Adam Beyer, Max Styler, Eric Prydz, Maceo Plex, und Yulia Niko

Adam Beyer was born out of Sweden’s burgeoning techno movement in the mid-90s. His years developing his sound in his home country have led him to become one of the most respected techno DJs across the globe, and he is invited to play sets all across the world. Adam is a busy man for sure and there is rarely a week that goes by without him playing live somewhere.

Adam Beyer’s techno sound is heavy and enveloping. His music is characterised by its rhythmically pulsing percussive beat which acts as a the skeletal system of his work and holds all of his other sound together in a tight package.

“Lovecraft” is one of Adam’s best-loved tunes and crowds will instantly recognise it as soon as it appears within his set. Adam Beyer’s following is so strong that you can visibly see crowds perk up and dance harder when one of his hit songs gets mixed into a set. Prepare to dance for hours at an Adam Beyer gig. Tracks such as “You Know” and “Teach Me” will definitely keep you on your feet until the early hours.

For contrast, the way Prydz dropped his remix of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" -- a seminal dance track -- was as undramatic as possible. When Armin van Buuren uses the same remix in his festival headlining gigs, it's often cause for fireworks and certainly functions as a dramatic peak. It's the same with "Every Day," which landed Prydz at the No. 3 spot on Billboard's Hot Dance Club chart but is presented as just another chapter in the development of the night. The man knows his way around an anti-climax. What he gained in quality and credibility he may have lost in impact, as the crowd -- observed from one of the balconies -- certainly wasn't going too wild. Prydz' mastery is his ability to command and then educate audiences who might walk into a concert with more commercial, big-room understandings of dance music. If there's a downside to not doing hand-hearts and telling audiences to sit down before blaring, obvious drops shake the walls of the venue you're DJ'ing in, it's that you risk having to touch a crowd on a deeper level than the "rage" metric too many of today's top dance acts are still trying to approach. But as a dance music observer, this writer was impressed by what's either Prydz' natural credibility or insistence on not changing his format. For fans with slightly deeper tastes, the show is a solid night of club music, an almost wordless opera with many acts, messaged and divided by visuals as much as music... For mainstreamers simply buying tickets to every "EDM" show in the tri-state area, it was probably just a fun night with plenty of Instagram-ready moments.

Maceo Plex’s house music is trippy and oh so satisfying. His rhythms have almost a Latin feel to them, which he mixes in with elements of funk, electro and deep house. Maceo Plex also uses samples of conversation within his mixes, which can be cool but also creepy. Anybody who has seen the official video for “Conjure Superstar” will have encountered this darker element within Maceo Plex’s work.

In a live setting, Maceo Plex is able to conjure the same kind of trippy and sinister effect within his deep house remixes. It’s a sound that I haven’t come across that many times within dance sets – so often a DJ is too timid to take the tempo below a comfortably dancey and, often, mainstream level – but it’s a sound I really like.

Maceo Plex is always very chilled and in control on the ones and twos. I could listen to him spin for hours, drink in hand and ready to roll into the weekend. “Can’t Leave You” and “Stay High” are some of his more up-tempo tracks that are a lot of fun to get down to during a gig, but, to be honest, no matter what Maceo Plex mixes during a set, you really can’t go wrong.