Adam Beyer

Adam Beyer is a Swedish techno DJ and producer.  A hugely prolific producer Adam Beyer has close to a hundred releases and countless remixes to his name and has been a major force in techno for 15 years.  Beyer has a number of his own record labels including the seminal imprint Drumcode.

Early Years: 1994 to 2005

Born and raised in Stockholm in Sweden Adam Beyer started out playing the drums as a kid before buying his first turntables in 1990.  By 1994 Beyer was already producing and having tracks signed and released.  But Beyer’s earliest releases gave little hint of the percussive techno style he would later make his own. Instead releases such as the Quaternary E.P. (as Genecom in 1994) and the Bifrost E.P. (as The Syncapator also in 1994) were high octane German influenced hard trance.

It wasn’t until his fourth release ‘Drumcodes 1’ in 1995 that that Beyer finally hit upon his trademark percussive techno sound.  Though still hard and pacey, the lead lines and arpeggios of his earlier trance releases were gone, not to come back (with the notable exception of ‘Tall People have More Fun’ as Tall Guy in 1996).

Between 1995 and 1996 saw 20 releases from Adam Beyer as he worked continued to pursue and hone his sound. In mid 1996 Beyer set up his now seminal techno label Drumcode on which he released productions from himself and others such as Oliver Ho, Cari Lekebusch and Thomas Krome.  Also in 1996 Adam Beyer released his first album ‘Decoded’, followed by the remixed version ‘Recoded’ in 1997. 

Throughout the second half of the nineties Beyer further refined a sound that revolved around drums and percussion, standing in stark contrast to the melody laden trance that was dominating the mainstream.   Releases such as ‘Compressed’ (1996) and ‘The Last Impression E.P.’ (as Mould Impression in 1997) built a tribally percussive sound.  Whilst others such as ‘Drumcode 9’ and ‘Tasty Bits’ (both 1997) delivered an incessant atonal cacophony.

By the turn of the noughties Adam Beyer’s profile had begun to become more established.  Though his production output was less than in the nineties he remained prolific and continued to champion tribal, percussion driven techno on releases such as ‘The Time’ (2000) and 1994 (as Mould Impression in 2001).  But Beyer also started to layer instrumentation onto his tracks, such as the dark bass riff on ‘Remainings III’ (2000) and the arpeggiating pads on ‘Phases’ (with Peter Benisch also in 2000).

In addition he used aliases to explore different styles, such as Conceiled Project for the low tempo tech house ‘Definition of D’ in 2000.

Later Years: 2006 to present

By the mid noughties Beyer’s style was beginning to get slightly slower and closer to the house – techno cross over being championed by the likes of Loco Dice, as seen with ‘Stereotypes’ in 2006.  As his sound mellowed a little his popularity rose with tracks like ‘China Girl’ (2007) and ‘London’ (2009) finding a new level of popular success.  But twisted tracks like ‘Anistius’ in 2010 remind the world that his heart will always lie on the techno side of the dance music divide.

Adam Beyer is one of techno’s most influential and hardest working figures.  Throughout the nineties and noughties his prolific output of DJ friendly releases ensured that his driving percussive sound featured on most techno dance floors across the globe and in the record boxes of any self respecting techno DJ.  In recent years his sound has mellowed a little, allowing him to seamlessly ease into the techno – house cross over, bringing him newfound popularity.

Adam Beyer was born in Stockholm in 1976 and played drums as a school kid before buying a set of turntables aged 14.