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Mirwais Ahmadzaï
Birth name	Mirwais Ahmadzaï
Also known as	Mirwais Mirwais Stass
Born	23 October 1960 (1960-10-23) (age 49)
Origin	Lausanne,Switzerland
Genres	Electronica, House, Funk
Occupations	record producer, songwriter
Years active	1990-present
Labels	New Rose Records Naive Records
Associated acts	Madonna Taxi Girl
Website	http://mirwais.org/

Mirwais Ahmadzaï, more commonly known as Mirwais, (born in 1960) is a Paris-based record producer and songwriter. He was born in Switzerland to an Afghan father and an Italian mother. He is a leader in the French style of progressive electronic dance music/progressive electronica. A former member of the defunct 1980s group Taxi Girl, he was re-discovered by Madonna in the late 1990s when he submitted a demo to her then-record label Maverick Records.^[1]

Contents 1 Career 1.1 Taxi Girl & Juliette et les independents 1.2 Solo career 1.3 Madonna 1.4 Fischerspooner 1.5 Y.A.S 1.6 Uffie 1.7 In popular culture 2 Discography 2.1 Studio album 2.2 Singles 3 Videography 4 Remixes 5 External links 6 Notes

[edit] Career

[edit] Taxi Girl & Juliette et les independents

Known in his homeland France for the better part of two decades, Mirwais was a guitarist in the punk group Taxi Girl for 8 years before forming acoustic outfit Juliette et les Independents with his girlfriend Juliette.Taxi Girl was the first modern credible French band. Their first EP "(S.O.S Mannequin)" was released in early 1980 on Pathé Marconi/EMI.

"For a teenager, the late 70s were a strange mixture of disco music and punk, and it was okay to like them all," he says. Taxi Girl captured the punk rock power of The Stooges, the techno futurism of Kraftwerk and the disco euphoria of Giorgio Moroder and molded the diametrically opposed styles into an electrifying new-wave sound that entertained and inspired a generation of listeners bored by the complacency of 80s French pop. Even the current darlings of the French electronic music scene, such as Daft Punk and Air, continue to namecheck Taxi Girl as a major influence on their artistic directions.

[edit] Solo career

1990,Mirwais released his first album "[Mirwais]]s" which contains 9 tracks, sang in French. He signed to Naive/Sony for the 2000 studio album release Production which included the Madonna collaboration "Paradise (Not For Me)". It also spawned two club hits, "Disco Science" and "Naive Song". The former appeared in the Guy Ritchie film Snatch.

Production is a full-length solo effort album released in August 2000. Prior to this, he released another solo studio album, named Mirwais (1990).

[edit] Madonna

Madonna recruited him for writing and production collaboration on three of her studio albums: Music (2000), American Life (2003) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). He also wrote co-wrote a song that would later appear on her greatest hits album Celebration as a previously unreleased track.

Mirwais contributed the following tracks to the Madonna albums:

• Music: "Music", "Impressive Instant", "Nobody's Perfect", "Paradise (Not For Me)", "Don't Tell Me", "I Deserve It".
• American Life: Co-produced the entire record and co-wrote all songs with Madonna, with the exception of "Nothing Fails", "X-Static Process" and "Easy Ride" (written by Madonna and other collaborators).
• Confessions on a Dance Floor: "Future Lovers", "Let It Will Be", bonus track "Fighting Spirit", and the deleted tracks "Super Pop", "Triggering", and "Keep the Trance".
• Celebration (2009): iTunes bonus track "It's So Cool".

The Music album was nominated for three Grammy awards including Record of the Year. "Music" won several MTV Europe awards. He was also involved in the writing and production of the title track to the movie Die Another Day, co-written and performed by Madonna. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 2003.

[edit] Fischerspooner

Mirwais also co-produced two tracks "Cloud" and "Never Win" on Fischerspooner's second studio album Odyssey, released in 2005.

[edit] Y.A.S

He has recently been working on a project called Y.A.S. An update was posted on the official website saying: "YAS is the name of Mirwais new project with the singer and composer Yasmine Hamdan. The album will be out in France on June 8, 2009. All songs are performed by her. It is some"Arabic Avant Guarde Music"? "

In an interview on 13 January 2007 in lecourrier.ch, Mirwais said "At the moment I work with Yasmine Hamdan (one half of Lebanon electro-duo Soapkills). The idea is that today, in Western culture, we hear about Arabs everyday - in a bad way, because of terrorism, etc - but we lack of cultural representations coming from those countries that could mix with the western culture, whereas this youth is eager to. I don't want to do world music, but a good western production with a real Arab identity." ^[2]

Y.A.S ' album named "Arabology" was released in April/May 2009, the first single "Get It Right" was also released in June 2009.

[edit] Uffie

After remixing "Pop the glock", Mirwais has become one of the producers of Uffie's upcoming album Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans (released on February, 14th 2010). Other producers include Mr Oizo, SebastiAn and Pharrell Williams.

[edit] In popular culture

• The song "Naive Song" from his album "Production" was used in a commercial for the launch of the first Apple "Imac" in 2001.
• The song "Naive Song" from his album "Production" was featured as the opening theme for the French television series Clara Sheller.
• The song "Disco Science" was used in the Victoria's Secret commercial starring Gisele Bündchen.
• The song "Disco Science" was used in the film Snatch starring Brad Pitt in 2000.
• The song "Love Profusion" was used in the Estée Lauder commercial to promote the perfume, "Beyond Paradise".
• The song "Hollywood" was part of a medley with Madonna's hit song "Into The Groove" for a Gap commercial starring Madonna and Missy Elliott.
• The song "Never Young Again" was used in a TV commercial for the Carolina Herrera perfume "Chic" in 2002.^[3]

[edit] Discography

[edit] Studio album

• Mirwais (1990, New Rose Records)
• Production (2000, Naive Records)

[edit] Singles

• Cellophane (1990, New Rose Records)
• Disco Science (1999, Naive Records)
• Naïve Song (2000, Naive Records)
• I Can't Wait (2001, Naive Records)
• Miss You (2002, Naive Records)

[edit] Videography

• "Disco Science"
• "I Can't Wait"
• "Naïve Song"
• "V.I ( The last words she said before leaving)"

[edit] Remixes

• Jean Jacques Smoothie."Two People"(2001)
• Fischerspooner "Never Win"(2005)
• Franz Ferdinand "Can't Stop Feeling" (2006)
• The Slips "Superbeat"(2007)
• Shortwave Set. "Til' 69".(2008)
• Sony J "Can't Stop Moving" (2008)
• Mika "We Are Golden"(2009)
• Uffie "Pop The Glock" (2009)
• Moebius "Light My Fire"(2009)

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Official Taxi Girl website
• Mirwais at discogs.com
• Rolling Stone - Mirwais

[edit] Notes