Swing was not a technique but a way of living: the father of electro swing played Eurovision at home and put out a new single
Parov Stelar performed in the interval of the grand final at Vienna’s Stadthalle.
Parov Stelar has released ‘The Man Without Reflection’ — his first single since playing Eurovision in his native Austria.
The Apple Music catalogue records it.
The track runs 2 minutes 51 seconds and came out on 31 July 2026 on his own label etage noir recordings.
Eurovision at home
His biggest event of the year had come earlier. On 16 May 2026 Vienna’s Wiener Stadthalle hosted the grand final of the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, and Parov Stelar appeared there as an interval act with the song ‘Black Lilies’.
The contest was in Austria for a reason: the country won the right to stage it after its 2025 victory with ‘Wasted Love’, performed by JJ. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union together with the Austrian broadcaster ORF. That year there were two semi-finals — on 12 and 14 May — and the final on the 16th.
‘Black Lilies’ itself had been released as a single eight days before the final, on 8 May 2026. The song was shown to an audience of millions almost immediately after release.
Behind the name Parov Stelar stands Marcus Füreder, born on 27 November 1974 in Austria. He took the jazz and swing of the 1920s, ran them through modern beats and basslines — and effectively invented a whole genre.
What swing means to him
He spoke about the genre itself as more than a technique.
“What was swing? On the one hand, the word swing was a technical description; on the other hand, the practice of swing was a lot more. It was an attitude toward life, a lust for life.”
“I’ve been interested in this period for a while now. My album Coco borrows elements from soul, as does The Princess. For me it’s important to connect things; they needn’t be limited to jazz or swing.”
He founded his own label Etage Noir Recordings in 2003 and has since released music on it in which vintage brass and the crackle of records meet club drive. His record includes ten Amadeus Austrian Music Awards and collaborations with Lana Del Rey and Bryan Ferry.
As ONE//FM reported earlier, another pillar of electro swing — Caravan Palace — wrote a track for a video game about a detective mouse.
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