Alex Metric

Friday, August 10, 2012 (11:00 PM - 5:00 AM) | Mansion 1235 Washington Avenue Miami FL (Miami Beach)

Alex Metric has gained quite a name for himself over the last year through his numerous EP releases and his flurry of remixes for bands such as Hard-Fi, Alphabeat, Reverend & The Makers and The Infadels and, more recently, Ladyhawke and Phoenix. Alex Metric's grinding electronic output is hugely pop-centric – quirky, offbeat vocals backed with fuzzy, cracked-at-the-edges synths and huge, sing-along choruses. Join us as Empire Events and Super Fridays presents Alex Metric at Mansion Nightclub in Miami Beach.

It’s all about the song for Alex Metric. Whether it’s an original track, a remix or producing a band, there has to be a personal connection. If he doesn’t feel it, why would anyone else. “It’s always about making something with real emotion,” says the 28-year-old DJ from London. “My core philosophy is to do whatever’s right for the song and to try and make it have some meaning to me. I put so much love into everything I do.”

You can tell. Alex's album for Virgin, ‘Open Your Eyes', collates all three strands of his music output —his own productions such as his recent single ‘Open Your Eyes’ , those for other people, see Black Sky by Infadels, and most importantly of all, the best of the string of remixes that have made his name over the last two years. It’s a varied but far from disparate collection. A common thread, that sense of communicating genuine feeling, runs through the album, making sense of the different elements.

It opens with Alex’s version of Lisztomania by Phoenix, which transforms the winsome indie dance groove of the original into a dancefloor gem of juddering electro house bass and an explosive vocal-driven chorus built around the line “These days I’ve got to be someone else”. It’s his favourite remix, not least because they are his favourite band. “ Nine times out of ten I get asked to do remixes,” says Alex. “There’s only twice in my career that I’ve asked a band if I can remix them. I heard Phoenix had a new album out. I’d met Phillipe Zdar in Ibiza a few times. I knew he was producing the record. I e-mailed him and said that it would mean so much to me to do the remix.” Turns out it’s the band’s favourite remix ever as well. “That was a real pinch yourself moment,” says Alex. Other stand out remixes include the hands-in-the-air house rework of Quicksand by La Roux, a disco take on Stylo by Gorillaz and his faithful but cleverly done dancefloor tweak of Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode.

Of the original tracks, Alex points to ‘End Of The World’, one of the brand new stand-out tracks from the album, as a personal favourite. Up-and-coming singer Charlie XCX supplies the vocals. It was originally supposed to feature on her album, but it was so good Alex “wrestled it back off her”. It’s something of a departure. “It’s quite a sad song, not a club record at all,” he says. “It’s like nothing I’ve done before.” Then there’s the soaring epic house of ‘Open Your Eyes’, his collaboration with Steven Angello from Swedish House Mafia, as representing where his head is at. “It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve put out before,” he explains. “It’s an odd record, seven-minutes of waiting for it all to kick in and it doesn’t happen until the very end. I was conscious while I was making it that I could have had the piano riff all the way through and it would have worked and it would be successful. But I wanted to see what I could do to flip it on its head. I didn’t what to do the obvious.” It begs the question: why not? “Because I’m not interested in doing the obvious. There’s a view that dance music is disposable. People don’t see it as anything other than something for people on drugs to dance to. For me that’s not the case. Just because it’s an electronic record that gets played in clubs it doesn’t mean you can’t make a statement.”