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Rolling Stone AU/NZ's Greatest Australian Electronic Acts of All Time

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VASSY
9

VASSY

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.



PNAU
8

PNAU/Empire of the Sun

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.



Itch-E and Scratch-E
7

Itch-E and Scratch-E/Paul Mac/The Dissociatives

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.



Dom Dolla
6

Dom Dolla

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.



Alison Wonderland
5

Alison Wonderland

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
4

Flume

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.



The Presets
3

The Presets

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.



RÜFÜS DU SOL
2

RÜFÜS DU SOL

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.



The Avalanches
1

The Avalanches

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.