MORTEN (real name — Morten Breum; born May 26, 1982, Aarhus, Denmark) is a Danish DJ and music producer. He first gained recognition in his home country in the late 2000s, while the international stage of his career is primarily associated with his long-running collaboration with David Guetta and the development of the Future Rave concept.
By the time of his global breakthrough, MORTEN already had more than a decade of professional experience, a studio album and major hits in Denmark. His path took him from Scandinavian club music and electro house through festival EDM to a darker sound combining progressive house, trance, techno and music designed for large festival stages.
Aarhus and the beginning of his career
Morten Breum grew up in Aarhus. His interest in DJing began in his teenage years: he gained his first experience at a youth club and later started performing at small local venues.
Unlike producers who first became known through their own recordings, Breum began specifically as a club DJ. Performing in front of audiences became an important part of his musical approach: even many years later, MORTEN's tracks retained a strong live-performance dynamic built around gradually increasing tension and powerful climaxes.
Apple Music lists May 26, 1982 as the musician's date of birth and Aarhus as his place of origin.
Højere Vildere and success in Denmark
The first major stage of his professional career came in 2008. Morten Breum worked with Danish producer Rune RK, who later gained international recognition as Kölsch, on Højere Vildere featuring the duo Nik & Jay.
The recording became one of the musician's first notable successes on the Danish scene. DJ Mag describes Højere Vildere as his first single, while the subsequent Domestic became one of the key tracks of his early period.
The album Drop!
On August 24, 2009, Morten Breum released his debut studio album Drop! through the Danish label disco:wax. The record contained 14 tracks, including Drop!, Domestic and Højere Vildere.
The album reflects the early side of MORTEN's work — club-oriented electronic music, house and the late-2000s crossover between DJ material and more accessible vocal tracks.
Drop! remained the main traditional studio album in his discography. MORTEN's later career was built primarily around singles, EPs, remixes and collaborations.
Morten Breum and expansion beyond Denmark
In the early 2010s, the musician continued releasing music under his full name Morten Breum. Notable tracks from this period include Domestic, Every Time (You Look at Me) with Sisse Marie, 6 AM, 86 Degrees and the Pegboard Nerds collaboration Ingen Anden Drøm.
Gradually, the centre of his career shifted beyond Scandinavia. In the early 2010s, Breum moved to Los Angeles and became increasingly active on the international electronic music scene. At the same time, he began using the shorter stage name MORTEN more frequently instead of his full name.
David Guetta and the emergence of Future Rave
A decisive turning point came after meeting and beginning a close collaboration with David Guetta. One of the early connecting moments was MORTEN's remix of 2U by David Guetta and Justin Bieber in 2017. Their collaboration later developed into ongoing studio work and a search for a new sound.
Guetta and MORTEN wanted to move away from the festival EDM formula that had dominated the first half of the 2010s. Instead of bright and predictable drops, they began using darker club rhythms, extended harmonic transitions and elements of trance and techno while preserving the scale required for major festival stages.
This approach evolved into the Future Rave concept. It is more accurate to understand it not as a genre with strict rules, but as a recognisable approach developed by David Guetta and MORTEN to combine several directions of electronic music. DJ Mag has described Future Rave through elements of progressive house, trance and EDM, while Guetta himself has also emphasised the influence of techno and deeper club music.
Never Be Alone and New Rave
One of the first tracks to define the new direction was Never Be Alone with Aloe Blacc, released in 2019. The same year also brought Make It To Heaven with RAYE.
On July 17, 2020, David Guetta and MORTEN released the collaborative EP New Rave. It contained four tracks:
- Kill Me Slow
- Nothing
- Bombardment
- Odyssey
The release presented Future Rave for the first time not through a single track, but as a complete series of compositions built around a shared sound.
Dreams, Impossible and Titanium
Over the following years, the collaboration between David Guetta and MORTEN became a permanent part of both producers' careers. In 2020, they released Dreams with Lanie Gardner, followed in 2021 by Impossible with John Martin.
That same year, the musicians released a Future Rave Remix of Titanium with Sia. The new version of one of the defining hits of Guetta's early EDM career transformed the song into the darker and harder Future Rave sound.
The period around Dreams, Impossible and the new version of Titanium ultimately made MORTEN's name widely known beyond the European club scene. In 2021, DJ Mag included him in its Top 100 DJs for the first time at number 39. He ranked No. 56 in 2022 and No. 90 in 2023.
Permanence and Future Rave in Ibiza
In January 2022, Guetta and MORTEN released Permanence, continuing their movement toward the harder and more club-oriented side of Future Rave.
That same year, the concept received its own residency at Hï Ibiza. Future Rave took over the club's Friday nights and continued through subsequent seasons. Artists from different areas of electronic music appeared in the line-up, while the core idea centred on combining the energy of major festivals with a darker club sound.
Hï Ibiza hosted Future Rave during the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons. The club described the project as a combination of large-scale festival anthems and music directly focused on the dancefloor.
Solo career alongside Future Rave
His collaboration with Guetta did not turn MORTEN into a member of a permanent duo. He continued releasing music under his own name and working with other artists.
In 2022, he released the solo track No Good, followed in 2023 by Something To Hold On To with Clementine Douglas and Lost In The Rhythm. These recordings retained MORTEN's festival-scale energy while allowing him to develop his own catalogue independently of Future Rave.
The Future Is Now, Kill The Vibe and Hollow
In 2024, the collaboration with David Guetta continued with the two-track release The Future Is Now / The Truth and the single Kill The Vibe, also recorded with Prophecy.
Another important release that year was Hollow with Ukrainian duo ARTBAT and vocalist Bonn. The single was released on September 13, 2024 through Insomniac Records. Here, MORTEN's festival-driven sound intersected with the melodic and progressive side of ARTBAT's music.
An official remix of Hollow was later released by Kölsch — the former Rune RK, with whom MORTEN had worked at the very beginning of his Danish career. In this way, two stages of his creative history crossed paths again many years later within the same release.
New releases
In 2025, MORTEN and David Guetta released Lucky, while his solo catalogue expanded with the vocal track Take Me Home featuring Bonn. DJ Mag highlighted Lucky among Guetta's notable collaborative releases of that period.
During the first half of 2026, MORTEN's discography expanded rapidly with new material. Together with Guetta and Trippie Redd, he released Locked In, followed by the solo track Rotation, Suelta with Prophecy and Shock The System with Malaa.
A collaboration with Singaporean producer WUKONG and Chinese performer 川子唢呐 resulted in Whenever You're Alone, where electronic music is combined with the sound of the traditional Chinese suona. In May, MORTEN unexpectedly returned to Danish-language material with Ventet Hele Livet, released through disco:wax — the label behind his debut album.
On July 17, 2026, MORTEN and David Guetta continued the Future Rave project with the single La Révolution. The release came out through Futurerave / What A DJ Ltd and became another chapter in a collaboration that began in the late 2010s.
MORTEN's musical style
MORTEN's sound has changed considerably throughout his career. His early Danish period was primarily associated with house, electro house and the club-oriented electronic music of the late 2000s. Progressive house and festival EDM later became increasingly prominent in his work.
Future Rave made his music darker and denser. This period is characterised by hard four-on-the-floor rhythms, techno influence, tense trance harmonies, short synthesizer motifs and large-scale climaxes. At the same time, MORTEN and Guetta deliberately avoided restricting the project to the boundaries of a single genre.
This openness is clearly visible in MORTEN's collaborations. ARTBAT brought the melodic and progressive side of contemporary club music into his catalogue, Malaa contributed a harder house sound, Trippie Redd brought hip-hop influences, while WUKONG introduced elements connected with Asian electronic traditions.
MORTEN discography
Studio album
- 2009 — Drop!
EP
- 2020 — New Rave — with David Guetta
Selected key releases
- 2008 — Højere Vildere — Rune RK / Morten Breum feat. Nik & Jay
- 2009 — Drop!
- 2010 — Domestic
- 2010 — Every Time (You Look at Me) — feat. Sisse Marie
- 2013 — Larva (Far Away)
- 2019 — Never Be Alone — with David Guetta feat. Aloe Blacc
- 2019 — Make It To Heaven — with David Guetta feat. RAYE
- 2020 — Kill Me Slow — with David Guetta
- 2020 — Dreams — with David Guetta feat. Lanie Gardner
- 2021 — Impossible — with David Guetta feat. John Martin
- 2021 — Titanium (David Guetta & MORTEN Future Rave Remix)
- 2022 — Permanence — with David Guetta
- 2022 — No Good
- 2023 — Something To Hold On To — feat. Clementine Douglas
- 2023 — Lost In The Rhythm
- 2024 — The Future Is Now / The Truth — with David Guetta
- 2024 — Kill The Vibe — with David Guetta and Prophecy
- 2024 — Hollow — with ARTBAT feat. Bonn
- 2025 — Lucky — with David Guetta
- 2025 — Take Me Home — feat. Bonn
- 2026 — Locked In — with David Guetta feat. Trippie Redd
- 2026 — Rotation
- 2026 — Suelta — with Prophecy
- 2026 — Shock The System — with Malaa
- 2026 — Whenever You're Alone — with WUKONG and 川子唢呐
- 2026 — Ventet Hele Livet
- 2026 — La Révolution — with David Guetta
The significance of MORTEN
MORTEN's career differs noticeably from the common story of an electronic producer who achieves global fame through a single early hit. His international breakthrough came only after many years of work in Denmark, a debut album, extensive club performances and a gradual move into the American and wider European electronic scenes.
The decisive turning point was his collaboration with David Guetta. Future Rave allowed both producers to move away from conventional festival EDM and find a space between the scale of major stages and darker club music. At the same time, MORTEN's own releases demonstrate that the concept never became the only formula for his creative work.
Nearly two decades separate Højere Vildere and the album Drop! from Hollow, Rotation and his collaborations with Guetta. His ability to move through this evolution without a sharp break between his club roots and international career has made MORTEN one of the most recognisable figures on the contemporary festival electronic music scene.
