ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Deadmau5. His name may conjure up images of  a lifeless rodent, but this Canadian born self confessed techno geek punches like a Heavyweight.  Having had a meteoric rise he has gone from near obscurity to becoming one of the most in demand producers on the face of the planet and an innovative electronic live performer. He has racked up more than 5,000,000 hits on MySpace, had a UK hit single (’I Remember’) which has sold over 120,000 copies and spent 10 weeks in the top 40 earlier this year.

Deadmau5’s has a new compilation album, ‘For Lack Of A Better Name’, out in October.  Now lets get one thing clear, this isn’t his Artist album (that’s still in mau5 lab), this  is more a collection of random works that he’s produced individually. A few have been out previously, but there are some new surprises in there as well. The tracks will be  segued together, so in a way reflect his current live show.

2009 will see deadmau5 continuing to break boundaries in the music world. The concept of his live show reflects the changing the face of dance music. He performs using Ableton (music production software), and controls this with a Lemur. No, not the furry mammal but a futuristic music controller which wouldn’t look out of place on Star Trek.  So not your typical banging on the synths. And of course, let us not forget the giant tailor made giant Mau5head.

This summer he’s performed some electric shows at Sonar (The most spectacular audio visual assault involved an oversized mouse mask…this was Sonar at it’s expectation -shattering best. The Observer), and Glastonbury (Laptop played  by giant nightmare cyber rodent whose black eyes look as if they’re staring into the depths of your soul and are not impressed by what they see – that’s thrills. NME). This autumn he’ll launch his mammoth world-wide ‘For Lack Of A Better Name’ tour. The tour is bigger and brighter with new visuals and a mind blowing innovation, which we cant reveal just yet, but will lift the show to new heights.

To the Chinese it may be the year of the Ox, but 2009 will be the year of the Mau5.