Meet the remix wizard A-Trak

Welcome to Meet the Producers, a CBC Music series highlighting Canadian producers making waves in their genres. Producers are integral to creating the backbone of the songs we love: They completely transform ideas into live creations, and since so much of what they do happens behind the scenes, we wanted to shine a light on them.

Montreal DJ and producer A-Trak is a remix guru. His ability to take the essence of a track and inject new life into it has been on display since his early days on the DJ circuit in the late ’90s.

A-Trak’s masterpiece is the 2009 remix of Yes Yes Yes’s “Heads Will Roll”, which became a party anthem after being featured on the 2012 movie soundtrack. Project. The track has become ubiquitous, racking up 250 million streams on Spotify alone, and continues to be played by DJs around the world 15 years after its release.

WATCH | A-Trak’s ‘Heads Will Roll’ remix:

While A-Trak, nee Alain Macklovitch, may be known for big EDM hits and remixes of late, he’s also an OG turntablist whose longevity is a testament to his adaptability. In 1997, at just 15 years old, A-Trak became the first Canadian and the youngest ever. Win the DMC World Championship DJ competition. He started playing turntables at a young age and learned to scratch hip-hop records, which his older brother David (one half of Chreo) would bring to his parents’ basement in Montreal.

WATCH | A-Trak’s winning set at the DMC World Championships in 1997:

After a solid winning streak, A-Trak stopped competing in DJ competitions in 2002 and went on tour. This introduced him to Kanye West at a concert in London in 2004, which led to him becoming West’s touring DJ until 2008. He also worked on West’s iconic albums. Late Registration And Graduation. While we were on tour together, Introduced West to French electronic duo Daft Punk and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” a song West would sample in his hit single “Stronger.”

In the years since, A-Trak has started a record label (Fool’s Gold with Nick Catchdubs and Dust La Rock in 2007) and formed a duo with Armand Van Helden called Duck Sauce (their biggest hit was the 2012 Grammy-nominated track “Barbara Streisand“) and played countless festival stages – Coachella, Glastonbury, Ultra, Electric Daisy and Lollapalooza are just beginning to surface.

While he became a juggernaut in electronic music, he never strayed too far from turntablism. A-Trak’s own productions tend to fall on the soulful house/groovy disco end of the spectrum, demonstrating his crate digger’s ear.

Much more than a DJ or producer, A-Trak creates an entire ecosystem by nurturing and supporting the artists around him. This sensibility was the impetus for Fool’s Gold: He realized that mainstream record labels were overlooking tremendous talent. Fool’s Gold was an early supporter of Kid Cudi, Danny Brown and Run the Jewels.

Inside Interview with Bloomberg In 2023, A-Trak shared that he and his co-founders “wanted to capture this exciting new music that was happening around us at that moment.” We found ourselves in a scene that was rapidly changing and cross-pollinated with different genres of music. in a really fresh and exciting new way… And it felt like the bigger labels and the traditional industry were trying to figure out how to deal with downloads and Napster and LimeWire and all this stuff and not really realizing what was going on. on the ground.”

A-Trak is still keeping an ear out and is constantly signing new artists to Fool’s Gold. It was launched in 2017. Goldie AwardsA DJ battle for the next generation.

A-Trak sound torn to shreds

A-Trak is a master of genre fusion, blending elements of hip-hop, big-room EDM, soul and house into one set. Thanks to his background in scratching, he has developed specific technical skills as well as a sense of which part of a song is best to take out and try. When he got used to using CDJs (digital music players used for DJing) instead of just vinyl records and turntables, he discovered whole new possibilities. as he said DJ Mag“There were a lot of new buttons and functionality I could use.”

A-Trak breaks songs down to their roots and uses vocals as a kind of percussion. Watch Missy Elliott break down her vocals on “Work It.” this scratching tutorial For DJ Mag (at 2:45).

WATCH | A-Trak explains how he became a DJ for DJ Mag:

When it comes to A-Trak’s own productions, his rich catalog proves his prowess.

In the original version of “Heads Will Roll,” spacey synths meet Karen O’s distinct wail, creating palpable tension. In the remix, A-track speeds up the beats per minute, freezes the synths, flattens the drums, adds extra percussion to the chorus, and loops the vocal to create an emotional ripple. It stays true to the source material while finding room to push the envelope.

WATCH | Duck Sauce’s Fallin’ in Love’ video:

In contrast to the colder, hard-hitting sound, her 2020 single “Coming Home” has the soulful, jazzy house. It’s a song filled with warmth, and to achieve that sensibility, he elevates the vocal sample and builds a foundation of upbeat strings and upbeat drums. Duck Sauce’s latest single, “Fallin’ In Love,” follows a similar vein, but is faster and leans more into gospel house.

With its roots in an experimental medium like turntablism, it is no surprise that A-Trak continues to open new horizons in his music.