Yuksek

Pierre-Alexandre Busson, the French dance music producer, remixer, and DJ better known as Yuksek, has gradually moved away from straight-ahead club electro-house toward a more song-driven blend of pop, indie, and disco while also venturing into film scoring. After issuing several EPs and delivering remixes for Chromeo, Klaxons, and M83, he issued his first full-length, the widely noticed Away from the Sea, in 2009 on Barclay; two years later he returned with Living on the Edge of Time, an album marked by a smoother, more refined dance-pop approach. In the years that followed he supplied remixes or joined forces with Katy Perry, Lana Del Rey, Bertrand Burgalat, and numerous additional artists.

A native of Reims, Busson spent several years studying piano at a conservatory before releasing material as DJ Pea and performing with various groups, among them the electro-pop, new-wave-tinged Klanguage. He began using the Yuksek moniker as early as 2002, launching a run of minimal house EPs on Hypnotic Music that were introduced by Fafa Monteco; further 12-inch singles appeared on Hypnotek, Rise, Relish, and I’m a Cliché, while remixes of tracks by Chromeo, Teenage Bad Girl, and Birdy Nam Nam also surfaced ahead of the 2009 Barclay debut. Subsequent non-album reworkings included versions of the Prodigy’s “Invaders Must Die,” Moby’s “Mistake,” and Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi.”

The 2011 follow-up Living on the Edge of Time presented a focused collection of Busson’s most tuneful, song-centered work, still issued on Barclay. During the same period he continued to put out standalone singles and EPs, inaugurating his own Partyfine imprint, which later became a platform for Black Yaya and for Peter & the Magician—the duo formed by Busson and Aeroplane’s Stephen Fasano. By the beginning of 2015 his remix credits had grown to encompass Katy Perry’s “Peacock,” Empire of the Sun’s “DNA,” and Lana Del Rey’s “Brooklyn Baby,” and he composed the score for the Cannes-selected film Marguerite and Julien. His own track “Sweet Addiction” reached the French Top 40 in 2016, and the third studio album, Nous Horizon, arrived on Partyfine in early 2017, featuring appearances by Her, Monika, and Juveniles; a companion remix set, Nous Horizon, Pt. 2, followed soon after. In 2019 Yuksek released the Do Beijo EP, which contained a reworked version of his Bertrand Burgalat collaboration “Icare.”