Since he released his renowned debut mix CD, Coastal Breaks, in 1996, Adam Freeland has represented change, innovation and irreverence in electronic music. With Coastal Breaks, Freeland was hailed as a key originator of the break beat genre – bringing syncopated funk and groove to the expected 4/4 thump of electronic club sounds of the day. “The whole reason I was excited about breaks was the fact that it had brought diversity to club music,” Freeland says. As a result, Freeland created the multidimensional sound he is now famous for, one not limited by genre parameters: a Freeland DJ set is most certain to rock the house, but within it one will find state-of-the-art grooves from across the board. Read More...
Since he released his renowned debut mix CD, Coastal Breaks, in 1996, Adam Freeland has represented change, innovation and irreverence in electronic music. With Coastal Breaks, Freeland was hailed as a key originator of the break beat genre – bringing syncopated funk and groove to the expected 4/4 thump of electronic club sounds of the day. Freeland released a second edition of Coastal Breaks in 1998, but soon bristled under being so closely linked to a genre. “The whole reason I was excited about breaks was the fact that it had brought diversity to club music,” Freeland says. As a result, Freeland created the multidimensional sound he is now famous for, one not limited by genre parameters: a Freeland DJ set is most certain to rock the house, but within it one will find state-of-the-art grooves from across the board.
As a DJ and bandleader Freeland’s played everywhere from Coachella four times to Ibiza’s super clubs to his own residency at famed London venue Fabric to Souk in Singapore. He’s continued to release mix CDs, beginning the millennium era with Tectonics (2000) and On Tour (2001), next putting out Fabric Live 16 in 2005 as part of Fabric’s acclaimed compilation series and contributed his own edition of the famed Back To Mine series in 2005. Cementing his superstar DJ status in 2007, Freeland was chosen to helm his own mix for the groundbreaking Global Underground series – but of course caused controversy by breaking with the title’s progressive house bent. As an artist, producer and label head, Freeland continues to set trends. He received a Grammy nomination in 2005 for his remix of Sarah Vaughan’s “Fever,” which reinforced his reputation as a remixer. His 2003 debut artist album, Now and Them, spawned the international smash “We Want Your Soul,” which made the Top 40 singles charts in numerous countries. Adam Freeland climaxed the first decade of the 2000s with a convention-shattering subsonic boom, by the release of his second artist album, Cope™, on his acclaimed indie label Marine Parade. As such, Freeland stepped away from the turntables to put together a band for live shows.
As the first decade of the 2000s wound down, Freeland found himself back in the midst of change. Not only did he relocate from his adopted Los Angeles to his U.K. home of Brighton, England, he also found himself returning to his club roots. This move was signified by the current release of Cope™ Remixed, featuring a dream team of today’s electronic music all-stars: dub step heroes Joker and Emalkay, glitch god Nosaj Thing, techno iconoclasts Gui Boratto and Justus Köhncke and many more all boldly retrofit the album tracks in their own image. Accordingly, 2010 will find Freeland putting out a series of releases that find him revisiting his electronic core with furious futurism, complemented with a series of globetrotting DJ dates that find him back behind the decks with a vengeance. “For a spell, it seemed like rock had eclipsed dance music’s edge, and I sort of drank the Kool Aid,” Freeland says. “Now electronic music is clearly the new rock and roll again, and I couldn’t be happier.”
