BRINGS HIS MAMMOTH SOUND TO TORONTO’S BRRRRR! FEST
There is one artist on the Mau5trap roster who doesn’t get enough attention, yet his classically beautiful sound has the potential to give boss man deadmau5 a run for his money. His name is André Tegeler, but known by many under the guise of Mo- guai. The German-born electro-house DJ and producer started spinning records for a living in 1994, and has since remixed for many renowned names, such as Fat Boy Slim, Fischerspooner, Moby, Röyksopp, Underworld and countless others, amidst his own discography, which includes pristine musical productions like ‘Oxygen’ and ‘Optinuum’. In 2010, Moguai’s melodically delicate, yet high-energy meld of beats caught the audible attention of Canadian producer deadmau5, somewhat embrac- ing Moguai as his protégé. Since then, Moguai has put out two quality albums on Mau5trap - ‘We Ar Lyve’ and ‘Mpire’, and has quite a few high-profi le releases awaiting on the horizon. If he isn’t already, this electronic music master should be on your radar.
Moguai recently played at Toronto’s fi rst ever outdoor winter festival, Brrrrr! Fest, where he chatted with DJ Mag about the dedicated music culture in Toronto and playing his fi rst outdoor festival in such frigid weather conditions. “I wasn’t sure - should I wear my jacket, my pullover, my beanie - but it’s great,” he laughs. “At fi rst I thought, it looks like they want to go snowboarding or skiing… but it’s a nice atmosphere outside.” He adds, “Especially in Toronto, I feel that they are very into the music. They know what I stand for here, and they know what they want to listen to. They are prepared.”
Moguai’s ‘Ya Mama (Push The Tempo)’ is one of his most well received tracks here in Toronto and hits harder than perceived upon the fi rst listen, going from about 70 BPM and kicking it up to 750. “It feels like ok, he’s going up to 150, 200, but it’s actually up to 750 BPM, and then I come back to 128,” he says (you read that right, and we confi rmed – 750 beats per minute). He explained to us about how this unique collaboration with its incredible range of sounds came about. He tells DJ Mag, “Fat Boy Slim, Norman Cook requested doing a remix of one of his tracks, but there are so many remixes of Fatboy Slim tracks already, and I don’t want to do another Star 69 or Rockafeller Skank remix because there are thousands of these tracks, so I took this Ya Mama tracks, and he was so in love with the track that he said ‘let’s not do it as a remix, but as its own collaboration’, so we did it Fat Boy
Slim vs. Moguai, and then he put it out on his label.”
Looking ahead, Moguai has a swathe of new material coming out this year – ‘Champs’ on Steve Angello’s Size Records, while he will drop another on Afrojack’s imprint Wall called “When I Rock”, and his much-anticipated progressive monster, collab with Belgian brothers Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike called ‘Mammoth’, which will be released via Spinnin’ Records - aptly timed with Winter Music Conference in Miami. “I’ve never had such a buzz on a track like this,” he says. “It’s really crazy, scares me a little bit. But in a good way… it really went off tonight, I realized I had only 5 minutes left and I hadn’t played it yet, so I dropped Mammoth and the crowd just went crazy.”
A man dedicated to his craft, Moguai has also been working on three tracks which will be the very fi rst singles on his own sub-label ‘Punx’, that he is launching via Spinnin’ Records early on this month. “I started with the label 10 years ago. I stopped releasing on it because there was a big switch from vinyl into digital and I wasn’t sure if I should go on with the label, but the brand still exists. It’s called ‘Punx’, like my podcast, ‘Punx Up The Volume’.”
For Moguai, it was a logical step to partner with Spinnin’. “This will be a great col- laboration, they really know how to work records,” he says. “They do it very well for Sander van Doorn with Doorn Records, with Bingo Players Hysteria and Wall with Afrojack.”
He has been around for almost 20 years, and Moguai is making more and more noise in the North American scene, he has much to say about the development of the dance music industry, especially in the States, “I always saw it in Europe because we had this evolution of dance music 10 or 12 years ago, so I think it’s nothing bad when it’s getting bigger and bigger,” he tells us. “At the end it’s all about the people and all about the party…and about the music, and when people like good music or a good DJ, they make the choice so it’s up to them.”