Varmints

Lore & Background

In the Deadmau5 mythos, the 'mau5' is not merely a mascot but a living entity—a giant, bespectacled mouse who haunts the corridors of electronic music production. Varmints, the album's title, is a deliberate twist on 'vermin,' reframing the mouse not as a pest to be exterminated but as the dominant force in the ecosystem of sound. The album positions Deadmau5 as the self-appointed curator of a sonic habitat where every frequency has its place.

The production context of 2010 was pivotal. Joel had spent the previous two years refining his studio setup, investing heavily in modular synths, analog outboard gear, and a deepening obsession with sound design that went well beyond the preset-driven workflows of the mid-2000s. Varmints reflects that maturation: tracks breathe, evolve, and layer in ways that felt almost orchestral compared to the punchy, drop-oriented structure of his earlier releases. The collaboration with Rob Swire on 'Ghosts 'n' Stuff' brought a raw, industrial edge that contrasted with the album's predominantly melodic palette, showing Joel's willingness to let outside voices reshape his vision.

Fans of the era often describe Varmints as the album that made them take Deadmau5 seriously as a composer rather than a DJ. The extended track lengths, the patient builds, and the emotional weight of tracks like 'I Remember' and 'Amen' created a listening experience that rewarded patience and rewarded the listener's full attention—qualities that set the stage for the even more ambitious works that would follow.

In Their Own Story

The studio was quiet the way only a Burlington winter night can be—snow pressing against the windows, the hum of a rack of synthesizers the only sound in the room. Joel sat cross-legged on the carpet, his mouse-head helmet pushed back, eyes red-rimmed from four hours of layering a single pad. The track had no name yet. It just felt like remembering something he couldn't quite place: a summer evening, a friend's laugh, the particular blue of the sky just before it went dark. He saved the file, leaned back, and watched the waveform pulse on the monitor like a slow heartbeat. Somewhere in the city, a cat was hunting mice in a garden. In here, the mouse was hunting something harder to catch: the exact frequency of a feeling. He'd find it. He always did. That was the whole point of being the varmint.

Reader's Guide

Varmints (2010) stands as a single, unified chapter in Deadmau5's evolving discography, bridging the electro-house era of For Lack of a Better Name and the more experimental, genre-fluid work that would come after. Defining tracks include 'Ghosts 'n' Stuff,' a collaboration with Rob Swire of The Prodigy that injected a gritty, industrial character into the album's otherwise melodic framework; 'I Remember,' a slow-burn progressive house piece that became a staple of festival sets and is often cited by fans as the album's emotional core; and 'Amen,' a driving, hypnotic track that showcased Joel's growing command of rhythmic tension and release.

Production-wise, the album was crafted almost entirely in Joel's home studio, where he was deep into experimenting with analog synthesis, granular textures, and longer compositional structures. The presence of Swire on one track is the album's most notable external collaboration, and it gave the record a slightly feral, unpredictable edge that kept it from feeling like a purely introspective project. Critically, Varmints was received warmly, praised for its ambition and sonic depth, though some early-2010s club-focused audiences found the longer, less immediately 'drop-driven' tracks a departure. Among the broader fanbase, however, it quickly became a touchstone—the album that proved Deadmau5 could write for the head and the heart in equal measure, and it remains a frequent recommendation for newcomers exploring his catalog.

Did You Know?

• The title 'Varmints' is a playful inversion of 'vermin,' reframing Deadmau5's mouse identity from pest to sovereign of its sonic domain.
• The album was produced almost entirely in Joel's home studio in Burlington, Ontario, during a period when he was heavily investing in analog and modular synthesis gear.
• 'Ghosts 'n' Stuff' brought together two very different production philosophies—Joel's melodic, layered approach and Rob Swire's raw, industrial Prodigy-style aggression—making it one of the most discussed tracks on the r
• Varmints sits between the electro-house-heavy For Lack of a Better Name (2007) and the more genre-exploratory work of the early 2010s, marking a clear pivot toward longer, more atmospheric compositions.