to come together, I quickly realized I was making this for my younger, nerdy self, who dug for hours and hours trying to find out more about the people and processes behind the iconic Justice shows both past and present,” Brashier tells Billboard. “I hope someone out there is as giddy as I was to see a few of these monumental Coachella performances in HD and meet a small portion of the magician-like talents who played a part in putting them all on.”
Watch the mini-documentary below:
Daft Punk will give the world an early holiday gift on December 12, when their 2003 anime film Interstella 5555: The 5story of the 5ecret 5tar 5system screens in more than 80 theaters in 40 countries around the globe. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Fans of […]
“I think it’s one of the best feelings, euphoria,” says Sara Landry. “Like, I just like that type of feeling.”
One might have already assumed as much prior to meeting Landry, whose throttling, physical, psychospiritual live sets have made her one of the buzziest names of the current dance music moment.
Today she shows up on Zoom bathed in the dim glow of an off-camera light source. Other interviews she’s done have mentioned her being cast in a green gleam; this afternoon, it’s magenta. Either way, the effect contributes to the witchy and so-called “high priestess of hard techno” persona the American-born, Netherlands-based producer has developed, although the veil is kind of pierced when a delivery guy rings the doorbell of her place in Amsterdam.
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“I’ve gotta step over my pilates machine that’s buried in clothes because I’m trying to clean out the closet,” Landry says, laughing as she maneuvers back to the camera after grabbing a package containing new stage outfits. “It’s been a long summer.”
A long 14 months, even. While Landry has been in the scene for a decade with singles and EPs dating back to 2018, she was thrust into the zeitgeist in August of 2023, when honestly hypnotic her Boiler Room set created, she says, “a wave of momentum.” This wave has turned tidal as she’s bounced across continents playing increasingly larger shows.
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With it all, Landry is making “hard techno” — a genre that’s existed largely in the underground and at festival side stages since developing in Northern Europe in the early ’90s — a dark horse entry in the mainstream live dance music market. Landry made her EDC Las Vegas debut in June and in July became the first hard techno artist to play the Tomorrowland mainstage in the festival’s nearly 20-year history. She’s sold out every show she’s played in the U.S. this year, closed out Portola festival in San Francisco last month, released her wild-eyed debut album Spiritual Driveby in early October and last week announced a series of headlining shows, called Eternalism, which will happen across Europe in early 2025. A press release calls these shows not just a tour, but “a spiritual gathering, a testament to the power of collective energies.”
That might be true, and certainly Landry has developed a potent brand around her techno witch sensibilities. The success she’s found, as she tells it, is a function of “settling into this comfortable knowledge of what my vibe is,” with that vibe essentially being a hybrid of hard techno and the meditation/sound bath realm of spirituality wrapped up in black bodycon and heavy eyeliner. This identity, while compelling, on its own wouldn’t be enough to sustain, but Landry has the music to both back it up and make it all feel less like a put on and more like a natural extension of her interests and artistry.
Born in the Bay Area and raised in Austin, Texas, Landry got into clubbing and dance music while a student at NYU, where she earned degree in finance, psychology and advertising — areas undeniably applicable to succeeding as a DJ. After college, she worked as a data analyst in Austin while teaching Ableton courses, throwing parties around town and livestreaming through the pandemic. After meeting agents Bailey Greenwood and Annie Chung backstage at a festival, she signed with WME for representation in North America in 2022, with her growing presence neatly coinciding with an increased appetite for dark, pummeling, sort of apocalyptic but also kind of chic music in the North American scene. (See also: the success of Tale of Us’ Afterlife brand and Anyma’s upcoming residency at Sphere.)
The general assessment among many, Landry included, is that in these hard times, people want commensurately hard music and a place, she says, for “high energy, high octane experiences” where they can forget out the wars, the election, climate change and other varieties of doom and just tap into their reptilian brain for a few hours. Of course dance music has existed as an escape since its origins, with mainstream EDM offering this same space and freedom to the masses not by acknowledging bad things in the world but by pumping out feel-good anthems that made it possible to momentarily pretend they weren’t there. Now, the scene is in a place where heavy sounds are embraced because reality is no longer so easy to ignore.
But also, TikTok. Beyond existential angst, social media primed the metaphorical pump for Landry and other young artists making heavy styles of music. “With hard techno specifically, social media has been a huge factor in making it more accessible for people to discover new sounds and find their community,” Greenwood and Chung say in a joint statement, continuing that after the pandemic “people were hungry for new energy and seeing clips from these events circulate made them want to go out and participate.”
The agents agree that dance music is having a major moment in the U.S., “but this time we are seeing different genres that were historically deemed ‘underground; get pushed to the forefront of the scene and come together in new inventive ways,” a phenomenon they say has made space for new artists like Landry while giving a platform to veterans who’ve been making this type of music for a long time.
Being American has also helped Landry, given that she can canvass the market more than international acts with similar sounds who aren’t able to tour here as often. “Her team saw the value of investing in smaller markets and really laid the groundwork throughout the country,” Greenwood and Chung say. “Our first few runs in the country were really deep dives that brought the sound to corners of the U.S. that often get overlooked, long before this sound exploded here.” To wit, in June Landry was the first hard techno artist to ever headline at The Caverns in Pelham, TN, with two sold-out shows. (Landry is repped by CAA in Europe.)
While she considers herself a member of the “second wave of electronic music that’s really punching through and breaking into the mainstream,” (a category one could also slot in new stars like John SUmmit, Dom Dolla and Mau P in) Landry doesn’t foresee her music charting like the mainstream crossover dance of the 2010s. “My goal has never really been radio,” she says.
Indeed Spiritual Driveby isn’t really top 40 material. Its 12 tracks fuse hard techno foundations (heavy kickdrum, rumble, sidechain, BPMS ranging between 140 and 160) with trance-like chants, spoken word lyrics about devotion and giddy rhymes about sex. Released on her own Hekate Records (which is named for the Greek goddess of the underworld and also releases music by rising acts), the album features collaborators including Mike Dean, who worked on the album-closing title track. Her catalog has 50.9 million official global on-demand streams, according to Luminate.
“I’ve been taking elements of kind of whatever I want and just putting it on a hard techno chassis,” Landry says of her approach, “where the drums, the arrangement and the grooves are rooted in that, especially the kick drum. but then I kind of do whatever I want on top of it.”
“Whatever I want” can include adding elements of psytrance, chanting and little injections of pop. Working in samples of music by artists like M.I.A. and Nickelback “scratches a little part of my brain,” Landry says. Not everyone is a fan, with a certain number of techno purists side-eyeing the style, a generally predictable turn of events that follows the tradition of many veteran dance scenesters hating on new styles that lean into pop and generally commercialize underground sounds and scenes. (See: basically the entire EDM era.)
“I find myself wanting to do things that are a bit more commercial than what a lot of people, especially people who’ve been in the techno scene for 20-plus years, may think techno can be,” says Landry. “A lot of that stuff is tongue in cheek, but I think it’s just fun. I feel like parties are supposed to be fun.”
But she also acknowledges that people are naturally protective of underground spaces and resistant to throngs of newcomers in techno cosplay who might threaten it.
“Especially when you get into the underground scene, I think a lot of people love the music, but there’s also this social construct of value,” she says. “People are like, ‘I’m cool for knowing about this and liking this, and I want to remain here and be cool with my cool little clique and my identity that I’ve constructed for myself, where I’m so much cooler than everybody else.’ People want to gatekeep, because they want to protect the space that they feel cool and underground for knowing about. But with the invention of social media, everybody has access to everything all the time, which is a blessing and a curse.”
“I understand why people get upset,” she continues, “because I imagine it feels a bit like a loss of identity. If everybody thinks this thing I think is cool that I based a good chunk of my personality around, then am I a unique person? Do I have any unique experiences? I can understand how that inspires stressful thoughts that cause people to lash out.”
While she will defend people being attacked in the dance culture war crossfire, she also doesn’t really have a lot of time to dwell on it. She’s touring heavily in the U.S., South America, Asia, Australia and Europe through the end of the year, with her Eternalism performances starting in late January in Amsterdam. Her team plans to bring this production around the world. “We’re really only seeing the beginning of where she can go,” Greenwood and Chung say.
In the meantime, here on Zoom in the magenta glow, Landry demonstrates that euphoria can be subtler than percussion shaking the walls of any given sold-out venue.
“It feels like the end of the first cycle,” she says of where things are for her today. “The first cycle of your career is working very hard to get to a point where you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve done it. I’ve done what I set out to do so far.’ The place I’ve always hoped I could get? I’m in that place.”
Even before Charli XCX dominated the summer with her acclaimed album brat, there was internal chatter about a joint arena tour with her and Troye Sivan. “I was pretty unsure how it would work, honestly,” recalls creative director Imogene Strauss, citing how unusual it is for two artists to alternate within the set list. “I was like, ‘This is going to be a challenge’ — and I think everyone felt that way.”
Ultimately, fusing two separate tours — Charli had debuted her solo brat shows during album release week at Primavera Sound in June while Sivan had embarked on his own European/U.K. headlining tour in support of his third album, Something To Give Each Other, in May — for a fall co-headlining run proved easier than expected. The Sweat tour kicked off Sept. 14 in Detroit and quickly became one of music’s hottest tickets, with sold-out dates at Madison Square Garden and Kia Forum with surprise guests including Lorde and Kesha, respectively. The trek concluded in Seattle on Oct. 23.
“It’s been an interesting morphing, shifting thing because of the scale, but also because of the collaboration element of it,” says Strauss, who has worked with Charli since 2019. Along with Jonny Kingsbury of Cour Design, the pair leaned heavily on lighting as a unifying element for the tour. “That ultimately became the thing that could tie the two shows together,” she says. Adds Kingsbury: “Traditionally with a pop artist, you would use bright key light and lots of downstage wash, but instead we light her very strobe-y, almost as if you were watching someone walk through a club in a movie throughout the entire show.”
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Another early decision the creative team made was to enlist a Steadicam operator from the music video world and to hire a focus puller, which Strauss says is “expensive and specific, but I think it’s added this cinematic level that has been so positive.” (Plus, as Kingsbury says, the concept paired well with the brat aesthetic, “with [Charli] pushing the camera man aside, spitting on the catwalk and licking it up. All of that feels very brat.”)
Fittingly, Strauss’ favorite part of Sweat showcases that creative synergy: Midway through the show, as Sivan is wrapping up “Stud” on the main stage and Charli is gearing up for “365” from the scaffolding, the screens are turned off and Charli’s iconic “bumpin’ that” line blares from the speakers. “Musically, the worlds are so well tied together, and being able to express that visually… it’s just so cool to see the worlds collide in a way that really works,” she says. Both she and Kingsbury credit music director Mitch Schneider for “expertly” putting Charli and Sivan’s music together, ultimately laying the foundation for the entire show.
“I think most people were expecting this tour to be like, Troye plays a set and then Charli plays a set,” says Strauss. “But Troye and Charli and all of us involved were like, ‘If we’re gonna do this, it’s gonna be intertwined musically, visually, everything.”
As a result, Kingsbury says a lot of the feedback he’s been hearing about the tour was how polished the show was. Both he and Strauss say many arena tours today rely on “gags” or “interstitial content” to help with costume or staging transitions, whereas Sweat was “very dialed in,” says Kingsbury. “Everyone is always trying to go bigger and more ridiculous — we went the opposite direction.”
“[This tour] doesn’t take itself too seriously — people dance like crazy,” adds Strauss. “Turning an arena into a club was the No. 1 challenge, and when the arena was literally shaking, I was like, ‘OK, success.’”
A version of this story appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.
This week in dance music: Kylie Minogue and Charli XCX both ruled the dance charts in Australia and the U.K., (respectively!) Producer Sama’ Abdulhadi called out the Harris/Walz campaign for using her image in an ad without her consent (“I don’t endorse any U.S. political party,” Abdulhadi wrote.) EMPIRE president Tina Davis spoke about Shaboozey and major labels during the keynote at ADE 2024. (“Even though you might doubt yourself, just try anyway,” she said while reflecting on the early days of her career.)
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Meanwhile, Avant Gardner hired a new CEO, Decentraland announced the lineup for their upcoming virtual fest, we spoke with John Summit and his manager about their touring strategy ahead of the duo’s appearance at Billboard’s Touring Conference next month in Los Angeles and we chatted with Anna Lunoe upon the release of her debut album, Pearl.
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And beyond that, amid another absolutely bananas busy week for dance music releases, these are the best new tracks of the week.
Disclosure, “Arachnids”
Almost five months after releasing the bright (and viral) singalong “She’s Gone, Dance On,” the Lawrence brother follow-up with another single that sounds absolutely nothing like that other one. Out on Warehouse Project Records, “Arachnids” is one for the afterhours, with crisp, syncopated percussion creating a foundation for waves of synth and a warm, inventive breakdown composed primarily of duduk.
Guy Lawrence writes that making the track “felt like an ever evolving, creative puzzle of sound design and groove exploration,” adding that “the project came together over many months of tweaking and adjusting. For me, this is kind of like a diary entry of where my production and mixing skills are currently at in 2024.” He continues by acknowledging that the song is “not gonna be one you can sing along to this time I’m afraid” — although it’s highly likely Disclosure fans will find other head-bobbing ways to enjoy this one. — KATIE BAIN
Jai Wolf & Aluna, “Water Sign”
In the two years that Jai Wolf spent writing his second album, he realized he’d actually written not one but two LPs. “I went through some of the most turbulent moments of my life while writing this record,” Wolf shared on Instagram, “and instead of fighting against the storm, I let it shepherd me to new ground.” That new ground begins with his sophomore LP, The Red Eye Home (due out on November 15 via Mom+Pop), and its lead single, “Water Sign” with Aluna. Dropped fittingly during Scorpio season—but also for the sensitive Cancers and Pisces out there— it’s both dreamy and brooding, as Aluna sings of love written in the stars over a drop that crashes gently like ocean waves. — KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ
Steve Angello, “Hooligans”
With his new single “Hooligans,” Steve Angello delivers a new anthem for cannonballing into the weekend. The producer and Swedish House Mafia member here presents a rave/tech house hybrid that’s delightfully untamed and designed to fill big rooms, from the hip-gyrating drums and roller-coaster builds to the unhinged siren synths (the latter inducing an immediate, pupil-dilating flashback to late-aught electro anthem “Warp 1.9”). “Hooligans” is his third solo single this year, following “ME” and “Skip” (and also, tangentially, following a rare solo release from fellow Mafioso Sebastian Ingrosso last week.) Angello, who earlier this year launched a new weekly program on SiriusXM, is set to perform at the Brooklyn Mirage tonight (October 25). — K.R.
Franc Moody, “Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road”
“I’m a fish out of water / I’m a pineapple on a sea of dough,” begin Franc Moody on their latest single, “Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road” (and yes, shots fired at you pineapple pizza-eaters). The U.K. duo give the state of sorely sticking out a funky and light-hearted soundtrack, complete with a prim, strings-filled introduction, reverberating woodblock hits, and neon-streaked synths, as they work to get back to their authentic state. “Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road” arrives alongside news of a new album, Chewing the Fat (out March 7 via Night Time Stories).
“Armed with mellotrons, drum machines and other crazy synths we delved into a psychedelic and acid driven soundscape with a hint of British seaside crag,” say Franc Moody. “The song explores adventure, decadence and a feeling of getting in over your head; of being enchanted by powerful forces. Lost in a moment before coming to one’s senses and realizing the things that really ground us.” — K.R.
Elderbook, Another Touch
There’s a far deeper story than the standard dance refrain to “put your f–king hands up” on Another Touch, the third album from English producer Elderbrook. He himself calls the album “a journey of self-discovery,” saying the project starts “with someone who has lost themselves so completely they barely recognize the person in the mirror. Everything is shallow and inconsistent in their life so as to protect them from anything which might hold some true meaning. As the album unfolds so too does the story of our ‘hero’ who finds new ways to think about, and reflect on their life, and the lessons learned along the way.”
To that end, the Vintage Culture collab “Run,” which arrives at the album’s halfway point, also seems like the metaphorical turning point for this story arc, with the buoyant production giving a sense of spiritual uplift and forward momentum. The rest of the album, out on Mine Recordings, features collabs with Shimza, Nimino, Carlita, Shakehips and George Fitzgerald. — K.B.
e-Dancer, “Melodica”
Kevin Saunderson resurrects his longstanding e-Dancer alias, with his producer son Dantiez joining him on the project. The producer advises that “Melodica” marks “the start of a new era of e-Dancer, and of Detroit techno,” a lofty statement that Saunderson, who literally co-invented techno, and his scion seem more than capable of executing on. The track is out on the e-Dance/One House imprint. — K.B.
DJ Seinfeld, “Hopecore”
“I’ve been assembling sounds and writing out ideas for my next album, and I wanted to give out a teaser of what that process has been sounding like,” writes DJ Seinfeld of his new single “Hopecore.” If it is indeed any real indication, we’re in for a euphoric ride to trance town. “Hopecore” is exactly how its title sounds: light, bright and ethereal; with soft guitar licks, swirling chords and airy vocals calling for a lighter to “burn this whole thing down.” It’s a crystalline club track rendered in pastels, yet one that will absolutely bang on a proper sound system. DJ Seinfeld recently announced a new North American tour which is set to launch in January 2025. — K.R.
Paul van Dyk, “For An Angel (Öwnboss Remix)”
It’s a holy day for trance heads, with Paul van Dyk’s genre-defining “For an Angel” celebrating its 30-year anniversary. To mark the occasion, the 1994 classic has gotten a series of remixes, including one by Brazilian producer Öwnboss, who punches up the original, adding some weight and size to the etheric original. The remix collection is available as a special exclusive double-vinyl, which includes van Dyk’s own “E-Werk Club Mix.”
Of the anniversary, the German legend observes that “It is fascinating how ‘For an Angel’ still touches so many hearts after all these years,” he adds. “Across generations, young and old, all around the world. Whether it was in 1999 in front of 1.5 million dancing people at the Love Parade or last week in the Berlin Cathedral as an ambient arrangement, the magic of the track seems to grow even more intense over time.” — K.B.
It’s a Tuesday morning in Australia, and Anna Lunoe has a sizable day ahead. Speaking to Billboard over Zoom from her home studio in Sydney, where post-it notes adorn the white walls, Lunoe is prepping for her set tonight at Accor Stadium, where she’s opening for The Weeknd.
Right now she’s going over her setlist — Ice Spice and Central Cee’s “Did It First,” Azealia Banks’ “New Bottega” — and other tracks that will, as she says, “tell the whole story of the intertwining between hip-hop and dance.” These opening sets are also a reunion for Lunoe, who first opened for The Weeknd in 2013 on his Kiss Land Tour.
Call it all another entry on a long list of accomplishments. In 2012, Lunoe moved to Los Angeles from Australia to pursue music and, amid the crescendo of the U.S. dance music boom, swiftly carved out a career as an in-demand producer and DJ. Four years later, she became the first woman to play a solo set on the mainstage at Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas, and in 2017 she played Coachella while pregnant, a revelation in a time when women, much less mothers, were even more dramatically underrepresented on dance lineups. She’s played every major global festival, and her list of releases is long, varied and well-listened to.
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But it’s only now, four years after moving back to Australia, that Lunoe is releasing her debut album, Pearl. Out Friday (Oct. 25) on NLV Records, the label from Lunoe’s longtime friend Nina Las Vegas, the 13 tracks embody the style and verve Lunoe has long been known for, working in big ideas about life and motherhood and work and the meaning of it all over productions both driving and delicate.
“I’ve never desired to exist hugely outside of the dance community,” she says. “I think this is a beautiful place. You see things go off, once they cross over into this bigger space, and you can’t always understand what happens out there. But in here, I love this world we’re in.”
Here, Lunoe talks about the album, and why she’s releasing it now.
1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?
I am sitting in my home studio in Sydney, in Australia, and it’s a beautiful day, and I have a really big day today. I’m playing with The Weeknd tonight, so I have all my gear around me and a big list of what to do, and I’ve got to work out what to wear.
2. What’s the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
I discovered my local CD shop when I was like, five. I used to beg my parents to go there. My parents would have these long lunches at the local cafes with their friends, and I’d get bored, and the CD shop was just next door, so I’d always go next door and literally pester the lady to listen to all different songs. They used to have these little stations where you could listen to music. I remember buying TLC‘s “Creep” on CD single, and the way I felt when I first heard, I think it’s like a synth or guitar sound, that opens it. It was just like, “Oh my god.” That was mind-blowing.
3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do they think of what you do now?
My parents both created their own worlds, in their own way. My dad was in bands, then he [worked in nightclubs, and then he was in the food innovation industry. He’s a bit of an inventor, a really interesting character. So he fully supports and understands the need to forge your own path in life, which was cool. My mom created a fashion label for pregnant women, which was groundbreaking for her time, because there weren’t maternity clothes back then here in Australia.
Although they understand the kind of build your own life situation, I think my mom was always wanting me to have stability. She was always like, “Get a job at a bank.” Every time I called her, I’d go, “Mom, guess what!” She’d go, “You got a job at a bank!” It’d be like, “No mom, not this time.”
4. What’s the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?
There’s this really cool label called Perks & Mini, which is shortened to P.A.M. I still wear it to this day. It’s the coolest label. It’s out of Melbourne, and I flew to Melbourne for a gig, and I went to the P.A.M. store, and I bought what I thought was a pretty impractical purchase. It was a duffle bag with this awesome alien print. I thought it would fall apart as soon as I started using it, and because it was white I thought it would get dirty. I was like, “This is a stupid purchase, but I just really want it. It’s so fun.” I still have it to this day! It’s still an action. It was a good purchase. It was an absolute investment.
5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into dance music, what would you give them?
The first thing that popped into my head was Rooty by Basement Jaxx. It’s a good example of a fun record with incredible references and great pop writing that anyone can relate to, and did it’s own thing and didn’t feel formulaic at all.
6. What’s the last song you listened to?
Embarrassingly, my album songs. I was listening through them this morning.
7. You’ve been making music for a long time. Why is now the right time for your first album?
I’m finally getting to the point where I have the skills and understanding of myself as an artist, that I can make sense of my writing impulse as it pertains to the world I exist in as a DJ, a producer and someone who spends their life in clubs. I started writing, and what I wrote were more song based things. They weren’t necessarily built for the sonic world I exist in as a DJ. It took a long time to bridge those.
8. What changed?
It’s felt like dance music has met me in the middle, too. Dance music’s had this incredible arc in the last five years, or the last 15 years for sure. But in the last five years we’ve seen a lot more sincerity, a lot more real stories being told in the club space, and it made it easier for me. Suddenly there were songs that I could make sense of that I’d [made 10 years ago], or that I’ve always loved but couldn’t work out how they belonged in this space. Now it feels like they belong.
So I think it’s a case of my skill set meeting me here, dance music meeting me here, and honestly, probably the fact that I moved back to Australia and I’m not on tour as much as I used to be. I used to play non-stop. I never stopped touring, ever. Now I get a bit more downtime from being on the road, and that’s given me more space to hone my creativity and my production skills, too.
9. As you’re saying, you moved back to Australia after many years L.A. in 2020. How did that move change your career strategy? Obviously Australia has its own thriving scene, but how do you control your career while being further away from a lot of places, and the U.S. especially?
It’s been really challenging. I made the decision for my kids and my family. It definitely wasn’t a career decision. It was like, “This is what I need to do for my family, to be closer to my parents as they’re getting older,” all that stuff. The career stuff has just been… I don’t think I had control over it. I speak to that in the album as well. There’s songs that reference how it feels to be on the other side of that and to think, “What did I do? Did I just throw everything away, or a part of myself away?”
10. That sounds challenging. How have you navigated it?
I struggled with it a lot, because I spent many years building what I built, and I made a decision in a moment of crisis with a newborn, premature baby and a pandemic and my parents. I made that decision because I had to. I wasn’t thinking about my career at that time. At the same time, I believe that there’s more to life than just doing everything for your career, and that you have to do what’s right for everyone else.
So I don’t regret it, but it definitely meant there was a big spanner in the works in how things were laid out, and I had to adapt. But I also think that things don’t happen for nothing, and you have to look for the meaning in things that happen and look for the reason why this might happen to me and why I did this and what I can do now and look for the best possible road forward from where I’m at.
11. From a very outside perspective, what I see is that you being further away gives things that you do a celebratory feel. Like, “She’s back playing Coachella! She’s back playing in L.A.!” It seems like every time you come here and do something, it’s a moment. Does that feel true to you?
Oh I hope so. I would love that, because it’s such a moment for me. Me coming back to California and the States and the reception that I get, nothing will fill that hole like those cities. Those cities built me. I lived there for like, a third of my life. It’s such a big part of me.
I’m in this situation where now my heart is split in two, because I want to be with my family, but I also want to be in a place where I feel like my music resonates. And it’s also my friends, my community, all that stuff. It is such a big deal for me, and so I hope it feels like a big deal for everyone else too, because that’s what keeps me coming back, and for as long as people will meet me there, I’ll meet them there.
12. Pearl is out on NLV Records, the label from Nina Las Vegas. You and Nina have been very close friends for a long time. Did it just make sense to put the album out on her label?
It’s hard to to work out what might have happened under different circumstances. Coming back here and starting to release on NLV seemed so natural. It just seemed like I was home. Things were changing so fast in those years; I suddenly would have a song that I wanted to release, and Nina is my best friend, and she has this great label. I talk to her every day about what’s going on in my career. So she was like, “Oh, yeah, I can put it out for you.”
13. I imagine there are a lot of advantages to working with your best friend, yeah?
Now I can’t imagine working in a different way, because I have so much control over what I do. I’m not waiting for anyone to approve or give permission on what I do. Don’t get me wrong, me and Nina sometimes go at it about release dates and what we want to do next, in the best way possible, because that’s how we are. We’re sisters. But it feels like there’s no gatekeepers in front of me. Not that I ever felt that. I’ve always released with indie dance labels for the most part, in the last 10 years anyway.
But it just feels particularly aligned when the person is kind of part of your brain. I trust her opinion, and I trust where her head’s at. If she says, “this is cool, we should get this out straight away,” I trust her, because she’s someone who I built this whole thing with. We built it together.
14. What does success for the album look like for you?
I really don’t expect huge amounts to change after the album. I’m proud of of what I created. I think it’s a great jump off point for the next chapter, whatever that may be. I guess what success means to me is my community hearing it, and hearing me and meeting me there. I’ve never desired to exist hugely outside of the dance community. I think this is a beautiful place. You see things go off, once they cross over into this bigger space, and you can’t always understand what happens out there. But in here, I love this world we’re in.
15. Speaking of crossover stars, you’re opening for The Weeknd tonight. What kind of prep goes into a show like that?
This Weeknd situation is so unusual, to have been invited into an artist’s world all those years ago. We were playing 3,000 to 8,000 capacity rooms back then, and now tonight, 72,000. His arc is phenomenal, and I feel grateful to have been invited back into their sphere.
I feel comfortable, because I feel like I understand enough about myself and about their camp to know what to bring to the table and what I can offer. So I’m just looking to do the best job of that and just set things up for the evening ahead. I prepared thoroughly for this, because it is outside of my usual dance realm. But because I’ve done it in the past, I trust my instinct that if I do the prep and if I look at all the reference points and work out what I think I want to present, I trust that I will make the right decision.
16. Your two kids are sampled on your album track “Let’s Go Home.” To what extent do they understand what you do?
My daughter describes me as a “DJ -er.” I don’t correct her, because that’s cute. She knows that I have fun clothes. She likes all my different fun clothes that I wear when I’m DJing, and she always asks if she can have them when she’s older… I don’t post them a lot because I just love keeping them kind of separate and that part of me separate. I don’t put it on them. I just want to focus on them and their experience.
17. What are your proudest moments of your career so far?
I’m proud of myself for moving to America when I did, because I really had no business being that brave. But I think that was brave in hindsight, because I did not know anybody. Obviously there’s the big moments, like the EDC moments and the big pregnancy announcement. Those moments were huge. But there was so many moments that were quiet, when no one was there to cheer me on and I had to keep going, even when things went wrong or things were really hard. I’m proud of all those late night, on my own, being scared and still pushing through moments.
18. What are you proud of now?
Like you said, now it’s harder for me to make moments happen being further away and having kids and family, so I’m proud every time I am able to contribute meaningfully to this genre, whether it’s being part of a big show, or being a part of a mix, or a song that says and does what I want it to say and do. They’re all big achievements for me now. That’s something I’m proud of — that I’m continuing to do it and trying to balance it all.
19. What’s been the best business decision you’ve made?
To be as multifaceted as possible. Having a diverse skill set, whether it be radio or being able to play every genre from disco, to downtempo, to more commercial, to house, to techno, to underground and building a skill set where I can meaningfully speak and contribute in all these different genres. Plus doing my own vocals, and interviewing other artists, and my podcast. Being able to provide all these different services to music has been the thing that’s kept me moving forward, when one avenue fades away.
20. What’s one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?
Remember to stay focused on what is going outwards. It’s very easy to get caught up on the behind the scenes things, and the little things. But you should always remember to think about what’s actually going out to people and make sure you’re focusing enough energy on what’s going out to people, not just seeing yourself with what’s happening behind the scenes.
As the pandemic was waning, John Summit, an emerging Chicago DJ whose music had blown up online during lockdown, had a plan to translate that internet presence to real life. “Our strategy was to be everywhere,” says Summit’s manager, Holt Harmon. “Like, omnipresent.”
In 2021 and early 2022, Summit and his team canvassed North American nightclubs as they reopened, showing promoters (and themselves) that Summit’s online hype could turn into in-person fun. In May 2021, he sold out a 500-capacity venue in Tempe, Ariz., in just 12 seconds.
The team then transitioned from clubs to 2,000-capacity rooms, investing profits into production for stage rigs. “We were smart with how we were living at the time,” Harmon says. “I did everything from a kitchen table with my business partner, and John was working from his parents’ house.”
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Since then, Summit has sold out headlining sets at Los Angeles’ BMO Stadium and Madison Square Garden in New York, with a three-night stint at L.A.’s Kia Forum set for mid-November. The large-venue bookings function as part of a three-pronged touring plan for Summit, which also includes his intimate Experts Only shows at clubs and festival sets as Everything Always, Summit’s duo project alongside Australian producer Dom Dolla.
The hybrid approach allows for different creative opportunities: Experts Only parties, for instance, offer no-frills production and let Summit stay close to his audience and test new music. They’re also easy to take on the road, often in destination venues like The Caverns in Pelham, Tenn. (“My goal is Experts Only Alps,” says Summit, who named the party, and his label, after his love of skiing. “That would be f–king sick.”)
Arena and stadium sets, meanwhile, satisfy massive audiences, including fans who might just be getting into electronic music through Summit’s accessible style of progressive house. And Everything Always lets two artists unite to play “bigger, more impactful things than if it was [them] separately,” Harmon says, such as the duo’s Coachella performance in April. “People ask how we keep cycling through markets year after year,” says Harmon, who is also co-founder and CEO of management firm Metatone. “It’s that we can come through as three different forms.”
The plan is to do it again internationally. With 50% of Summit’s 2025 touring happening overseas, Harmon says “the future of John Summit is a global business.” Now, Summit’s biggest sets require a crew of 180 and cost approximately $1.5 million to produce. But despite the growth, the essential goal remains the same as it was in the early days. “I’m still working from the kitchen table,” Summit says, “but it’s my own kitchen table now.”
This story appears in the Oct. 26, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Decentralized Music Festival is returning next month, with the virtual event focusing entirely on electronic music for the first time in its four year history.
Happening Nov. 20-23, the lineup for the free event features future bass star San Holo, experimental artist Mat Zo, Canadian bass producer Whipped Cream and fellow bass mainstay Nghtmre along with a flurry of rising producers, including many from the global Decentralized community. See the complete 2024 lineup below.
Decentralized Music Festival is a product of Decentralized, an immersive digital world built using blockchain technology and owned and operated by its users through crypto technology, which differentiates it from corporate metaverses like Fortnite.
Decentralized launched its music festival in 2021 amid the pandemic. Originally called Metaverse Music Festival, in its first three years the event hosted artists including Deadmau5, 3LAU, RAC, Alison Wonderland, Ozzy Osbourne, Dillon Francis and Soulja Boy. A representative for the event says that the event drew roughly 50,000 unique attendees in 2021 and 2022. (In 2023, a smaller version of the event focusing on Decentraland community-based artists took place while the platform was being revamped.)
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“Our theme this year, ‘space traveler,’ speaks to this sense of discovery and exploration,” head producer at Decentralized and Decentralized Music Festival Bay Backner tells Billboard. “We also see Decentraland as a “third space” for music experience. It bridges the community fans find at live EDM festivals, like Tomorrowland and Ultra, with the accessibility and immediacy of streaming music at home. It is as easy to enter from your computer, but you’re simultaneously sharing an important, creative, transient experience with others from around the world. And importantly, Decentraland Music Festival is free and open to all.”
Decentralized has users in 159 countries, who, in addition to the music, can check out Decentralized Music Festival offerings like live talks on AI, the future of electronic music and “label round tables” hosted by dance imprints including Monstercat, Coop Records, Hospital Records and more.
“During the pandemic, I started a virtual events company where we were fortunate enough to put on shows with a relatively high degree of production value, and miraculously we were able to provide fees to the artists and staff involved,” Mat Zo tells Billboard. “After the pandemic ended, that fizzled out and I thought virtual events were a thing of the past. So when I was asked to perform at a virtual event this year, I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. I’m glad someone managed to take the concept further and make it work in a post pandemic context. I have a deep appreciation for the amount of work that goes into these events, and I’m extremely grateful to be a part of one.”
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