At just 26 years old, Todd Terje has been at the helm of some of the juiciest disco and house tunes of the last two years busting out everything from sly tweaks of classics by Curtis Mayfield, Paul Simon, Michael Jackson and KC & The Sunshine Band under his ‘Tangoterje’ moniker to fully blown floor filling remixes for kindred cosmic souls like Reverso 68, Studio and Lindstrom himself.
Following a string of celebrated releases leaning on everything from kitschy euro sounds to deep funk and latin jazz, Todd Terje has quickly made his mark within dance music circuits with tracks released on the cream of modern electronic labels including Full Pupp, Kitsune, Kompakt, Get Physical, Permanent Vacation, Bear Funk, Feedelity, Eskimo, Compost, Mule Musiq and Raw Fusion. Everything this 26 year old Norwegian puts his fingers on comes out with that crucial blend of musicality and playfulness, a combination which continues to win him fans across the globe. His touring schedule ticks all the boxes with sets at festivals & clubs across Europe with multiple trips to Japan and America in there too. Bloggers still talk about his perfromances at Plastic People (London) and PS1 (New York) and he’ll be touching down in Australia on this trip fresh from a performance at the Snowbombing festival in Austria (world’s largest Winter festival).
Straight out of high school Terje enrolled at a local music school in Oslo and began training as a pianist but became disillusioned with the lack of jazz being taught there and decided to move away from a career in music instead choosing to study physics at the University of Oslo. Lucky for dancefloor lovers it wasn’t long before he rekindled his musical fascination befriending Prins Thomas in 2001 and quickly rising to be one of the key players in Norway’s cosmic disco landscape. Terje’s continued study of physics goes some way in explaining his penchant for such tripped out, spaced sounds.
Fast forward to 2008 and cosmic, balearic, italo and any other form of disco you can imagine are blowing up, in large part thanks to the Norwegian scene that Todd Terje is at the forefront of.
As well as his DJing and production activities, Terje also runs a monthly party in Oslo called Shari Vari (named after the legendary 80s Detroit Techno track) with his longtime friend Dolle Jolle. With a cult like following for the Shari Vari nights developing, Terje’s reputation for being a masterful party host is growing at a blinding rate.
Is it house, funk, techno or disco? Terje speaks of catchy rhythms, dubby sounds, dreamy synth layers, cinematic moods, a playful approach and searching for that one nerve when asked to describe his music - the resistance to being pigeonholed is obvious.
Some essential listening to familiarise yourself with Todd Terje would include his original monsters like ‘Eurodans’ & ‘Mj’ndalen Diskoklubb’ and on the remix front check out his rerub of Lindstrom’s ‘Another Station’ (topped many International DJ polls for best track of 2006) or one of his most recent, a brand new remix of Jose Gonzales’ ‘Killing For Love’. If you’re a fan of re-edits his Wade Nichols take on The Turtles ‘So Happy’ is a house party must have.
