Tom Wax, Strobe

As his stage name might suggest, Tom Wax (real name Thomas Wedel) has a predilection for releasing work on vinyl. In fact, a great many of his singles are not available on CD (though you may find them on various European dance compilations). Like so many other German DJs who broke onto the scene during the 1990s, Wax seems most comfortable with acid, trance, and progressive sounds. His DJ career kicked off during the late '80s when, as a teenager, he wowed the crowds at various venues in West Germany. In 1991, however, he also started to get busy in the studio and rapidly became one of Europe's most prolific producers. For his first series of releases, Wax hooked up with another young German, Thorsten Adler; the pair produced several very popular 12" offerings, such as "Freedom of Expression" and "Discover Your Innerself" on the Harthouse label (owned by German techno legend Sven Vath). During 1993, Wax had his finger in several different pies: managing a couple of labels (Suck Me Plasma and Influence), releasing stuff on Harthouse, and working on the highly successful Tom & Norman project alongside Norman Feller. The Tom & Norman adventure resulted in the mega club hit "Tales of Mystery" and climaxed in the release of the Final Exhibition album. The following year, Wax was again working with Adler and the two made quite a storm on the European dance scene under the moniker AWeX (or Adler and Wax experiments). Their brightest offerings were the club anthem "It's Our Future" and the chart success "Back on Plastic." Wax then spent a couple of years working on projects with a plethora of other European artists, releasing solo work and building a recording studio in his hometown of Darmstadt. In 1998, he again made a splash on the German dance charts with the 12" "NRG" and, in 1999, released the single "Weekend of Love" as the theme song for Berlin's extraordinarily popular Love Parade. He then followed that up with the dance chart winner "Loud and Soft," which was produced in cahoots with DJs JamX and Dominik De Leon. Since the late '90s, Wax has also been releasing a compilation album as part of his aptly titled Tom Wax Mix Trax series. © David Peter Wesolowski /TiVo