The 50 Greatest Australian Electronic Acts of All Time

DJs who also own a label are, let’s face it, a dime a dozen. There’s nothing ordinary about Nina Las Vegas, though.

The DJ, producer, and entrepreneur (real name: Nina Agzarian) has played every major festival in her homeland, including Big Day Out, Stereosonic, Splendour In The Grass, Groovin’ The Moo and Parklife, and has had several solo headline tours of her own.

As a recording artist, Nina has released a string of EPs and has collaborated with the likes of Anna Lunoe, Vera Blue, Ecca Vandal, and Ninajirachi.

On the global stage, she has spun tunes at Coachella, HARD, Holy Ship!, Friendship, The Greatest Day Ever and SXSW, and in 2019, was lead support for Sofi Tukker’s Europe tour, and for Porter Robinson’s Virtual Self sold-out shows in Los Angeles, and logged residencies on Diplo’s Diplo And Friends BBC Radio One show & Red Bull Radio.

That’s part of the story.

In 2015, on the same day that she left her decade-long presenting role at triple j, Nina launched NLV Records. A decade later, it’s one of the longest-running, female-founded and led record labels in the country. —L.B.

DJ Angus Galloway was a unique talent who burned brighter than anyone else in Brisbane’s nascent dance music scene. During the Nineties, Angus spread the word of dance music, then a niche genre, during his eight-year-long residency on 4ZZZ’s Saturday night dance show.

A master of vinyl who was comfortable working three decks at once, Angus was an innovator who peerlessly blended hip-hop skills into house sets, and was arguably the greatest technical DJ of anyone working raves and nightclubs in Australia from the late Eighties until his untimely death in February 2008, aged 38.

Galloway’s life and career are the subject of Simon Walshe’s award-winning documentary short, Flow, which took five years to complete. “Flow is as much about the people and culture of that time as it is about Angus,” comments Walshe. “He was the people’s DJ, and Flow is a film that is also about the people that lived in the moment for the next record to drop on the turntables.” —L.B.

Hailing from Canberra, the duo of Vance Musgrove and Mikah Freeman, both DJs, producers, remixers, and radio presenters, got things moving in the 2010s as The Aston Shuffle. They’ve reworked tracks for Fatboy Slim, Avicii, Dizzee Rascal, Empire of the Sun, London Grammar, and more.

Debut 2011 album Seventeen Past Midnight enjoyed a warm critical response, with Rolling Stone giving the LP a four-star review. Their 2013 collaboration with fellow Australian producer and artist Tommy Trash, “Sunrise”, was a smash, vaulting to Number One on the Beatport platform. The following year, Photographs arrived at Number 12 on the ARIA Albums Chart. —L.B.

Tigerlily pounced in the 2010s, during which time she became one of Australia’s most in-demand DJs. In one impressive spell, the Sydney artist (real name: Dara Hayes) was voted as the Top Female DJ Down Under (via inthemix) for three successive years and was rated in the Top Five overall for both 2014 and 2015.

Tigerlily has released music through Island Records Australia, part of the world’s biggest music company, Universal; played to heaving crowds at Tomorrowland and Ultra Music Festival; and supported Dutch superstar Tiësto in the US and Asia. —L.B.

Blending house, electro, and disco, Flight Facilities (Hugo Gruzman and James Lyell) took to the air in 2010 with their debut single “Crave You”. The dancefloor cut logged 116 weeks on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart, where it peaked at Number 21, and raked in more than 176 million US streams.

Their two studio albums were domestic mainstream hits, both cracking the ARIA Top 10 (2014’s Down to Earth at Number Three, and 2021’s Forever at Number Six). Forever won an AIR Award and the opening track “Lights Up”, featuring Channel Tres, crashed Billboard’s electronic music charts. —L.B.

There’s been no jump scares in the career of Miami Horror. Formed by Benjamin Plant in 2008, the electronic-pop act are a musical step out of an Eighties haze, a funky update on New Order. Debut album Illumination grazed the ARIA Top 10, at Number 10.

With total streams topping 300 million, Miami Horror has worked the crowds at Coachella, Governors Ball, Splendour in the Grass and Beyond the Valley, and glowing reviews have followed from Billboard, Pitchfork, Stereogum, and more.

Miami Horror’s third and most recent LP, 2025’s We Always Had Tomorrow, was released through a deal with Canada’s Nettwerk. —L.B.

Fodera isn’t your typical Australian living in London. The Adelaide-born DJ and producer is a giant in his class, counting Calvin Harris, MK, and Diplo among his collaborators. After a three-year residency at Amnesia in Ibiza, the house master locked up a new, months-long Balearic Island stint in 2025 at Pacha.

Fodera has five albums to his name, the most recent, 2021’s Wide Awake, released through his own Solotoko label. Wide Awake cracked the top 50 on the UK albums chart. Six of his tunes have slide into the UK Singles Chart, including Top 10s with 2023’s “Asking”, and the BRIT Award-nominated “Somedays” with Jazzy and D.O.D. “Somedays” was the only independent release in the 2025 BRITs category for song of the year. —L.B.

Electronic dance-pop outfit Boxcar were an early scene builder. Formed in Brisbane back in 1986, Boxcar sounded like the outcome of a chance mingling at a nightclub of ABC, New Order, and Cut Copy. The American party scene loved it, as Boxcar poured out three hits on the Billboard dance charts: “Freemason (You Broke the Promise)” (1988), “Insect”, and “Gas Stop (Who Do You Think You Are?)” (both from 1990).

Boxcar released two albums through Andrew Penhallow’s Volition Records, Vertigo (1990) and Algorhythm (1994), before disbanding in 1997. Boxcar reunited for live performances in 2010 and in 2014. Dave Smith was the mainstay on various incarnations of Boxcar, which reunited for live performances in 2010 and in 2014. —L.B.

Bag Raiders didn’t steal immediate glory. Formed in 2006 by Jack Glass and Chris Stracey, the duo had an unlikely hit with “Shooting Stars”, which became a viral internet meme almost 10 years after its release.

Released on 2008’s EP Turbo Love! and re-released for their debut self-titled LP in 2010, “Shooting Stars” cracked the Billboard charts in 2017, and the album surged up the US electronic music charts. Bag Raiders, released through Modular, snared an ARIA Top 10 debut at Number Seven. —L.B.

Cosmo’s Midnight were born to do it. Really. The Sydney electronic act is the duo of twin brothers Cosmo and Patrick Liney. The siblings have amassed more than 500 million streams and released three albums, the first of which, 2018’s What Comes Next, slotted into the ARIA Top 40.

The lads caught the ears of major label powerbrokers in the US, where they signed with Sony Music’s RCA Records. In 2020, a K-pop crossover occurred when the lads were credited as songwriters and producers on BTS’ single “Fly to My Room”, housed on the superstar boyband’s BE album. —L.B.

Canberra duo Peking Duk haven’t released a studio album, but they still have some of the country’s best dance tracks under their belt. Adam Hyde and Reuben Styles have played some of the country’s biggest music festivals and have two ARIAs to their name — Best Dance/Electronic Release for 2014’s “High” and Song of the Year for 2017’s “Stranger”.

A swag of APRA Awards are in their trophy cabinet. Hyde and Styles, winner of the Readers’ Choice category at the 2025 Rolling Stone Australia Awards for his Keli Holiday project, play to the beat of their own drum machine.

Peking Duk take their craft seriously, clearly, but they always remember to have fun. They teamed up with KFC in 2022 for their own burger, the Peking Cluk, and the branded “Feastival”, a day-long fest on Sydney’s Cockatoo Island. They followed that up two years later with the instantly-iconic Bunnings Rave, with tickets to the sensational car park event selling out in mere minutes. Peking Duk have played all the big shows, from Falls Festival to Spilt Milk, Splendour in the Grass, and Big Day Out.—N.G.

Since the ARIA Best Dance/Electronic Release was first handed out in 1995, just four acts have gone back-to-back: PNAU, The Presets, Dom Dolla, and Infusion. Infusion was the first to do it.

Hailing from Wollongong and formed by Jamie Stevens and Manuel Sharrad, Infusion were the first to do it, the lads snagging pointy trophies for “Girls Can Be Cruel” (2004) and “Six Feet Above Yesterday” (2005). 

Infusion, at their best, were unleashing electro bangers and party tunes that could sit with Fatboy Slim. Three albums dropped in the 2000s: Phrases and Numbers (2000), Six Feet Above Yesterday (2004) on Sony BMG, and All Night Sun Light (2009), through their own label, Futuresque Records.

Stevens and Sharrad got the old band back together for a date in November 2019, just months before the pandemic ruined clubland for several years. —L.B.

Like Confidence Man and other heavy hitters from Down Under, Adelaide-born DJ and producer Juliet Fox is better known on the other side of the world. The queen of techno splits her time between Ibiza and Berlin, where she operates her own imprint TREGAMBE.

Fox has released cuts with such labels as Drumcode, Filth On Acid and Kraftek, and has played to the masses at Tomorrowland, Loveland, Time Warp, and more. Over time, she has collaborated with the likes of Green Velvet, Coyu, Ramiro Lopez, and Sonny Fodera, and landed at Number One on Traxsource, the underground electronic music download platform. Fox now juggles travel, the party scene, and studio life with parenthood. —L.B.

A trailblazing DJ, remixer, and producer, Melbourne-born Racic was in possession of the best ears in the game.

A vinyl junkie, Racic would import records from New York and Chicago, introducing house music to Australia’s underground. A musical cornerstone for Andrew Penhallow’s Volition Records Records (he was described as the unofficial house producer” for the label), it was Racic who produced and reinterpreted hits for Severed Heads, Boxcar and others.

A futurist and an early adopter of samplers, drum machines, and other digital instruments that would shape electronic music, Racic, through his mastery of manipulating analogue tape, would extend mixes and transform familiar tunes in ways that few others could do at the time. Racic died in 1996 after contracting a brain virus, while he was working on his first solo album under the moniker MagicMan. He was just 32. —L.B.

Unlike the Doobie Brothers, the Stafford boys are blood relatives. Gold Coast DJs and producers Matt and Chris Stafford helped usher in the mainstream explosion of EDM in the 2000s and 2010s, with their blend of house, electro, and progressive house music.

The bros have university degrees in business studies, and like most Queenslanders have sport in their veins. Both picked up instruments early (Matt on guitar, Chris on guitar and piano).

From a golden run in the mid 2000s, the New Zealand-born brothers enjoyed lofty status on the inthemix rankings of Australia’s top DJs, and in 2010 graduated to the small screen with the FOX8 documentary series The Stafford Brothers, which aired for two seasons. In 2011, the siblings came in at No. 1 on the ITM list. 

The New Zealand-born brothers also hosted a weekly radio show on the Today Network, released cuts on Spinnin’ Records, Thrive Music, Smash the House, and Armada Music, and were the first electronic dance music act to sign to the US label Cash Money Records, in 2012. —L.B.

Batman and Robin. Lone Ranger and Tonto. Kid Kenobi and Shureshock. Unbeatable as a duo, all of them.

Together, Sydney DJ Kid Kenobi (real name: Jesse Desenberg) and Shureshock (Cameron James Brown), the Brisbane MC, form a breaks tandem that generates enough energy to light up a festival.

Kenobi, at his peak, was voted Australia’s Number One DJ in the Technics inthemix Top 50 for three straight years. Shureshock, former vocalist with fusion indie groove group Zephyr Timbre and whose alias MC NO3 was an in-demand master of ceremonies at dance parties, unleashed his vocals on Clubbers Guide to Breaks and Kid Kenobi Sessions, and, in doing so, became the first MC to appear on a global Ministry of Sound compilation.

The pair clocked up the air miles with global tours, and showcased their killer MC-DJ tandem at the biggest stages, including Big Day Out, Scotland’s Tea in the Park, London’s Fabric nightclub and more. Both are label owners, and their next collaboration isn’t far off. —L.B.

Europe’s hottest summer hit of 2010, “We No Speak Americano”, travelled all the way from Sydney. Signed to DJ Ajax’s Sweat It Out in 2009, Yolanda Be Cool (Andrew Stanley and Matthew Handley) joined forces with Australian producer DCUP (Duncan MacLennan) on the club anthem, anchored around a sample from Italian artist Renato Carosone’s 1956 recording of “Tu Vuò Fà L’Americano”, written by Carosone and Nicola “Nisa” Salerno.

Negotiations to clear the sample dragged on for four months, and the track was given a rush release when Canadian MC Mario cleared a rival version of “Americano” and arrived first to market. “We No Speak Americano” was the winner, nabbing the ARIA Award for Best Dance/Electronic Release, and hitting Number One in over 20 countries.

Other hits followed, including the ARIA platinum-certified “Sugar Man”, “Soul Makossa (Money)”, “From Me To You” and more, with combined global streams topping 300 million. Ajax (real name: Adrian Thomas) tragically died in 2013 after he was struck by a car, aged 41. —L.B.

Havana Brown brought the dancefloor into the mainstream like no other female Australian DJ before her. The Melbourne-based artist had a rare Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 hit with 2011’s “We Run the Night” featuring Pitbull, which peaked at Number 26. In Australia, the track nailed an ARIA Top Five spot, is certified triple-platinum, and collected two of Brown’s four career ARIA Award nominations.

In 2008, Brown reputedly became the first female DJ in Australia to sign a major label record deal when she teamed with Universal Music.

Spots at a Grammys afterparty and the Singapore F1 Grand Prix thrust her into the spotlight. With her pedal to the floor, Brown released 10 volumes of her popular Crave compilations and landed four consecutive Number Ones on the Billboard US Hot Dance Club Chart Hits, including “Big Banana”, “Warrior” and “Flashing Lights”. The latter was the title track to her debut album from 2013, a top 10 hit on the ARIA Chart, peaking at No. 6. —L.B.

Cassian (full name: Cassian Stewart-Kasimba) is in a small class of Australian electronic music artists who own a Grammy Award. The producer, DJ, and mixing engineer is a leader in melodic house and techno, his special sound capturing more than 175 million streams and upwards of 1.4 million monthly Spotify listeners.

He’s accepted invitations to perform at Tomorrowland, Coachella, EDC, and Lollapalooza, plus iconic venues such as Hï Ibiza, Green Valley, Printworks London, and others. It’s in the world’s biggest music market, the United States, where Cassian is busiest. There, Cassian has pushed electronic music into new frontiers as musical director for Anyma’s The End of Genesys, presented at the eye-popping Sphere in Las Vegas.

As an artist, Cassian has shared releases on Afterlife, Rose Avenue, and Odd One Out, nabbed APRAs, ARIAs and helped RÜFÜS DU SOL to scoop a Grammy for their work ‘Alive’. —L.B.

After forming in Melbourne in 2001 and signing with Modular Records in Australia and the US soon after, Cut Copy started making waves globally with their 2008-released second album, In Ghost Colours.

As well as topping the albums chart at home, the record included hit tracks like “Lights & Music” and “Hearts on Fire”, both of which featured on the soundtrack for the juggernaut FIFA video game franchise (at least a dozen Cut Copy songs have been licensed to video games, a crossover most electronic artists can only dream of). In Ghost Colours broke through in the US, where it impacted the Billboard 200 chart, Cut Copy was invited to play Glastonbury Festival, San Francisco’s Download Festival and Chicago’s Pitchfork fest, and the band would play their biggest headline shows in Mexico and Colombia.

Cut Copy’s seventh studio album Moments is slated to arrive September 5th via Cutters Records / The Orchard. “Since our last album release, five years have passed,” explains frontman Dan Whitford. “In that time I had a child, people around me fell in and out of relationships, the world went through a global pandemic and there has been a myriad of social and political upheaval. So I guess there’s been a fair bit on my mind, and for me making this album has been a way of processing it all.” —N.G.

Sneaky Sound System is sneaky in every sense. Danceable, fun, and totally indie, Sneaky Sound System’s self—titled, triple platinum-certified debut album from 2006 spawned a handful of endlessly replayable electropop anthems. Play “UFO” or “Pictures” or “I Love It” and watch early millennials fill up the dancefloor.

Second album 2 debuted at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart and is certified platinum. Third studio album From Here To Anywhere debuted in the top 10 in 2011 and is certified gold.

Now the duo of Connie Mitchell (Miss Connie) and Angus McDonald (Black Angus) — former member Daimon Downey (MC Double D) departed in 2009 — Sneaky Sound System have soaked up 14 ARIA Awards nominations (for two wins), and Miss Connie has worked with the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye West, Rick Ross, Snoop Dogg, and Pete Tong. New single “Shiver” dropped in 2025, their first in two years. —Conor Lochrie

Streaming figures don’t define an artist, but it was impossible to not be impressed at CYRIL’s seismic numbers in 2024. The Number One track on Spotify by an Australian artist worldwide in 2024? CYRIL’s remix of Disturbed’s “The Sound of Silence.” It was one of his three numbers to splash on the Australian Music Global Impact list, ranking the most popular new, homegrown recordings on the streamer’s platform outside Australia. .

The NSW-raised DJ and producer (real name: Cyril Riley) also bagged two titles in the Top Shazams list for 2024, and his two-time, ARIA Award-nominated cut “Stumblin’ In”, his reimagining of Chris Norman and Suzi Quatro’s 1970s classic, was the top-ranked homegrown track on Apple Music’s Top Songs tally for Australia, coming in at Number 33. CYRIL has confidently announced himself as a global electronic star. —C.L.

When the Big Day Out stole young Australians’ attention in the Nineties, and triple j and Rage had the bases covered on radio and TV, Gerling — Darren Cross, Paul Towner (aka Presser), and Burke Reid — had their moment. With a sound that would find fans in any nightclub or sweaty room with sticky carpets, Gerling landed ARIA nominations and dropped four studio albums.

Their second, 2001’s When Young Terrorists Chase the Sun, was all class, combining elements of French Touch, disco, and more. The LP captured headlines for the wrong reasons; its artwork and title coincided with the September 11 attacks in New York City.

Gerling disbanded in 2007, a year after Spotify was founded and well before the streaming revolution that could’ve shunted them into prominence. —L.B.

Two years after forming, Southend won gold with “The Winner Is…”. Signed to Andrew Penhallow’s Volition Records, Southend (Stuart McCarthy, Steve Younan, Sameer Sengupta, and vocalist Melinda Page) collaborated with trance specialist DJ Nik Fish (real name: Nik Vatoff) on the cut, which sampled former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch’s speech announcing Sydney as the host city for the 2000 Summer Olympics.

It was a party captured on wax. And it was a hit, cracking the ARIA Top 10. A remix arrived in time for the Sydney Olympics, titled “The Winner Is…2000”. Southend was a regular performer at dance parties around the country in the early to mid-1990s, and took their live act on the traveling Big Day Out circus. Southend’s Sengupta enjoyed a solo career as Pocket, and formed the ARIA Award-nominated dance music duo Pocket 808. —L.B.

The pandemic was bad for business, terrible for mental health. Shouse, somehow, found the antidote.

In 2022, the indie Melbourne outfit had a global hit with “Love Tonight”, a slow-burning religious moment and end-of-lockdown anthem.

The creation of Jack Madin and Ed Service, one a primary school teacher, the other an arts community manager, “Love Tonight” took four-plus years to take off.

When it did, “Love Tonight” cracked the UK Top 20, Top 10 in France and Germany, and accumulated more than one billion streams. It’s gold, platinum, double-platinum, and diamond certified in over 30 countries, including the UK and US. It’s Gold, Platinum, Double Platinum and Diamond certified in over 30 countries, including the UK and US.

“It’s the story of true independence, tenacity, unbreakable belief in the power of dance floors – and proving unconventional means can still break both dance records and dance artists worldwide,” recounted OneLove general manager Ant Celestino in 2022. “It’s real movie shit.”

A debut album, Collective Ecstasy (via Hell Beach / OneLove), dropped on July 4th. The duo worked “very slowly on purpose,” Service told RS ahead of the album drop. “We’re kind of over the churn and pressure of social media dictating timelines. No deadlines. No rush. The songs led the way.”—L.B.

Finding success in your home country is one thing, but breaking into the UK market? Luude has been there, done that, and made it look easy. His big breakthrough in 2022 came with two remixes. The first of those, “Down Under”, earned the approval of Men at Work frontman Colin Hay, who contributed vocals, and it cracked the Top 10 in the UK and Australia and won the ARIA Award for Best Dance/Electronic Release. Follow-up “Big City Life”, a collaboration with Mattafix, saw Luude (real name: Christian Benson) crack the UK Top 10 once again.

That’s some big city life. Riding – or leading – the breakbeat revival, Luude played the biggest festivals in the UK and Europe that year, including Tomorrowland, Creamfields, Reading and Leeds. Luude’s “TMO (TURN ME ON)” with Bru-C featuring Kevin Lyttle just missed out on the UK top 40, peaking at No. 42. In July 2024, Luude became a label chief with No Instruction. Don’t bet against the producer hitting those rare heights again.—C.L.

Timmy Trumpet’s hardstyle anthems might be like catnip to a raver, but there’s real depth behind the instantaneous addictiveness of Trumpet (real name: Timothy Smith). He’s never afraid to try spinning in new subgenres, and it’s always a blast when he incorporates live trumpet into his performances — hence the stage name.

His star is very much a global one. He’s collaborated with Armin van Buuren, Steve Aoki, and Hardwell, and performed at Tomorrowland, Ultra, and EDC. In 2019, he came in at Number 13 in the annual DJ Mag Top 100 DJ poll, the highest ever placing for any Australian act.

In 2024, Trumpet landed two tracks in the top 20 of Spotify’s Australian Music Global Impact List, a gauge of the most popular new, homegrown recordings for the world outside Australia. From his 2014 breakthrough “Freaks” with Savage, through to now, Trumpet’s career streams top 2.5 billion.—C.L.

Adelaide, the City of Churches, was also the City of Raves in the 1990s. And Groove Terminator was Lord Mayor of the Party.

The producer and DJ (real name: Simon Lewicki) is a scene-builder who helped guide Australia’s electronic music scene from underground raves into the big leagues. Groove Terminator was the first Australian DJ signed to a major label in the late Nineties, landing a global hit with “One More Time (The Sunshine Song)”.

He was nominated for best new artist at the 1998 ARIAs, crossing over into the best male artist category in 2000 (he was also nominated that year for best cover art for his album Road Kill).

In 2001, with his Chili Hi Fly collective, he cracked the US Billboard charts with “Is It Love?”

A man of many guises, Lewicki formed Tonite Only with PNAU’s Sam Littlemore, struck a decades-long partnership with Ministry Of Sound Australia, and now, after almost 40 years in music, he’s formed an inspirational alliance with South Africa’s Soweto Gospel Choir. Their collaborative album “History of House” (via Xelon Entertainment) was nominated for the 2024 ARIA Awards in the category for Best World Music Album. —L.B.

During Australia’s rave heyday in the Nineties, Sydney’s Peter “Peewee” Ferris was the heavyweight champ. A DJ, producer, label co-owner (Two Tribes Records), and artist with several aliases (Pipi Le Oui, Sweatbox HQ, and Splice Collective), Peewee composed music for the 2000 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in his hometown — an unbeatable career highlight (Dutch DJ Tiesto would take the baton four years later at the Athens Games).

A multiple ARIA Award nominee, the party starter had a Top 20 hit with 1995’s “I Feel It”. Peewee was front and centre as dance music elevated from the underground to the mainstream. —L.B.

Vision Four 5 combined electronic dance music with performances that featured interactive video technology, long before others could figure out how to do it. The trailblazing Brisbane outfit was founded by Dr Noel Burgess, then a student in music technology at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. Burgess found his tribe and started Vision Four 5 with a lineup that included Gavin Sade, Tim Gruchy, Ben Suthers, and Al Ferguson. Burgess and co. were in the thick of the raging underground scene in the early-Nineties, during which time they dropped the albums Texture (1993) and Humid (1995) and numerous singles on Volition Records/Sony Music.

They were Boiler Room regulars in the Boiler Room at the Big Day Out, sharing the stage with The Prodigy and many others, with Suthers growing the dance space to rival the main stage over the next 20 years. Classic cuts include “Everything You Need” and “Funkify Yourself”.

Burgess and Suthers reunited the act for shows in 2002 and 2008, and Burgess/Gruchy paired for Ministry of Sound in 2023. —L.B.

Severed Heads were ahead of their time, experimenting with tape loops and electronics mixed with live video. Formed in Sydney in the late Seventies, Severed Heads created one of Australia’s enduring experimental music pieces with 1984’s “Dead Eyes Opened”, a dark retelling of a grisly murder set to delicious synthesised arpeggios.

The original is now stored with the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Robert Racic’s superb update in 1994 sent the song across triple j’s airwaves, and saw Severed Heads play the Boiler Room at the Big Day Out, where they played “Greater Reward” (1988) and “All Saints Day” (1989) and other favourites. Severed Heads toured, dissolved, reunited, and, after a US tour, hung up their leads in 2019. Band member Garry Bradbury passed in 2022. —L.B.

When EDM took over music at the turn of the 2010s, Tommy Trash was right there at the ascension. Earning a swathe of fans thanks to remixes of Delta Goodrem, The Veronicas, and many others, Trash went global in 2012 with “Reload”, a stunningly euphoric collaboration with Swedish producer Sebastian Ingrosso.

The vocal version with John Martin entered charts around the world the following year, even skyrocketing to Number Three on the UK Singles Chart. Critical acclaim also came the Ministry of Sound Australia alum’s way, including a Grammy nomination in 2012 for his remix of Deadmau5’s “The Veldt”. Before Dom Dolla and CYRIL, before even Flume, Trash was showing what Australian electronic music was all about on a global scale. Long after Trash has retired, hedonists will still be reloading ‘Reload’ on playlists, indulging in its achingly tempting buildup and revelling in its ecstatic drop. —C.L.

Formed in 1981 by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, Dead Can Dance created a sound, a mood, that couldn’t be pigeonholed. Their breathtaking, cinematic and universal works could soundtrack a reimagined Baraka, or lay your dearest to rest — in textures of darkness and light, complex, heartwarming, and heartbreaking.

Dead Can Dance have a global audience, too. Their sixth studio album from 1993, Into the Labyrinth, sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide, cracking the Billboard 200 chart.

Four of their albums have impacted the UK chart, and they’re recognised as one of the most internationally successful artists on the 4AD roster. “They severed boundaries and set music free from the fetters of time and place, soaring out of the immediate world,” reads a statement from 4AD, the iconic independent label. “Musical outsiders they may have been, but Dead Can Dance’s vision and faith will ensure a continuing legacy and an undiminished appeal.”

Dead Can Dance isn’t strictly electronic music, and it certainly isn’t for the dancefloor. Doesn’t matter. The nature of the electronic music scene is inclusiveness. The music of Dead Can Dance can play side rooms at any big party, or recoveries, or homes, anywhere. —L.B.

Carmelo Bianchetti is Australia’s Godfather of Techno. An Adelaide native, Bianchetti was a king of underground dance music in the early Nineties, a man who, as DJ HMC (aka House Master Cam), introduced dirty grooves with the stamp of Chicago and Detroit. Think “Phreakin’”, “6 A.M.”, and  “LSD”, one particularly nasty cut that got pumped to a global audience by Carl Cox, who dropped it on F.A.C.T. in 1997.

Bianchetti released works on domestic labels Juice Records and Dirty House Records, and flexed his chops overseas, performing at Berlin’s E-Werk and such festivals as Mayday and Trans Musicales.

A late change of tune in the 2000s saw Bianchetti flip to another creative alias, Late Nite Tuff Guy (LNTG), a purveyor of reimagined vintage disco and soul. Bianchetti’s music will live forever. “LSD”, from 1995, is stored with the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. —L.B.

The UK has always had a special relationship with drum ‘n’ bass. Perth’s Pendulum crashed that dance music hotbed in the 2000s with spectacular results. Formed by Rob Swire, Gareth McGrillen, and Paul “El Hornet” Harding, Pendulum had a smash with their independently-released debut LP Hold Your Colour in 2005. Powered by monsters “Tarantula” and “Fasten Your Seatbelt”, the album went platinum in the UK, for 300,000-plus units.

Pendulum could swing into the 5,000 capacity Brixton Academy, or play any major music festival, and in 2005 Swire and Co. nailed a dream collaboration, remixing The Prodigy’s “Voodoo People” — the music video for which is the stuff of nightmares.

Their follow-up, In Silico, released through a new major label deal with Warner Music, went to Number Two in the UK and Number Nine in Australia. Third album Immersion went one better — it topped the UK chart, peaking at Number Three here. In 2011, Swire and McGrillen formed the electro house duo Knife Party. The following year, a collaboration with Swedish House Mafia (“Antidote”) went to Number Four on the UK Singles Chart. —L.B.

Melbourne DJ and producer Anthony Pappa is one of the outstanding technical DJs of his time who, during the Nineties and Noughties, was arguably Australia’s highest flyer. Pappa made his name by winning Australia’s DMC DJ championship as a 15 year old, then the youngest to do it. He had global plans and relocated to the UK where he would play the biggest clubs for the most prestigious names in dance music, including Cream and Ministry of Sound.

Pappa appeared on DJ Mag‘s Top 100 DJs each year between 1997 and 2003, and was the magazine’s cover star in 2000. His two-disc beat mixed compilation for the iconic trance label Platipus Records is timeless, as are his releases on Renaissance Recordings, Global Underground and NuBreed. Pappa is a rare breed — a house DJ who could scratch and work three or four decks. —L.B.

Quench’s mid-Nineties trance classic “Dreams” was just what the doctor ordered —  a monster track that achieves lift-off with the assistance of chimes and a sweeping refrain that defined an era. The project of C.J. Dolan, and co-produced with Sean Quinn, “Dreams” dropped in late 1993. A reissue followed, and the tune would fill dancefloors around the world, selling hundreds of thousands of copies along the way.

“Dreams” peaked at Number Nine on the French singles chart, tickled the UK tally at Number 75 and earned an ARIA Award nomination for best dance release.

Released by the Sirius Music label, “Dreams” appeared on the full-length album Sequenchial in 1994, followed up in 2000 by Consequenchial.

Carl Cox loved Quench’s “Hope” so much he remixed it and dropped it on his original, groundbreaking F.A.C.T. beat-mixed collection.

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, Doolan and Quinn can pat themselves on the back. Lost Tribe’s “Gamemaster” from 1997 is almost a replica of “Dreams”. Quench’s standout ought to be recognised as one of the greatest contemporary works to come from Australia. —L.B.

Josh Abrahams has a chart tale that would keep most of us awake at night. The DJ, producer, and member of Future Sound of Melbourne (FSOM) had a hit with 1998’s “Addicted to Bass”, a pre-dubstep collaboration with vocalist Amiel Daemion. With its fat bassline, fractured beats and double entendre lyric, the track cracked the Top 40 in Australia.

Four years later, “Addicted to Bass” made a mark in the UK where it was released as Puretone. The banger peaked at No. 2 on the Official UK Chart in 2002, after debuting at No. 68 the previous week. In the days before the download and streaming revolutions, record merchants would sit on stock until release day. Some eager retailers, however, broke the embargo. Had they waited, Abrahams would’ve had a chart crown.

Puretone bagged another UK top 40 with “Stuck In A Groove,” peaking at Number 36 in 2003.

Earlier, Abrahams and Davide Carbone formed FSOM, winning the ARIA for Best Dance/Electronic Release in 1996 for Chapter One. In the same year, Abrahams signed to Carl Cox’s label Ultimatum and released his debut album, The Satyricon. Abrahams has also made music for the screen, including co-production of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge soundtrack. He set a then-record at the ARIAs of 1999 for most nominations for an independent artist with six, winning two. —L.B.

The duo made up of Cheyne Coates and Andy Van Dorsselaer (aka Andy Van) caught their big break with the 1999 post-disco hit, “Don’t Call Me Baby”. As well as peaking at Number Two here, the track went global, hitting Number One in the UK (doing so in May 2000) and New Zealand. It also picked up a number of ARIA Awards, including Single of the Year and Highest Selling Single, the Madison Avenue gave the record industry’s event one of its most talked-about performances.

The Melbourne act’s second single, “Who the Hell Are You?” went on to crack No. 1 in Australia and went top 10 in the UK, reaching Number 10.

Madison Avenue released their first and only album, The Polyester Embassy, in 2000, before their eventual split in 2003. “Don’t Call Me Baby” made a comeback in 2014 when a remix went to Number One on the ARIA Club Tracks Chart.

Away from the stage, Andy Van co-founded the Melbourne-based Vicious Recordings with DJ John Course and industry professional Colin Daniels in 1992. Among its 800-plus releases were early recordings by the late Tim Bergling, better known as Avicii. —L.B.

Once half of local duo Cut Snake, FISHER (full name: Paul Fisher) blew up in 2018 with the Grammy-nominated global hit, “Losing It”. The tune also hit Number One on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart.

Since then, the Gold Coast producer has graced the stages of Coachella, the mainstage at Tomorrowland, is one of the top DJs in Ibiza and Las Vegas, and has his own Australian festival, OUT 2 LUNCH, which returned over two days in May 2025.

In 2024, FISHER’s “Atmosphere” (with Kita Alexander) won an AIR Award and a QMA and, for the first time, cracked the top 10 on DJ Magazine’s top 100 DJs, at No. 8. Fisher is also a member of Under Construction with frequent collaborator Chris Lake. His elite profile in the US was confirmed when March 29th, 2025 was recognised as “Day of the Fish” in Las Vegas. —N.G.

Since forming in 2016, party animals Confidence Man have got the place bouncing. To date, the Brisbane-bred, UK-based unit have released three studio albums, two EPs, and gathered a string of ARIA and AIR Award nominations, as well as shortlisting for International Group of the Year at the 2025 BRIT Awards. Led by the boisterous Janet Planet and Sugar Bones (and the “silent” production duo of Reggie Goodchild and Clarence McGuffie), ConMan first put their stamp on the global scene when they performed at the iconic Glastonbury Festival in 2023.

It’s in the UK and Europe where ConMan have made the biggest impact. “We knew pretty early that the UK got us more than Australia did,” Bones told Rolling Stone AU/NZ last year. “It was like that situation of when a band pops up and they just belong somewhere else. We’re still trying to do the whole America thing. We’ve only just started that.” The deluxe version of their UK top 10 album from 2024 album, 3AM (LA LA LA), dropped in February. —L.B.

VASSY is an icon of electronic music. Need proof? She has it, in the form of the Icon trophy at the 2023 EDMAs in Miami, becoming the first-ever female recipient.

Raised in a Greek household in Darwin, VASSY (born Vasiliki Karagiorgos) moved to the US in the early 2010s for a fresh start. The gamble paid off when she became the first Australian artist to hit Number One on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart with her track “We Are Young”. It’s one of eight Billboard chart leaders, including “Bad” (with David Guetta and Showtek), which has raced past one billion streams on YouTube alone.

Her Tiësto collaboration “Secrets” hit Number One in over 30 countries and collected more than two billion streams. “I want to inspire other people that you can do it, you can really follow your dreams. And not just in music, in anything,” she told Rolling Stone AU/NZ in 2022.

In 2024, VASSY collected her first platinum plaque from the National Music Publishers’ Association, for “Bad”; signed a new deal with Universal Music Publishing; and launched a new radio show, VOX Radio. New music has dropped in 2025, including her “BEG” cut with Dutch producer RSCL, and the BossAcoustics EP, which, she tells RS, “marks a new chapter in my artistic journey—one that feels like coming home.”—L.B.

When Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes come together, you’d best step right back — lightning is about to strike. After having their minds enlightened at a colourful early rave, Littlemore and Mayes jumped right in. Their debut album from 1999, Sambanova, impacted the ARIA Top 40. That was just the start. A decade later, Elton John discovered their music and a project was formed. The result, 2012’s Good Morning to the Night, went to Number One in the UK. In 2021, at which point PNAU were a trio with the addition of Nick’s brother Sam Littlemore, their remix of Elton and Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart” was a Number One smash everywhere.

Littlemore and Mayes found the time to launch a label, Lab78, and record as Teenager and Empire of the Sun, a group that, in 2009, was arguably Australia’s most popular outfit on the planet (they set the pace with four ARIA Awards that year). Led by Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson, Empire of the Sun cracked the Billboard Hot 100 with their debut single “Walking on a Dream”, and landed four straight ARIA Top 10 albums. PNAU has also collected multiple ARIA and AIR Awards.

There could be more where “Cold Heart” came from. “We ended up making 12 to 14 songs (with Elton John),” Nick Littlemore told this reporter. “It’s full of dance bangers.” —L.B.

If you giggled at Bill Clinton’s admission to smoking pot during his youth, but not inhaling, Paul Mac responded with “hold my beer.” As one half of Itch-E and Scratch-E (also known sometimes as Boo-Boo & Mace) alongside Andy Rantzen, producer Paul Mac did the unthinkable when, at the 1995 ARIA Awards, as he collected the trophy for Best Dance/Electronic Release, Mac thanked Sydney’s ecstasy dealers.

Winners are grinners and Mac got away with it. How so? Their ARIA-scooping album Itch-E Kitch-E Koo is a stone-cold classic, a complete journey with bangers, sunrise anthems, ambience, strange trips, and one of the outstanding pieces of music to hit our ears in the Nineties — “Sweetness and Light”, a tune that came in at Number Three on the ABC’s countdown of the best Australian songs of the decade. It could have gone higher.

Outside of Itch-E and Scratch-E, Paul Mac formed The Dissociatives with Daniel Johns, Stereogamous with Jonny Seymour, and continues to release and perform as a solo artist. 

Itch-E and Scratch-E have, at times, gone about their business with Sheriff Lindo (a.k.a. Nutcase), and an album of fresh tunes dropped in 2010, Hooray for Everything.

Has the ARIAs speech come back to haunt him? “I think that was the best career move I ever made,” he told this reporter in 2010. “I got in so much trouble for that. As soon as I got off the stage, everyone was just giving me horror faces, pointing the finger and going ‘tut tut’. Then it was written about in all the papers. I copped a lot of shit for that. I don’t care, I’m still proud of it. I meant every word. And I still kinda do, so fuck it.” —L.B.

The sky’s the limit for Dom Dolla. The cover star for Rolling Stone AU/NZ’s June issue hasn’t just kicked in the doors to international markets, he’s blown them off the hinges.

Like all overnight success stories, Dom (real name: Dominic Matheson) has been plotting, planning, and building for a decade or more. All the groundwork and airmiles have paid off. Consider 2024: Dom started the year with a Grammy Award nomination for his remix of Gorillaz’ “New Gold”, won his second consecutive ARIA Award for Best Dance/Electronic Release with “Saving Up” (following “Rhyme Dust” in 2023, a collaboration with MK), and wrapped the year with a national tour of Australia.

Produced by Untitled Group, that trek shifted more than 170,000 tickets, marking the largest-ever domestic run by an Australian electronic artist. Also, “Saving Up” cracked the top 40 (at No. 29) on ARIA’s year-end singles list and “girl$” was the top-ranked original song by an Australian artist on the triple j Hottest 100 poll, at No. 7. 

The good times, they just keep coming. In 2025, Dom landed on the lineups for Lollapalooza and Ultra Music Festival in Miami, sold out consecutive nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden, his track “Dreamin’” impacted the ARIA top 40, he realised a dream by releasing his first ever soundtrack single, for F1: The Movie, and he locked up residencies at Hï Ibiza and LIV Nightclub in Las Vegas. —L.B.

She may be tiny, but Alison Wonderland is massive. The Australian DJ, producer, and singer can claim a Number One LP on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart (2018’s Awake). That year she nailed a landmark performance at Coachella, which she would later describe as “the biggest show of my life.” With that set in the California desert, Wonderland became the highest billed DJ in Coachella history, and confirmed her status as the world’s highest-profile female DJ.

She downplays those career markers, but points to her four total performances at Coachella, and her seven-times headlining the “Temple of Wonderland” at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, as the real deal.

“I’m a perfectionist,” she tells RS. “It sits with me and haunts me anytime I make anything. I think it’s why I push myself so hard.”

Wonderland takes full creative control over her shows, which have included spots at Tomorrowland, Electric Daisy Carnival, Ultra, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, and Life Is Beautiful, and more than 800,000 headline ticket sales across her US tours alone. Global streams are north of 1.1 billion global.

In late 2022, as the world came out of the pandemic, Wonderland (real name: Alexandra Sholler) launched FMU Records, and resurrected her darker, more industrial project Whyte Fang.

The Sydneysider’s third studio album, Loner, dropped in May 2022 and hit Number Three on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums and Number Nine on the ARIA Chart. Indeed, all three of her LPs (Run at Number 6, Awake at Number 7 and Loner) have cracked the top 10 on the ARIA Albums Chart. In June 2023, Wonderland welcomed her first child. The following year, in 2024, Wonderland joined Kaskade on stage at Coachella and headlined the inaugural Neon City Festival in Las Vegas. A fourth album is expected in late 2025, and is led by the first single “Get Started”. —L.B.

Flume has done just about all there is to do. After signing to Future Classic in 2011, the Sydney producer’s 2012 self-titled album topped the Australian chart. Next up, 2016’s Skin busted down barriers around the globe, winning Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 2017 Grammy Awards. “Never Be Like You” went to Number One on triple j’s Hottest 100 and bagged a Top 20 appearance on the Billboard Hot 100.

Now, Flume is in the big leagues and can command any stage in the US. He even changed his sound, to distinguish himself from the league of copycats who followed. Flume went on to win triple j’s annual countdown again in 2022, becoming just the second Australian act to do so after Brisbane rock band Powderfinger. Add in a stack of ARIA Awards and festival spots at Coachella, Lollapalooza, and more, and you have the biggest Australian producer of the 2010s. —L.B.

With 2008’s chart-topping, multi-platinum Apocalypso, The Presets (Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes) took electronic music in Australia to heights never seen, never imagined. In October of that year, the Sydney electronic duo grabbed a hat-trick of prizes at the ARIA Awards. It wasn’t so much the quantity of ARIA gongs handed out – after all, “Sweet About Me” singer Gabriella Cilmi was the biggest winner with six. It was all about the quality.

Signed to Stephen “Pav” Pavlovich Modular Recordings, The Presets won for Best Band and the coveted Best Album prize — the first time for a dance act — to go with the obligatory Best Dance/Electronic Release.

One of the enduring hits from that era, “My People”, was synced to a high-rotating advertising campaign and, in 2024, was interpolated for 3%’s “Our People” (credited as “featuring the Presets”). Hamilton, now music director for the APRA Music Awards, joined 3% on stage for a performance of the monster track at the 2024 ARIA Awards.

For a time in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it was a challenge to leave the house without hearing one of their tunes. 2012 follow-up Pacifica represented a change in musical direction (its hit “Ghosts” was a sea shanty years before the short-lived phenomenon). The album peaked at Number Three, and the duo’s fourth and most recent LP, Hi Viz, went to Number Five in 2018. Hamilton and Moyes met at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where they studied classical music, and have remixed songs for the likes of Silverchair, Kings of Leon and Lenny Kravitz.

Moyes will take a cinematic route when he directs the music for Gatsby at Brisbane Festival 2025, featuring ARIA-nominated singer Odetteon vocals —L.B.

From playing stadiums in the US, to winning a Grammy Award and delivering five studio albums without any duds, RÜFÜS DU SOL have had quite the career. They ain’t finished. The Sydney trio of Tyrone Lindqvist, Jon George, and James Hunt have made fans around the globe with their throwback, mid-tempo style (RDS’ inventory includes 15 Sequential Prophet-6 synths. “We all own them equally,” George tells RS. “We’ll have to figure out how to split them all up one day”). RDS’ creamy sound appeals to both connoisseurs and kids.

With that attention to sonic detail, success. None of their studio albums have gone lower than Number Three on the ARIA Chart; three (Atlas from 2013, Bloom from 2016, and Surrender from 2021) have scaled the summit.

On the live front, they’re at the pinnacle. On their 2021–2023 Surrender world tour, RDS played three sold out stadium shows at Banc of California Stadium, a 50,000-capacity space. Fast forward to RDS’ Inhale / Exhale World Tour 2025, the trio locked in some of their biggest headline shows to date, including the Rose Bowl Stadium (Pasadena, California), Estadio 3 de Marzo (Guadalajara, Mexico), Red Bull Arena (Harrison, New Jersey), Q2 Stadium (Austin, Texas) and a spot at Chicago’s Lollapalooza.

RDS have five Grammy nominations, for one win; in 2022, “Alive” took home the golden gramophone for Best Dance/Electronic Recording. —L.B.

When Since I Left You arrived in 2000, there was nothing else like it. A quarter century later, there’s still nothing else like it. The debut album from the Melbourne collective is both art and science. The art, a meticulous sewing of samples into a music quilt of timeless, original music. The process can be copied, but results, which can be heard with the title track, “Frontier Psychiatrist”, and others, not so much. The science? Open the album credits and study the source of its samples, and the attribution. 

Released by Steve “Pav” Pavlovic’s Modular Recordings, the release was delayed by six months to clear each sample — estimated to tally up to 3,500 in total. This album is legit, in every way.

Backstage before a 2001 sold-out UK show at Electric Ballroom in Camden, Robbie Chater recounted how a chain-smoking American publishing executive hit the phones and cleared those samples. Without her work, the album would’ve been sunk. 

“The scene at home is healthy and organic and has a momentum of its own. It feels like it’s on the verge of something really big,” Chater said. He wasn’t wrong. And The Avalanches played their part in tipping it over.

In the room that night was Pav, and Seymour Stein, the late Sire Records founder who would sign Avalanches. Stein had previously signed Madonna and the Ramones. What’s the worst that could happen? Sadly, a merger of Sire with the US division of London Records, a partnership that was later dissolved, was a disruption that hurt Avalanches’ US plans.

The album managed to insert itself into the top 10 in Australia (No. 5) the UK (at No. 8) and on the US Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart (at No. 10), and it was the only Aussie album to make the NME’s Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade list, coming in at No. 45. When Pitchfork published its 200 Best Albums of the 2000s, Since I Left You dropped in at Number 10. 

It was 16 years before a new album saw the light of day. An entire album of material was scrapped. Then, teases. The Avalanches contributed to the score of a 2013 King Kong musical, and in that year issued a remix of Hunters & Collectors’ “Talking to a Stranger” (renamed “Stalking to a Stranger”).

In 2016, the long-awaited second album, Wildflower, immediately flew to Number One on the ARIA Chart and Number 10 on the Official UK Albums Chart. By then, the original lineup, which included Darren Seltmann and DJ Dexter, had been whittled down to just Chater and Tony Di Blasi.

An acclaimed third album, We Will Always Love You, dropped in 2020 and won the Australian Music Prize. 

The 20th anniversary “deluxe edition” of their groundbreaking debut album arrived in 2021, featuring numerous bonus tracks, including fresh mixes from the late MF Doom, Black Dice, Leon Vynehall, Sinkane and Carl Craig.

Since then, The Avalanches have been toiling away on new material, with a recent social media post promising new music soon. Whether long-suffering fans will be treated to a precious fourth album, only time will tell. —L.B.