Parov Stelar: pioneer of electro swing at Pohoda
The third largest city of Austria is well-known for mini Christmas cookies. However, at the turn of the century, another important export article appeared: DJ Marcus Füreder better known under the stage name Parov Stelar. He successfully turned the mix of jazz, house, electro and breakbeat into a new genre named electro swing.
18. December 2015
Füreder started out as a DJ at Austrian nightclubs during the mid-late 1990s. In 2003, he founded the record label Etage Noir Recordings. A year later, he started to perform under the stage name Parov Stelar. His first EP, Kiss Kiss, was immediately picked up by the influential Austrian radio station FM4. With follow-up LP titled Rough Cuts released soon after that, he made a breakthrough on the international electronic music scene. After the release of album Shine, BBC’s Chris White named him one of the most promising producers active in Europe. And he was right.
What followed were successful albums Daylight, That Swing – Best Of, Coco (featuring track “Catgroove”, which was a smashing success) and, most of all, album The Princess. The most successful tracks from this album are “Booty Swing” sampling a song “Oriental Swing” by Lil Hardin Armstrong and “All Night”, whose video featuring “takeSomeCrime” dancer has nearly 25 million views on YouTube. In the last couple of years, Parov Stelar has been frequently coming to Vienna to pick Amadeus Austrian Music Awards. His tracks topped the magical 100 million views on YouTube long ago.
This year, he recorded perhaps his most successful album so far. The Demon Diaries has become #1 in album sale charts in Austria as well as Greece and one of Top 10 albums in Germany and Switzerland. Ursi from The Music Minutes portal says: “The latest album is pure dance music. The leitmotif of The Demon Diaries is a red line that every single one of us reaches from time to time, a line on the brink of genius and madness. Each track is damn good. It combines elements of so many different styles that you simply can’t get tired of the songs.” Only time will show if this is true about the new album. But there’s one thing we know for certain already today: Parov Stelar will be serving a vinyl Linzer cookie at Pohoda 2016.