Canadian electro-house producer
Felix Cartal balances buzzing, energetic dance anthems aimed squarely at the dancefloor with a softer, sentimental side that he shows with atmospheric, love-themed tracks. After building an audience in the late 2000s with remixes and live sets, he made his official debut in 2010 with
Popular Music. Sophomore set
Different Faces followed in 2012, while Next Season landed in 2018. In the early 2020s, he scored Canadian chart hits with
Sophie Simmons ("Mine") and
Kiiara ("Happy Hour").
Hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia,
Cartal initially established himself with remixes of
Moving Units' "Crash 'n' Burn Victims" and
Dragonette's "Take It Like a Man" in 2007, not to mention unofficial remixes of
MSTRKRFT,
Britney Spears,
Ashlee Simpson, and others that circulated in the music blogosphere.
Steve Aoki signed
Cartal to Dim Mak in 2009 and released his debut EP,
Skeleton, in May of that year. Later in 2009, he was featured on the label sampler Dim Mak Dance Compilation, Vol. 1: Evolution.
Cartal made his full-length album debut in 2010 with
Popular Music. "Volcano," featuring vocals by
Johnny Whitney of
the Blood Brothers, was released as a single. Meanwhile,
Cartal increasingly established himself as a DJ, touring the North American club and festival scenes and releasing freely downloadable mixes on the Internet. He continued to release a stream of singles and EPs, often featuring guest vocalists. Second album
Different Faces appeared in 2012, including the single "Tonight," featuring
Maja Ivarsson of the Swedish band
the Sounds.
Cartal began 2013 by releasing "The Alarm," a collaboration with
Autoerotique, and later released an EP called
Past Present Felix, in addition to remixing tracks by
Zedd and
Bloody Beetroots. In 2014, he issued the EP
Credits as well as another collaboration with
Autoerotique, "Heat." The singles "With You" (featuring
Natalie Angiuli) and "Something to Live For" (featuring
Nikki Yanofsky) saw release in 2015.
In 2016,
Cartal remixed songs by the likes of
Selena Gomez,
Kiiara, and
Wafia, and collaborated with producer
Kaskade and singer
Ofelia K on a single called "Fakin It." He also released "Keep Up" with vocalist
Steph Jones, "Drifting Away" (another collaboration with
Ofelia K), and the solo single "Falling Down." The following year saw the release of the full-length Next Season, which included the single "Get What You Give," a dance remake of the 1998 hit by
New Radicals. In 2019,
Cartal paired with singer
Lights for the stand-alone single "Love Me," an electronic hit that spawned numerous remixes. His next hit, the
Sophie Simmons-featuring "Mine," landed in 2020. 2021's big single, "Happy Hour" featuring
Kiiara, became a Top 40 hit in his native Canada. ~ Jason Birchmeier