Eric Prydz

Asked what he listened to outside the DJ booth, Prydz named the artists who shaped him as a kid: "Bands like Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, and even bands like Erasure," he told DJ Mag. "Anything made with synths was absolutely fascinating to me. It sounded very fresh, and so I was drawn to bands like that." Growing up in Stockholm on a diet of pure electronics left its mark: his own guest set for KCRW's Metropolis radio show slots Kraftwerk's "Tour de France" in among techno cuts, the machine pulse he grew up on still part of his working vocabulary decades later.

listen: upstream & heresource: DJ Mag — "Eric Prydz ↗share

1977

Trans-Europe ExpressKraftwerk

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2012

SunburstEric Prydz

listen forKraftwerk built "Trans-Europe Express" from one relentless, chugging synth pulse, mimicking a train that never brakes — repetition as the whole engine of the track. Apple Music's own critic heard the same trick on Pryda's "Sunburst," calling it "an analog tribute to Kraftwerk" even as the track lifts its bassline from New Order's "Blue Monday." Listen for the warm, sequenced synth pad humming under "Sunburst" the way Kraftwerk's tones drive their train forward — mechanized calm instead of a drop.

In that same DJ Mag interview, Depeche Mode came up in the same breath as Kraftwerk — part of the synth-heavy diet that fascinated Prydz as a Stockholm kid. The debt shows up literally, not just in interviews: a fan recording of one of his own live sets catches Prydz mixing his Cirez D production "On Off" directly against Depeche Mode's "Photographic," laying his own dark techno track over a song he'd been listening to since childhood. He returned to the band again on his 2014 KCRW guest mix, playing three of their tracks back to back.

listen: upstream & heresource: DJ Mag — "Eric Prydz ↗share

1981

PhotographicDepeche Mode

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2013

On OffEric Prydz

listen for"Photographic" runs on an icy, insistent minor-key synth figure looping under Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan's deadpan vocal — the exact kind of locked, mechanical hook Prydz has spent his career chasing. Play Cirez D's "On Off" next to it and hear the same trick stripped of vocals entirely: a single hammering minor-key riff that just keeps ratcheting, the tension never resolving. It's the pairing Prydz himself made on stage, mixing "On Off" straight into "Photographic" — one track's synth-pulse logic laid bare inside the other.

Resident Advisor's own profile of Prydz doesn't put this in his words — it's the outlet's framing of a 2015 audio interview: "Prydz got his start in electronic music at a time when Stockholm, his hometown, was reverberating to the sounds of local techno artists like Cari Lekebusch and Joel Mull. Their stripped-back blueprint remained in his genes." A separate festival-circuit bio page names the same Stockholm figure independently, tying Lekebusch's harder sound to exactly the alias built to carry it — Cirez D, the stripped-down, club-only project Prydz has run alongside his pop career from early on.

listen: upstream & heresource: Resident Advisor — RA Exchange EX.280 episode page (Cari Lekebusch/Stockholm techno framing) ↗share

1996

In Stockholm We DwellCari Lekebusch

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2012

VoidedEric Prydz

listen for"In Stockholm We Dwell" is stark, hammering, and drum-forward — Lekebusch's Stockholm techno stripped to a beat and almost nothing else. Cirez D's "Voided" works from the same instinct: a single grinding, no-frills groove built to move a room without a melody to hide behind. Neither track is the specific one named in Prydz's press profiles, but the family resemblance is audible — the darker, harder lane he keeps separate from his radio hits runs on exactly this kind of minimal, functional pulse.