Dragon-i's 7th Anniversary Party
Dragon-i's 7th Anniversary Party Sat, midnight The Centrium
As one-third of seminal house unit Swedish House Mafia, 31-year-old Axel Hedfors, better known as DJ Axwell, is probably the most accessible. Recently placing No 14 on DJ Mag's annual list of the top 100 DJs - up six places from the previous year - the electro-house DJ and producer has topped both dance and mainstream charts.
In 2002, Axwell (above)collaborated with Robbie Rivera and vocalist Suzan Brittan to produce the track Burning, which topped Billboard's Hot Dance Music chart two years later. In 2004, he produced a track for a dance compilation with vocalist Errol Reid, which the Ministry of Sound re-released as Feel the Vibe (Til the Morning Comes). Top spots on the Cool Cuts chart, Hype chart and Buzz chart followed. But perhaps his most commercially successful and recognisable track to date is 2007's I Found U, which not only topped most dance charts, but also made its way onto mainstream charts. BBC Radio 1's Pete Tong crowned I Found U an Essential New Tune, which led to massive radio play across Europe.
Last year, Axwell released a remix for David Guetta's Everytime We Touch, which Guetta rejected. But Axwell recycled the instrumentals for a collaboration with Bob Sinclar and vocalist Ron Carroll - who is also performing on Saturday - to produce the energetic disco anthem What a Wonderful World, frequently heard on Dragon-i dance floors.
Outside the house scene, Axwell is a prolific music producer, able to churn out anything from full-fledged disco to wordy hip hop rhymes. He has restyled club and crossover hits for Usher (Burn), Stonebridge (Put 'Em High), N*E*R*D* (Maybe), Moby (Slipping Away), Deep Dish (Dreams), Madonna (Jump), Nelly Furtado (Promiscuous), Bob Sinclar (I Feel for You) and Cyndi Lauper (Rain on Me), among others.
Axwell's style, in his own words, is to create as much tension as possible. 'There's nothing like building the tension and releasing it on the dance floor,' he told Australian music website inthemix.com earlier this year.
As for the future of house music, Axwell wants to see a return to its softer roots. 'Dance music is so huge now,' he says. 'I would like to see dance music grow in a more melodic and diverse kind of way. A lot of stuff has had to sound the same to work on the dance floor. Like electro - it has had to be hard. It would be nice for music to go back to being a bit soft and melodic.'
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