Deorro first entered the DJ Mag Top 100 back in 2014, and his position had been well earned. Born Erick Orrosquieta, the Mexican-American started DJing in 2005 when he was just 14, and worked three jobs simultaneously before his first major breakthrough came in 2012 when he was asked to remix Chuckie’s ‘Make Some Noise’. Shortly after entering our list, the artist formerly known as TON!C smashed charts across Europe with ‘Five More Hours’ featuring Chris Brown, a track he also used to launch his own label, Panda Funk Records. He’s since gone on to collaborate with EDM royalty in Steve Aoki, Diplo, Axwell, R3hab, Laidback Luke and Pitbull. This year has seen a slew of releases from the Los Angeles native too, including ‘Bailar’, which landed on Ultra Records, ‘Move On’, through Panda Funk, and his Melbourne bounce Will Sparks collaboration, ‘Haters’. The releases have seen his PandaFam continue to grow exponentially too — Orrosquieta’s loyal fanbase that attend his performances in full panda costumes. There’s been no shortage of options for them to see him spin in 2016 either, as his touring schedule has been relentless, including appearances at EDC Las Vegas and Miami Music Week, as well as hitting the White Isle at Ushuaïa Beach Club and Amnesia. The one thing that has remained elusive in his career, though, is a Deorro full-length album. After working on it for much of 2014, Orrosquieta had to shelve the material due to what he called “logistical issues”. Earlier this year he revealed that he’d been hard at work on his debut album again, finally revealing in early October that it was ready for release, dropping the first material from it with the announcement of DyCy collaboration ‘Goin Up’. The delay certainly isn’t because Orrosquieta is a slacker, though. Alongside his unyielding tour schedule, he also works under the name Sillywalls on non-EDM projects, and has recently made music for a Toyota advert in the US, produced sound for movies, and made instrumentals for jazz artists, bands and vocalists. But he doesn’t classify himself as a ‘music lover’, instead, a ‘sound lover’, and recently revealed he’s been busy working on more abstract material this year — including an entire production based around a recording of his cough. ROB McCALLUM
Deorro first entered the DJ Mag Top 100 back in 2014, and his position had been well earned. Born Erick Orrosquieta, the Mexican-American started DJing in 2005 when he was just 14, and worked three jobs simultaneously before his first major breakthrough came in 2012 when he was asked to remix Chuckie’s ‘Make Some Noise’. Shortly after entering our list, the artist formerly known as TON!C smashed charts across Europe with ‘Five More Hours’ featuring Chris Brown, a track he also used to launch his own label, Panda Funk Records. He’s since gone on to collaborate with EDM royalty in Steve Aoki, Diplo, Axwell, R3hab, Laidback Luke and Pitbull.
This year has seen a slew of releases from the Los Angeles native too, including ‘Bailar’, which landed on Ultra Records, ‘Move On’, through Panda Funk, and his Melbourne bounce Will Sparks collaboration, ‘Haters’. The releases have seen his PandaFam continue to grow exponentially too — Orrosquieta’s loyal fanbase that attend his performances in full panda costumes. There’s been no shortage of options for them to see him spin in 2016 either, as his touring schedule has been relentless, including appearances at EDC Las Vegas and Miami Music Week, as well as hitting the White Isle at Ushuaïa Beach Club and Amnesia.
The one thing that has remained elusive in his career, though, is a Deorro full-length album. After working on it for much of 2014, Orrosquieta had to shelve the material due to what he called “logistical issues”. Earlier this year he revealed that he’d been hard at work on his debut album again, finally revealing in early October that it was ready for release, dropping the first material from it with the announcement of DyCy collaboration ‘Goin Up’.
The delay certainly isn’t because Orrosquieta is a slacker, though. Alongside his unyielding tour schedule, he also works under the name Sillywalls on non-EDM projects, and has recently made music for a Toyota advert in the US, produced sound for movies, and made instrumentals for jazz artists, bands and vocalists. But he doesn’t classify himself as a ‘music lover’, instead, a ‘sound lover’, and recently revealed he’s been busy working on more abstract material this year — including an entire production based around a recording of his cough. ROB McCALLUM
