Cirez D and Dhillon at Sound Nightclub Los Angeles
Halloween week has officially started. With so many shows announced its hard to pick and choose where to go. For all my techno fans, this is for you. Cirez D (Eric Prydz‘s techno alias) announced he will be doing a show at Sound Nightclub in Los Angeles this Friday and he will be joined by Dhillon. Now, you are probably wondering who Dhillon is… and no, it’s not Dillon Francis.
Well, Dhillon is no one other than Jeremy Olander’s dark side techno persona. Under Pryda friends he releases his authentic brand of progressive house but under his Dhillon techno moniker he’s delighted us with sounds like “Layerleaf” and “The Heist.” Cirez D dispenses any introductions and his latest release on Mouseville “Ruby” is here to tell you why.
What a year it has been for these two. Jeremy cemented his place on Pryda Recordings which was predominantly reserved for Eri’s productions and EPIC 3.0 at Madison Square Garden was probably Prydz’s biggest gig so far. This will be a night comprised of dark and unrelenting techno that you most definitely don’t want to miss.
Two Sides of Eric Prydz’s Techno World
Cirez D has functioned for years as the outlet for Eric Prydz’s rawer, warehouse-ready material, letting him separate the big-room progressive house of his own name from stripped-down, hypnotic techno cuts built for late-night sets. “Ruby,” his Mouseville release referenced above, fit that mold with a driving groove designed for peak-time DJ sets rather than radio play. Jeremy Olander’s Dhillon alias served a similar purpose on the Drumcode side of the aisle, giving the Pryda-affiliated producer room to explore a darker, more industrial sound than his melodic progressive house work under his own name.
A Fast-Rising Scene for Sydney-Style Techno in LA
Sound Nightclub had, by 2014, become one of the go-to Los Angeles rooms for exactly this kind of underground booking, favoring intimate, sound-system-driven nights over the bottle-service spectacle common elsewhere on the Sunset Strip. Pairing Cirez D and Dhillon on the same bill made sense given their shared lineage through the Pryda camp, and shows like this one helped cement LA’s reputation as a serious stop for European techno and tech-house talent outside of the festival circuit.
Jeremy Olander’s Dual Career Path
Olander’s decision to run two distinct musical identities in parallel, the melodic progressive house of his own name and the darker techno of Dhillon, reflected a broader trend among European producers at the time who wanted the freedom to explore different sonic territory without confusing fans who had come to expect a specific sound from their main alias. That flexibility let him build credibility in both the more commercial progressive house world and the harder-edged techno underground simultaneously, a balancing act that few producers of his generation managed as successfully.
