Roger Shah


Roger Shah, also known as DJ Shah and Sunlounger is a German electronic music composer and producer.

Biography

History

Roger Shah was born in Esslingen in southern Germany to a German mother and a Pakistani father. His brother Pedro del Mar, also a trance DJ, hosts a bi-weekly vocal trance show called Mellomania. Roger first began to hit his production stride in his native country in 1999 putting out the tracks "Claps", "The Mission" & "Tides of Time". In 2003 his "High" release was signed by Virgin Records imprint Nebula. This marked his first non-domestic release, and over the course of the next 5 years he inked productions to a range of trance labels such as Black Hole Recordings, Anjunadeep Records and Vandit Records.
Roger Shah has featured in DJ Mag Top 100 list 5 times, peaking at #21. He received a double EMPO nomination for Best Trance & Progressive DJ and Best Radio Show and an IDMA award nomination as break through artist in 2008. With more than 500 releases, his music videos watched about 90 million times and having played at the most important clubs such as Privilege Ibiza or Zouk in Singapore as well as at a lot of major festivals such as Ultra Music Festival in the olympic stadium in Seoul and many A State Of Trance events around the globe.
As a producer he has worked with and produced for artists such as Tiësto, Armin Van Buuren, Paul Van Dyk, Sarah MacLachlan, Kosheen, Bryan Adams or Moya Brennan, who is best known for her works with Hollywood producers like Hans Zimmer.
As a classical music composer with an EDM background he has the talent to expand his career, he recently signed deals with some of the leading movie score/ trailer houses in Hollywood and has started to work on orchestral cues for those companies.

The Armin Connection

In 2007 Armin van Buuren named Shah’s "Who Will Find Me" release as his favourite track of 2007. Having heard the demo of its follow-up, Van Buuren saw crossover potential in the track and made contact in early 2008 to ask if Shah would like to collaborate on it. The result was the Chris Jones song ‘Going Wrong’ which reached number 5 in The Netherlands, the track went on to become one of the biggest selling trance singles of the year. From there Magic Island Records – Shah’s primary label moved from his own stable to that of one of Armin’s industry-leading Armada Music.

Magic Island Records

An imprint for both Roger’s own material and that of like-minded producers, Magic Island releases have quickly become fixtures in the CDJs of the world’s biggest spinners. Notable up and coming names like Ralph Fritsch, DJ Cosmo, Kim Svard and Walsh & McAuley have all had releases on the label.

Solo Albums

Songbook released in 2008 was strongly received by both press and fans alike, it was praised for its innovative dual club mix and acoustic version approach. Singles taken from it like "Don’t Wake Me Up" and the aforementioned "Going Wrong" & "Who Will Find Me" proved to be particularly popular.
This was followed up by another solo album Openminded in 2011. Again this featured 2 CDs, one of club mixes and one of album mixes.

Live and DJ performances

In late 2008 Shah took the decision to change his artist name. Dropping the ‘DJ’ prefix, he revised it to Roger Shah – a move that signalled a move away from straightforward DJ sets. During live performance, Roger Shah frequently uses a wireless keyboard interface such as the M-Audio Oxygen 25. Roger Shah has mentioned numerous times that he will perform with his laptop instead of CDs.

Pseudonyms and side projects

In addition to his own name Roger has also produced under various other aliases. Notable among them are his ‘pka’ DJ Shah, High Noon at Salinas, Magic Island & Savannah. Shah is also one half of the Anjunabeats released act Purple Moods, Black Hole project Global Experience and ASOT’s Black Pearl, whose ’06 – ’09 spanning singles ‘Coral Sea’, ‘Java’, ‘Bounty Island’ and ‘Rise’ generated much additional interest in Shah’s solo productions.

Sunlounger

This project included the release of the ‘Another Day On The Terrace' album in 2008 which reached No.1 on Dutch iTunes’ ‘all-music-genres’ chart and spawned four singles: ‘In & Out’, ‘Aguas Blancas’, ‘Crawling’ & ‘White Sand’. The project become so celebrated that Roger expanded Sunlounger into a live act - a performance of which was featured on Armada’s ArminOnly DVD. It was this experience that he credited with his latter wholesale move into live Roger Shah performances. In 2009 Roger released the Sunlounger follow-up LP ‘Sunny Tales'. It's progeny singles included ‘Catwalk’, ‘Mediterranean Flower’, ‘Change Your Mind’ and the much-revered ‘Lost’ - voted as Tune of the Year for the 2008 A State of Trance radio show hosted by Armin van Buuren and numerous #1 airplay positions across the globe. His third album, The Beach Side of Life, was released in 2010.

Magic Island: Music For Balearic People – The Compilations

Shah’s compilation series has so far seen eight outings. Encapsulating everything Shah stands for musically, their intrinsically White Island trance sound has sound-tracked an uncountable number of clubbers holidays. Roger typically uses the compilations as first-listen holders for future singles & collaborations with Vol.2 including ones with Signum, Judge Jules & Amanda O’Riordan and Tenishia.

‘Magic Island: Music For Balearic People’ – The Radio Show

Broadcasting weekly, Magic Island – Music For Balearic People is a 2-hour radio show carried by the DI.FM station and is currently being syndicated to many other countries, most recently including Mexico and Jordan. Presented by Roger every Friday between 21.00 GMT, it features melodic trance through the first hour with Balearic, Chillout and Dream Trance styles in the second hour.

Remixes

Shah has reworked tracks for legendary vocalists like Sarah McLachlan and Nadia Ali. He’s also remixed tunes for a litany of trance-masters including Tiësto, Armin Van Buuren, Mark Norman, York, Cosmic Gate, Josh Gabriel, Johan Gielen, System F, The Thrillseekers, Solarstone, Three Drives, Matt Darey & Oceanlab. Most recently Roger has rewired Andain’s ‘Beautiful Things ‘10’ and Richard Durand’s ‘Always The Sun’.

Discography

DJ/Roger Shah

Albums

2000 Dj Shah - The Album

2008 Songbook

2011 Openminded!?

2016 Music For Meditation Yoga & Any Other Wellbeing Moments

2016 Singularity

2018 No Boundaries

2020 Guardian of Dreams

Singles

1999 Claps

1999 Commandments

2000 Riddim

2001 Tides of Time

2002 High

2003 Sunday Morning

2004 Sunset Road

2006 Beautiful

2007 Palmarosa

2007 Who Will Find Me

2008 Going Wrong

2008 Don't Wake Me Up

2008 Back to You

2009 You're So Cool

2009 To the Sky

2009 I'm Not God

2009 Healesville Sanctuary

2010 Hold On

2010 Catch a Cloud

2010 Ancient World

2010 Over & Over 2010 / Guaba Beach

2011 Morning Star

2012 Hide U

2012 Shine

2012 Perfect Love

2012 Dance With Me

2012 One Love

2012 Island

2013 Higher than the Sun

2014 One Life

2014 No Brainer

2014 Hope

2014 Without You

2014 The Namib

2014 Eye 2 Eye <>

2015 Louder

2015 Never Forget

2016 Love Heals You

2016 Reasons to Live

2016 Unbreakable

2016 Fire

2017 Castles in the Sky

2017 Eternal Time

2017 Call Me Home

2018 Skyarium

2018 Star-crossed

2018 For the One You Love

2018 Hold Your Head Up High

2018 A Different Part of Me

2018 Ocean Flame

2018 Without You

2019 Essence of Life

2019 When You're Here

2019 Triumvirate

2019 Beautiful Lie

2019 Natural Order

2019 Save the World

2019 Controverse

2019 Patong Beach

2019 Epoch

2020 Malam

Compilations

2005 The Ultimate Chillout Collection

2008 Sunlounger Sessions

2008 Magic Island: Music For Balearic People

2009 Magic Island: Music For Balearic People Vol. 2

2010 Magic Island: Music For Balearic People Vol. 3

2010 Sunlounger – The Downtempo Edition

2012 Magic Island: Music For Balearic People Vol. 4

2014 Magic Island: Music For Balearic People Vol. 5

2015 Global Experience with Brian Laruso and Roger Shah

2015 Magic Island: Music For Balearic People Vol. 6

2016 Magic Island: Music For Balearic People Vol. 7

2017 Magic Island: Music For Balearic People Vol. 8

Remixes

as Dj Shah

2008 'Nadia Ali' - Crash and Burn

as Roger Shah

2008 'Sunlounger & Cap Feat. Stephanie Asscher' - Heart Of The Sun

2009 'Richard Durand' - Always The Sun

2009 'Roger Shah & Tenishia' - You're So Cool

2009 'Roger Shah & Tenishia' - I'm Not God

2009 'Roger Shah & Signum' - Healesville Sanctuary

2009 'Ira Losco' - Shoulders Of Giants

2009 'Samara' - Verano

2010 'Andain' - Beautiful Things

2010 'Roger Shah & Signum' - Ancient World

2020 'Sunlounger' - White Sand

Sunlounger

Albums

2007 Another Day on the Terrace

2008 Sunny Tales

2010 The Beach Side of Life

2013 Balearic Beauty

2016 Balearic Beauty

Singles

2006 White Sand

2007 Aguas Blancas

2007 In & Out

2008 Crawling

2008 Catwalk / Mediterranean Flower

2008 Lost

2009 Change Your Mind

2010 Found

2010 Breaking Waves

2010 Beautiful Night

2012 Try To Be Love

2013 Finca

2013 Balearic Beauty

2013 I'll Be Fine

2014 Surrender

2014 Glitter and Gold

2015 Sunkissed

Compilations

2014 Armada Collected: Sunlounger

Black Pearl

Singles

2006 Bounty Island

2008 Coral Sea

2009 Java

2010 Rise

2010 Discovery

2015 Tagula Island

Savannah

Singles

2006 Savannah La Mar

2009 Body Lotion

2010 Darling Harbour

Global Experience

Albums

2015 Global Experience

Singles

2005 Tennessee / Dakar

2006 Zanzibar / San Salvador

2007 Madras / Malaysia

2008 Koengen

2011 New Life

2014 Turtle Bay

Remixes

2006 'Brian Laruso' - Song For The Ocean

2006 'Mark Norman Presents Celine' - Colour My Eyes

2006 'Tiesto Feat. Maxi Jazz' - Dance4Life

2006 'North Dakota' - Superstring 2.6

2007 'Shane 54' - 1000 Lullabies

2007 'Johan Gielen' - Revelations -Right From My Heart-

2008 'High Noon At Salinas' - Celebration

2008 'Charles McThorn Feat. Elles De Graaf' - Winds Will Turn

High Noon at Salinas

Albums

2017 Beach Grooves, Vol. 1