Those who love harder electronic music must head out to recreation area Spaarnwoude in Velsen, the Netherlands on Saturday 3^rd August. On this day, the 19^th edition of Dance Valley will take place with a few of the best artists in the genre. Today and tomorrow we will highlight a few names not to be missed.

One of these is Paul van Dyk, the German trance producer who has been active since the early 1990s. He gained popularity with his 1993 remix of “Love Stimulation” by Humate and his hit single “For an Angel”. Since then he has evolved towards electronic dance music as he describes it himself. He was one of the first superstar DJs and was the first to receive a Grammy nomination in the newly added category of Best Dance/Electronic album for his 2003 release Reflections. His latest album, Evolution, was released in 2012 and features Owl City’s Adam Young as collaborator:

The second DJ worth seeing is Dutch progressive and electro house DJ and music producer Hardwell. This young DJ started out after seeing parties on MTV when he was only 13. He broke into the scene in 2009 with a bootleg of “Show Me Love vs. Be” and has since produced numerous EDM hit singles such as “Encoded” and “Cobra”. He has done a few collaborations as well (such as with Dyro – see below) and has toured with DJ legend Tiësto. In 2010 he formed his own label Revealed Recordings and was ranked number 24 on DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJ list for 2011, and number 6 in 2012. In the same year, he was named EDM artist to watch by MTV.

Tomorrow, we’ll add two more names to our must watch list so keep an eye out for the next post. In the meantime you can have a look at the timetables for Dance Valley 2013.