Adam Beyer

Sweden has long wielded outsized influence on electronic music, and a big part of that comes down to Adam Beyer. Born in 1976 in Stockholm, Beyer discovered trance and techno as a teen, turning onto the livewire frequencies popular in the city’s underground. By the mid-’90s, he was producing speedy acid alongside fellow Swedes like Joel Mull, Jesper Dahlbäck, and Peter Benisch, but his hardcore sensibilities soon settled into a leaner, more stripped-back groove: By 1995’s Drum Codes I EP, he’d hit on the tough, percussive style that would come to define the aesthetic of his Drumcode label, founded the following year. Since then, Beyer has become one of techno’s driving forces. His sets in Ibiza helped establish a global footprint for techno’s dark, driving grooves. (He plays the island so often, he and his wife, fellow DJ Ida Engberg, eventually moved there.) With Drumcode, he has mentored a new generation of techno producers, while his Truesoul imprint, founded in 2002, has given him an outlet for deeper, more contemplative styles.