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Joel Kalsi (27) first got into music making through rudimentary computers
from his childhood such as the Spectravideo 328. He started to program
games and compose the music. The actual kick start on writing music
came in early 1996 after founding the tracker based music and soon he changed
to sequencing with midi and DAW equipment in december of 1997. The year
1999 was the year when he trained the skills with project 'DC-10 - Flying High',
which after it's release to the public became one of the biggest classics
on the Finnish eurodance scene ever by gaining listeners all over the world in
amount valued by seven digits.
In year 2005 he revived the project under pseudonym
DCX by taking the track under total reproduction.
The new project with the debut single under the same title
Flying High caught attention in his homeland being
four weeks #1 on the official Finnish Disco Chart,
but also #1 on the Finnish Club Charts - Prime Cuts
and #14 on the Finnish Dance Chart!
Other chart positions include Hitsurf.dk Chart #4,
Scandinavian Dance Chart #28 and
Norwegian Dance Chart #37.
The track also recently won Radio NRJ's Hit or Miss
daily votings at homegrounds for 1,5 weeks in a row and was removed from the poll
after ruling with more than 90 percent of the votes to it's account. The single has
also brought interest towards both house and trance deejays due to
Cid Inc's signature tech house stylish remix and
Darude's rearranged dub edit of the same remix.
The single has already climbed on the playlists
of many top deejays like Matt Darey, Darude and
Perry O'neil to name a few.
The project hits the roads as a band of 3-6 members depending on the
size of the show, with Joel being the front person together with lead
singer Katri and backing super-player Olli.
The DCX project is now working on an album, which is being produced by Joel and his
associate Ari Myllymäki.
The single has been licensed in 13 countries including : Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Thailand, Malesia, Singapore, Filippines, South Africa and Poland.
As years went by and he gained skills on all areas of
song writing and production, he got
a job at Mediabeat Studio (2000-2001), where he received some extra training on audio
and commercial production. During this time he wrote up a track called
'The club is open' under Donnell & Douglas, the new project with
Ari Myllymäki, which followed signing on 16" Records (the label behind Darude,
Dallas Superstars and Cosmicman) and licensings to 17 countries;
Finland, Spain, Andorra, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, The
Netherlands, Luxembourg, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Malesia, Hong
Kong, Singapore, Thailand and finally Japan as the latest signing.
The licensings of 'The club is open' have already spawn
to releases of 12" vinyl single and CD-Maxi
in Germany, as well as 12" vinyl release in Spain and numerous compilation entries.
These compilation releases include the box office hit compilation Nick Skitz's
Skitzmix Vol 14 in Australia,
as well as the Hard dance 2003 edition of the huge dutch Dance Valley compilation.
The track was also chosen on the popular CD-Pool world wide compilation in August 2003.
Along reaching place #1 on the official Latvian dance chart, the track has reached
high positions on the playlists of many big disc jocks like Tom Harding,
JS16 / Dallas Superstars, Dj Vinylgroover, Lisa Pinup, Nick Skitz, Darude,
Judge Jules and the Warp Brothers... just to name a few.
At late summer of 2003 Joel contacted Don Johnson Big Band about remixing
their hit track 'One Mc, One Delay' (for the foreigners; the original song topped number
one on the single + dance charts and album sold platinum, was also chosen
as the song of the year 2003 in the Emma Awards (Finnish Grammy)
in spring 2004), and the result was an all different kind of stomping
dance track from the original. The remix got released by Universal as a
remix single/promo, which topped #4 on the official Finnish Disco Charts
on spring 2004. Soon the world's first music video intentionally developed
for mobile phones was done with a mobile version of the One Mc, One Delay remix
and it won Top Talent Quality Seal 2004 award.
The autumn of 2003 brought Joel a new project Liquid
Black, which got signed on Scandinavian A1 Music, the label behind Joel's past projects.
Liquid Black was instantly licensed to Edel Finland, following with
releases of 'Daylight to my heart' and 'Lost beyond the sadness' single.
The project combines two extremes; gothic and eurodance, in a way you've
never heard before!
At the same time both projects he was producing, Chorale and Liquid Black,
went out and broke through on the charts;
Liquid Black went #17 on Rockhits Top30 while Chorale
went #20 on Rockhits Top30, #22 on Finnish Disco Chart, #6 on Free Record Shop sales, #11 on the single sales chart and #94 on Europe Top 100 with their "Univiidakko"
song! Consequently the sequel single "Sade" from Chorale was mixed by Joel
and Ari, and it has gone #6 on the Finnish single
chart as well as #11 on the Finnish
disco chart. Later on, the debut album "Unimaailma" of Chorale went
#13 on the Finnish album chart.
While Liquid Black and Chorale kept popping on the charts, spring 2004 brought him yet another
new project called Quincy;
A man writing and singing his songs in the BeeGees meets disco house style,
mixed with modern beats and style flavour!
Quincy was signed under A1 Music and together with his associate Ari
they produced the thumping first Quincy single called 'X-Dance'!
The premiere of the first single was held on Hartwall Arena in Helsinki
along the huge Assembly messe and was broadcasted on direct TV-live on Assembly TV (channel Vitonen in Finland).
The pre-promotion of the single brought it up on the official Finnish dance chart at place #28,
so time will show what the actual release later on this autumn will
do!
Working as an in-house producer of A1 Music, Joel has also gone on the
music production side of fast growing mobile business by making a 'Joel Kalsi mobile remix'
of 'Dallas Superstars - Fast driving' together with Rocket Science
company. The remix has been released together with a real time mobile
music video for S60 phones, which sold rough 1 million copies European wide. The video crossed the line of
news boundaries and was viewed on the national news in Finland on spring 2004
together with an mobile video remix of 'Liquid Black - Lost beyond the sadness'.
Joel also turned his remix of 'One Mc, One Delay' in to a mobile version,
which was used for making a mobile music video of the remix itself. The
world premiere of this first mobile music video was held at Oulu music video
festival and it crossed the news boundaries again on various big magazines,
radio and TV in Finland, and it also won the best innovation award from EEC.
Mr Kalsi's days have become even more industrious after
becoming more involved with A1 Music in both production and marketing side; Along
producing tunes at brand new A1 Studios he also works as an A&R person and
promotional manager for A1 Music. The promotion work includes dj-sets under
his own name, but also under Donnell & Douglas project, where they present
the latest productions coming from their studio.
By end of 2007 the Discopress DJ-votings charted Joel and Ari as number #2 on the "Domestic -
Producer of the year" list and DCX as number #3 on the "Domestic - Artist of the year" list.
The same votings also ranked the "Domestic - Song of the year" songs and gave
"DCX - Don't break my heart" place #2. and "DCX - Knowing me, knowing you" place #6.
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