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This week in dance music: Disclosure announced a new album, out today (July 14), and a boatload of other new music also dropped alongside it. Let’s get into it.
Shouse feat. House Gospel Choir, “Your Love”
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The Label: Hell Beach
The Spiel: Yes, the Australia/New Zealand-born duo is indeed following up their massive hit 2017 “Love Tonight” — which was sent into ubiquity via David Guetta’s 2021 remix — and this year’s second Guetta collab “Live Without Love” with another ode to romance. Featuring the House Gospel Choir (who also figured in The Blessed Madonna’s recently released “Mercy”), the song takes a moody, sort of celestial house production and adds a sort auto-tuned alien voice and then a swarm of very human vocals, which are altogether likely to hit you in your similarly human feels.
The Vibe: What’s not to love?
Tycho, “Time To Run”
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The Label: Mom + Pop
The Spiel: The venerable Tycho drops his first track of the year via the chipper, punchy “Time To Run.” Taking influence from the producer born Scott Hansen’s real life love of running — and coming with a sweet and simple running-centric video — the song layers a looped guitar riff and drums with effervescent and quintessentially Tycho electronic elements, building to a quick clip with a smart, bright mood.
The Artist Says: “Music has always served as a kind of meditation for me, long before I started creating it,” says Hansen. “As a competitive runner throughout my early life, I would play back loops of songs in my head to cope with the stress of races, focusing on rhythmic elements to help pace myself and stay calm. There is a unique form of clarity that I have found through the meditative practice of running, it is a fundamentally human experience, and when I feel the deepest connection between the mind, body, and nature. ‘Time to Run’ is my attempt to translate these ideas into music. My goal was to approach the composition from a new angle and let the rhythmic elements take the lead. I cast the melodic elements that have come to define the Tycho sound in a new light by juxtaposing them against a new foundation that takes cues from funk music.”
The Vibe: Runner’s high.
Joel Corry, Icona Pop & Rain Radio, “Desire”
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The Label: Atlantic Records
The Spiel: The eternally productive Joel Corry links with Swedish favs Icona Pop and Rain Radio — the secret-ish duo from Fred again.. and his brother Benjy — for a compact (just two minutes and 39 seconds!) but nonetheless full throttle ’90s style house anthem, with a singalong bridge and an earworm melody that’s sure to get lodged in your head, but which is good enough that you won’t actually be annoyed about it.
The Artist Says: “I’m so excited to finally release ‘Desire’ with Icona Pop and Rain Radio”, Corry says in a statement. “It’s been the most requested track ID in my sets for months and always goes off wherever I play it across the globe.”
The Vibe: When the only thing you really desire is to just be dancing hard with your eyes closed in a dark club in the middle of the night.
Baauer feat. Betsy, “Nothing’s Ever Real”
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The Label: LuckyMe
The Spiel: Baauer’s house era continues with the bright, piano-heavy “Nothing’s Ever Real.” The track features vocals from Welsh singer Betsy, who insists “’cause nothing’s ever real enough, takе what you want,” and comes with a video in which Baauer revives the sound recording guy character from the video for 2022’s “Let Me Love You” — extending both this persona and the facets of real world romance he captures.
The Vibe: Pretty real, actually.
Duke Dumont feat. Nathan Nicholson, “Losing Control”
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The Label: Astralwerks
The Spiel: Duke Dumont never misses and certainly isn’t starting today — with the release of another slice of the dark, transportive, larger-than-life club club fare that is his calling card. Featuring interestingly paced vocals from Nathan Nicholson of The Boxer Rebellion, “Losing Control” is urgent, sophisticated immersive and in possession of a deeply satisfying wind up and release that will surely help any given listener let go at least a little bit.
The Artist Says: “I made this record alongside Nathan Nicholson with my live show experience in mind,” Dumont says in a statement. “Strobe lights, iconic visual, anthemic synth leads, and a vocal hook that conjures paranoia or liberation, depending how you interpret the song. At the festivals I’ve been paying it’s been a big moment for the set.”
The Vibe: Liberation, for sure.
Troye Sivan has announced the release date for his upcoming third studio album, Something to Give Each Other. The collection described as a “celebration of sex, dance, sweat, community, queerness, love and friendship” will drop on Oct. 13.
The album was previewed on Thursday (July 13) with the ecstatic disco anthem “Rush,” which features the dizzying chorus, “You got my heartbeat racing/ My body blazing/ I feel the rush/ Addicted to your touch/ Oh, I feel the rush/ It’s so good, it’s so good/ I feel the rush/ Addicted to your touch/ Oh, I feel the rush/ It’s so good, it’s so good.”
In a statement about the song, The Idol co-star Sivan said, “‘Rush’ is the feeling of kissing a sweaty stranger on a dancefloor, a 2 hour date that turned into a weekend, a crush, a winter, a summer. Party after party, after party after after party. All of my experiences from a chapter where I feel confident, free and liberated. Independent, yet somehow the most connected to the music and community around me.”
The appropriately sensual, sweaty Gordon von Steiner-directed video for “Rush” is meant to evoke, “big groups of people feeling the joy of life and sex,” according to a release announcing the project. In the clip Sivan attends a hedonistic day party in which revelers pull off impressively choreographed dance routines in an abandoned warehouse, with Sivan getting in on the action by doing a keg stand and making out with a fellow party animal.
Sivan wrote the album with Oscar Görres (Taylor Swift, Sam Smith), Ian Kirkpatrick (Dua Lipa, Britney Spears), Leland (Selena Gomez, Ava Max) and Styalz Fuego (Khalid, Imagine Dragons). Something to Give Each Other is the follow-up to Sivan’s 2018 second full-length album, Bloom; he released the EP In a Dream in 2020.
The Australian-born singer/actor recently teased that he was prepping his first album in half a decade. “It’s not lost on me that some of you guys have been following along since i was the kid w the stye in my eye in that first video,” he captioned a series of videos posted to Instagram in June. “Btw — I didn’t mean to take 5 years to make this album.”
In addition to the album, Sivan is prepping the launch of Tsu Lange Yor, described as an “independent luxury lifestyle collection of fragrances and art-driven objects.”
Watch the “Rush” video below.
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Disclosure is coming back in a big way.
On Wednesday (July 12), the Lawrence brothers announced a new album, Alchemy, will be out this Friday.
The 11-track LP is their first since 2020’s Energy, and their first to drop since the pair left Capitol Records. Alchemy will be out via the brothers’ own Apollo Recordings, in partnership with AWAL, the independent distribution and label division of Kobalt Music Group.
“This record is a celebration of us feeling liberated right now,” Guy Lawrence says in a press release. “We’re no longer signed to a major record label. We’re not going to tour this record. We can do whatever we like and be super creative.”
A statement about the album also reveals that “Alchemy was written while the British duo were at two very different points in their lives. On one hand, Guy was recently married and settling into a new home in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. On the other, Howard was reeling from heartbreak and exhausted from a 150-date tour.”
“There was this combination of deep heartbreak and sadness, but also deep admiration and appreciation,” Howard Lawrence says of this period. “Let’s turn this horrible feeling into something beautiful. The whole idea was to channel pain into beauty—which, in hindsight, is always the aim.”
Alchemy will not incorporate any features or samples, instead promising a “back to basics” approach and production melding jungle, breaks, “trance-like supersaw synth riffs” and club tracks” See the album’s cover art below.
In tandem with the LP’s release, Disclosure will host a pair of release parties in London on Thursday and Friday.
This announcement comes on the heels of the 10-year anniversary of Disclosure’s landmark debut album, Settle, released in June 2013 and voted the No. 1 EDM album of the decade by Billboard. The LP was commemorated with a deluxe anniversary edition due in August.
It was August of 2011 and John Summit was a child standing in the pouring rain, having his little mind blown.
The producer, then 16 years old, was at Lollapalooza among a crowd of thousands, getting soaked while deadmau5 played onstage. A resident of the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Summit had trekked to downtown for the festival, with this deadmau5 set not only serving as his first electronic show, but a premonition of the path his life would take.
“I feel like everyone always has that moment when they’re like, ‘Oh my god, this is my genre,’” the producer says. “That’s when I knew I wanted to be a part of electronic music.”
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During the show there was one song in particular that struck Summit especially hard — a dreamy, moody, sort of sexy slow burn, “I Remember,” the 2008 classic by deadmau5 and Kaskade. “There was not a single phone in sight,” Summit recalls of this first time hearing this song. “Everyone was lost in the moment, and I’d never been to a concert like that before.”
After the show, Summit “listened to that record on repeat for like, a year straight” while getting further electronic music, becoming a regular at Michigan’s very heady Electric Forest, starting to DJ locally in Chicago and over time becoming one of the hottest names in the scene on the power of his scintillating live shows and tracks, including “Where You Are,” a March collab with vocalist Hayla that’s become the biggest hit of his career thus far.
Now 28, Summit has worked with a flurry of veterans, including Green Velvet, Dennis Ferrer, Diplo, Lee Foss and more, releasing a steady stream of music while touring relentlessly across continents, launching his own label and event series Off the Grid and offering up a more or less endless social media stream that highlight his goofy sense of humor and bananas lifestyle. Over Zoom, Summit moves around his recently purchased Miami high-rise condo, noting that up until a few months ago he was still living with a roommate in Chicago, having only come into money following his post-pandemic ascent.
“I was very fiscally conservative,” he says, turning the laptop camera out the window towards the beach, “but now I’m finally learning how to treat myself.”
Now, 12 years after hearing “I Remember” during that Midwestern deluge, Summit has released the track’s first official remix. His edit toughens up the vibey original and comes on the heels of deadmau5 regaining his back catalog from Ultra Records. The song, now 15 years old, is widely considered to be one of the greatest dance tracks of all time — instilling this project with, Summit concedes, “a lot of pressure.”
But the fact is that Summit has made everything he’s done so far look kind of easy, with this project taking on the same meant-to-be quality that’s defined the rest of his career. Here, he talks about making it all happen.
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How did you first connect with Kaskade and deadmau5’s teams for this remix?
It wasn’t until they came out with the “Escape” record as Kx5 with [vocalist] Hayla last year. The day that came out I was listening to it nonstop. I was up in Aspen for a show with my manager. We got drunk at night, and I was on my [Instagram] story just like belting it. Then Kaskade DMs me like, “Glad you’re liking the record. Would you be up to remix it?” That was the first time I ever talked them.
I’m six beers deep, and I’m like “f–k yeah, let’s do it.” The “Escape” remix ended up being the biggest remix of the year. That’s how I got connected with Hayla, and how we made “Where You Are,” which ended up being my biggest record of all time and which is still huge right now. From there, I got asked to do an Essential Mix for Pete Tong and BBC Radio. With an Essential Mix, you [work in] all your influences, and “I Remember” was the first song that got me into electronic music. I needed to make an edit of it for the Essential Mix to show my love, because I didn’t want to just use the original. [Kaskade and deadmau5] heard it in the Essential Mix and were like, “Let’s make this an official remix.”
But it’s also pretty crazy, right, given that this is the song that got you into electronic music. What does it mean to you that all this is happening?
It’s insane, because it happened so naturally. I didn’t have to beg or ask for any of this.
“I Remember” is basically a sacred text of dance music. How did you approach the remix?
It’s a lot of pressure. The one in my Essential Mix I just made that overnight while I was in Colombia. It was only one build and one drop. It was quick, only like, two minutes long. From there, I made, like, 50 different versions. I got super in my head, too. You can hear in all my sets for the last six months, there’s always a different version I’ve been playing out. I ended up combining two versions I made, so it’s the first track I’ve ever done that has two different drops, which is not typical for house music — where it’s a totally different kick drum, bass and everything. But it’s just because I was stuck between which one I liked more, so I was like, “Let’s just do both of them as one.”
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Were Kaskade or deadmau5 advising you while you were working on it?
No. They were like, “We trust you, just do whatever you want.” They didn’t micromanage me whatsoever. They know that if I’m playing it out and it’s working, they have trust that it’s good.
It’s such an ethereal track, and your remix maintains that — but you also toughened it up.
Yeah, exactly. It’s a more modern take on it. It’s still respecting the original, while putting my stamp on it. Which I think is the goal for a remix, right?
Do you have hopes for what it will do?
The hope is that it will revive the track. I’m not calling myself old, but I’m 28 now, and when you think of all the kids — especially the post-COVID kid ravers are 21, 22 — they’ve never even heard the original. When I play it out live, they think it’s an original track. I’m like “No, it’s a remix of a classic.” But 15 years ago, they would have been like, five years old.
I hadn’t really considered that part of it. You get to introduce this song to a whole new generation.
Exactly. While also putting my own stamp on it too, which I think is really cool.
What were Kaskade and and deadmau5’s reactions when they first heard your edit?
The first time Ryan heard it in the Essential Mix he just said, “Can you make it hit a little bit harder live?” That’s why I have the one drop where it’s just the kick and bass and it has a huge synth on the drop, to make it work for festivals and stuff. Tying everything together too is that on August 5, me and him are headlining HARD Summer together. That’s gonna be by far my biggest show to date. It’s at the L.A. Coliseum, which is where I opened up for [Kx5 last December] when I premiered “Where You Are.” There’s gonna be like, 60,000 people, so that’ll be nuts.
You’ve been adopted, for lack of a better word, by some of the pioneers — Kaskade, Lee Foss, Green Velvet, Diplo. Do you feel like the next gen? What’s the relationship with these artists?
Yeah, that’s a good question. What makes it new and next gen is that my fanbase and community is so different than theirs. Mine is very young and very vocal on social media and Twitter. They’re kind of a very rabid fan base in that sense… I played with Kaskade for New Year’s Eve, and he has a more seasoned crowd that’s been going to EDC since 2008 or whatever.
But when when it comes to actual music, it feels like we’re on the same wavelength. I grew up in the Chicago scene DJing. I wasn’t part of the L.A. EDM scene. I’ve always been DJing with older people.
What have you learned from these artists?
Now that I’m touring all the time, it’s good to [get advice] from guys who’ve been doing it for 15-plus years, and way longer than that. Green Velvet put out “Percolator” the year I was born, so 28 years ago. One thing I worry about is burnout, with how crazy my lifestyle is now.
It’s interesting that you worry about burnout, because I look at you’re social media and think “How is this guy surviving all this?”
Yeah, that’s what everyone thinks. I just played at Space [in Miami] last weekend — I did an eight-hour set and posted about it online. Even my mom called me like, “John, do you really have to be doing these eight hours sets?” I’m like, “It’s what my fans like, mom. It’s what I like doing.” I posted about it, and she just tweet responded, “Call me.” It is tough, though — to maintain a tour schedule — because then I’ve gotta be making music non-stop. I just don’t have a personal life too much. But I don’t mind it. I’m a workaholic, and I love it.
What’s the best place for you to play right now?
It’s also why I live in Miami, because Miami’s my favorite to play, because there’s creative freedom, being able to play whatever I want. I also loved playing in Denver. I did a show there at 1STBANK CENTER and at Red Rocks the next day. In Miami and Ibiza, I can play all types of underground music — I can go minimal, tech house. It’s not like a festival where I have to just play just the huge hits.
But then in Denver, it was cool because I could play anything. They like dubstep and everything, and I even played like a riddim track during my set. Everyone went crazy. So it fun just being able to just do whatever the heck I wanted. I’m a house and techno guy at heart, and that’s basically all I really listened to. When I when I started raving I was very into everything, especially when I’d go to Electric Forest and stuff like that.
“Where You Are” has been on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs for more than four months. It’s a huge hit. What’s your relationship with that song? Has it changed things for you?
Yeah, it’s changed everything. I was big before, but after that song, it’s just been crazy. Especially because every single big artist either they play the original — Martin Garrix has been playing out the original, then Hardwell has a remix, Tiësto has a remix, GRiZ came out with a remix, Gorgon City. It kind of blew me up — because I used to just be in the house and techno bubble, and now I’m really taking the next step for my career. When I was at EDC, I heard it at literally every stage I went to. It was kind of tripping me out. [Laughs.] It just reminded me of of the EDM days where you would hear the same song, like “Animals” by Martin Garrix, at every single set.
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Everything I’ve ever read or heard about you has come with his tagline of like, “the hottest guy in the scene!” Do you feel like a pressure to maintain that? What’s the strategy with you and your management now that you’ve ascended to that level?
It’s been the same strategy for the last three or four years now. There is as lot of pressure, and sometimes it does really get to me. It has a mental toll, but not too bad. Just always, always, always being relevant, always having to be pushing things, whether it’s music or new sets, because every one of my sets is different… Then obviously social media, to always be posting. If I go two days without tweeting, people are like, “John, are you alive?”
That’s why I just have so much respect for artists that have had super long, storied careers. Obviously deadmau5 and kaskade are a perfect examples; they’ve been relevant for how long and are still putting out relevant records. It’s definitely an industry [where] you can get left in the dust if you’re not pushing and innovating.
The social media aspect, you’re obviously just really good at naturally. Is it all genuine, or do you ever feel like you go, “Okay, this is what people think John Summit is going to do, even though I’m not feeling it today.”
That is what I super pride myself on, being genuine. My managers don’t tweet for me, they don’t post for me — everything is all me. But it is a lot of pressure, because then I spend the entire day making TikToks, then it’s 9 p.m., and I’m like, “D–n, I haven’t even started working on my set.’ So then I work on my set until 3 a.m., and then I’m like “Oh, I haven’t even made any music.” It’s really tough when I’m traveling.
If I take a few days off, that’s when you know I’m really cranking hard in the studio. But I like to think that I’ll never just be posting things I don’t actually mean. That’s my version of selling out, not not being myself. Some people think selling out is like, having a big record or something like that. “Where You Are” is a perfect example. Obviously, I didn’t know that was going to be as big of a hit as it is, but I f–king love that record, I put my soul into it with Hayla and spent months and months on it. But if a record label was like, “Can you make this but five times again?” that’d be my version of selling out.
Above & Beyond are going further than ever before, with the electronic trio earning their first RIAA Gold Record via their 2019 track “Don’t Leave.” The song comes from the group’s 2019 ambient album Flow State, which was designed for use during yoga and meditation. The certification marks 500,000 units moved of the song, with […]
Aluna has scored a lot of hits in her decade-plus career, but she doesn’t feel like things really started for her until more recently.
After making music as one half of AlunaGeorge — singing on smashes by that group along with hits by artists including Disclosure and Jack Ü — the British producer/singer/songwriter says going solo is the proudest moment of her career so far. This pivot, marked by the 2020 release of her debut solo album, Renaissance, meant for her that she was “essentially starting all over again, but this time with my full self-intact.”
Indeed in tandem with that album’s release, Aluna — who’s of Jamaican and Indian descent — became an outspoken voice on racial inequality in the dance world, writing a 2020 open letter on the industry’s “extreme double standard” of racial inequality and advocating for Black artists and fans within a scene that remains overwhelmingly white and male-dominated.
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It’s not just talk. Aluna has again made good on her ambition by coalescing a group of Black and LGBTQ+ collaborators and allies around her for her latest album, MYCELiUM, out tomorrow (July 7) via Mad Decent. Taking its name from the foundational, interconnected, creative network formed in nature by fungal root structures, the 14-track house-focused project features creative, interconnected work from Brazil’s Pabllo Vittar, South Africa’s KOOLDRINK, Panama’s Roofeeo and U.K. stars TSHA, Chris Lake, and MNEK, altogether forming a foundation of diversity that’s the core of Aluna’s mission.
This summer and fall will find her supporting the album on tour, with club shows across the U.S. and festival dates including Higher Ground, North Coast and III Points. Her advocacy work has continued while on the road, with Aluna working with groups like Melanin Ravers to help Black fans find each other at festivals and shows, spaces where audiences can often be largely white.
“I still have to perform in predominantly white audiences,” Aluna said in a recent post. “The way that I get through that now is that I think about all the other Black ravers that I know exist, and then I can get out on stage and I’ve got my army of people in my mind and in my heart, so I’m never alone.”
Here, Aluna talks about MYCELiUM, and what it means to her.
1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?
I’m in Brooklyn, New York. The sky looks like Armageddon from all the fires in Canada, it’s 85 degrees and I had to clamber through the whole storm and airport shut down to get here … people are still stranded from that!
2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
It was probably The Bends by Radiohead on CD.
3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do or did they think of what you do for a living now?
My mum was a careers advisor, which is ironic since she would never have advised anyone to follow a music career path. She struggled with it for all the years that I looked like I was gonna be a crazy starving artist — around eight years from when I first started vocal lessons [with] a pipe dream.
My dad never had a full time job — he’s a photographer, but he didn’t crack the code of how to make a creative career to sustain himself or his family. That really left an impression, and a pressure on me to make it work holistically … a drive that perhaps neither of my parents understand. They both support me, but a music career is hard for any parent to fathom, because there’s literally no way to help your kid win. Well, unless you have lots of money!
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4. What’s the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?
It obviously wasn’t anything awesome or I’d remember. I just needed to pay rent and eat.
5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into dance/electronic music, what would you give them?
Neptune’s Lair by Drexciya. It’s absolutely insane the amount of creativity in the whole concept and album!
6. What’s the last song you listened to?
“Off My Mind” by Coco and Breezy.
7. Do you have guilty pleasure music?
I don’t actually; I definitely stand by all the music I listen to. I might be conceited, but I think I have excellent taste!
8. The new album is MYCELiUM. What’s the significance of the album title?
As I’ve been working in the dance electronic genre simultaneously making music, building community and advocating for change, I came across mycelium and the way that it works as an interconnected cell network sharing information, energy nutrients to create the organic ecosystem around us. Music is an ecosystem too, and I wanted to signify the return of core values that created this genre and would have kept it healthy rather than turning into the monoculture that it has become — devoid of soul, diversity and respect.
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9. You’ve called working with Black and LGBTQ artists on the album the “most life-affirming experience of my career.” Did this experience bring out different facets of your artistry?
Absolutely. Talking about the history and what the pioneers were doing when they invented the genre with my collaborators always creates this new excitement in the studio. It sparked ideas really quickly, we felt like we were tapping into something that had always been there but we’d not explored before.
10. You’ve talked about creating communities of Black ravers. Who are the people who’ve come together under this banner, and how have they influenced the album?
My Black ravers are my champions-whether I’m with them or not they are in my heart when I write or advocate for change – @Melaninravers, @femaleraversunited, @Basslollipopp, @Givemeplur, @cookievalentine have been working hard to look after the ravers who brave going to festivals, often isolated, sometimes completely alone. There are so many Black producers and artists who have remained on the outside of the industry, but creating with the little resources they have, and we try to support each other with international online groups that are invite only. And then there are the event communities who have been creating smaller safe spaces for Black communities to dance together such as Moonshine, Set de flo, Ascendance and Hoodrave.
11. You’ve also spoken about being the only Black artist at festivals and in industry settings. Are you seeing any meaningful shifts in the scene at large in terms of diversity and inclusion?
Anything I have seen has been created by individuals working, with no help from the industry or those with the power to do so. The problem is without the real integrity of a desire for change, most of the efforts I saw after George Floyd fell away. There is a widespread, complete lack of care in the live show business, not just for Black people, but for the festival goers in general. I think that comes from a lack of diverse voices in charge. On the industry side, I regularly talk to large companies who want to work with me, yet they don’t have a single Black female employee.
12. In May you made an announcement on Instagram about helping Black ravers link up at festivals. What’s been the response from your community? Are you hearing great stories of people meeting up at events?
I’m not the first person to try and do this — I would say Melanin Ravers are the leaders in that area — I’m simply adding my energy to the cause. The response has been huge, with many people having never even braved a festival for fear of being the only Black person there, or going alone. I am hearing stories of people meeting up — I have a private community that is specifically designed for that on the Geneva app, anyone who would like to join just has to go through me! It’s important to me to keep my group safe and focused, since there are lots of places online to meet up that get overrun by scammers and people looking for hookups.
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13. What does success for this album look like to you?
I hope this album serves as inspiration and solace, a virtual place that people can escape to whoever they are and feel more themselves, more alive and free.
14. The most exciting thing happening in dance music currently is?
Amapiano.
15. The most annoying thing happening in dance music currently is?
Festivals and promoters not taking more risks, and continuing to underestimate the audience’s hunger for more diverse lineups and more inclusive spaces.
16. What was the hardest moment of your career, and how did you overcome it?
The hardest thing was being sexually assaulted by a musical peer who I respected and trusted. I don’t think I’ve gotten over it, and it almost destroyed my career. But I’m here now because my work wasn’t done; I needed to know that I left a pathway for other Black Women to walk down, not just be an exception to the rule.
17. The proudest moment of your career thus far?
Going solo and essentially starting all over again, but this time with my full self intact.
18. What’s the best business decision you’ve ever made?
To learn how to calculate whether a live show will be in profit or be a loss. I almost went bankrupt in 2016 because I didn’t understand this.
19. Who was your greatest mentor, and what was the best advice they gave you?
[Performance coach] Shelly Mitchell. She taught me that creativity can also be reached through joy and serenity, not only pain and self-destruction. She destroyed the myth that artists can only be creative if they’re tortured, and that allowed me to embrace working on my mental health wholeheartedly.
20. One piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
Take care of yourself, ’cause no-one else will.
Dutch producer AFROJACK has signed with Moe Shalizi and The Shalizi Group for management. The Grammy-winning electronic artist joins a stacked dance roster that includes Alesso, Jauz and Marshmello, witih Shalizi guiding the career of the latter artist from unknown producer to global brand. “Moe Shalizi’s past work speaks for itself, excited to see where […]
On Friday, ODESZA‘s concert film/biopic The Last Goodbye Cinematic Experience will have its one-night run in more than 700 theaters worldwide.
The movie, directed by the Seattle-based duo’s longtime friend and creative director Sean Kusanagi, captures the grandeur of the pair’s recent tour behind their 2022 album, The Last Goodbye, while also unpacking the backstory behind ODESZA’s rise and the team behind the project.
The film emphasizes the incredible amount of work and attention to detail that went into the live show, for which the guys and their team took the album they’d just finished then completely revamped it for the tour, crossing the new music with older material and figuring out how to best present the ODESZA catalog in spectacle of lights, lasers, confetti and a drum line.
In an exclusive clip of the film below, the pair’s Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight hash out some of the most granular details of the show. The clip finds the guys parsing out details in the studio, with Mills acknowledging the high stakes to what they’re doing given the time that’s passed since their last tour.
“I’m a little nervous for sure,” Mills says, “it’s been three years.”
The Last Goodbye Cinematic Experience works for both old and new fans of ODESZA, with the movie composed of stunning, inventively shot concert footage from the Last Goodbye Tour that offers new views of the show even to those who’ve seen it. This footage is interspersed with the making of the show and archival material going back to the earliest days of ODESZA.
“Our long-time friend Sean Kusanagi has been with us from day one of ODESZA and it’s incredible to see what footage he pulled together from the past ten years of our careers,” Mills and Knight tell Billboard.
Highlights of the movie include the guys returning to the dilapidated basement of the college house where they began the ODESZA project, the older footage that demonstrates the friendships at the heart of the project, new material that reveals more of the emotion and psychology behind The Last Goodbye (try not to cry in the scene where Mills talks with him mom about the death of her parents), and the impact this music has had on fans.
“We wouldn’t be where we are today without our fans,” Mills and Harrison add. ‘That’s why we are extremely excited to share this film… to give those who have been with us a look behind the curtain for the first time and to let them know how grateful we are for their support over the years.”
Ultimately, The Last Goodbye Cinematic Experience functions in the same way as ODESZA’s previous output, providing a massive show with emotional punch. The 27-date tour after which the film is named hit arenas and amphitheaters across North America, grossing $25.6 million and selling 395,000 tickets, according to numbers provided by Billboard Boxscore.
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Austin, Texas’ annual Seismic Dance Event debuted its satellite festival, Seismic Spring Lite Edition, this past May 19-20. Focused on house and techno, the two-day, one stage Seismic Spring was hosted at Austin’s The Concourse Project with a tight 10-act lineup and a few thousand fans.
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Artists included Coco & Breezy, the identical twins who played a very housey, very funky two-hour set. Also delivering was Dillon Francis playing as his house alter ego, the very deep and often goofy DJ Hanzel. Additionally, the lineup featured a driving and satisfyingly dark hourlong set from San Diego-based techno producer Speaker Honey. Hear all three of these sets exclusively below.
Spring Lite is the offshoot of Seismic Dance Event, which was launched in Austin by married couple Kelly Gray and Andrew Parsons. The pair run RealMusic Events, the Austin-based indie production company that’s been credited for injecting underground electronic flavor into the “live music capital of the world.”
RealMusic Events started hosting shows in Austin in 2009 and launched Seismic Dance Event in 2018 with the intention of delivering underground house and techno music to Austin, a scene that’s long been dominated with live music but is expanding its electronic world offerings via RealMusic Event and other shows like a tour stop from the Burning Man art car Mayan Warrior.
“We want to deliver the big festival experience with an intimate vibe,” Kelly Parsons told Billboard in 2019. “We aren’t trying to sell 20,000 tickets, because that’s not the goal. We always want to keep it boutique.”
The lineup for this November’s flagship Seismic Dance Event, happening this November 10-12 at the indoor/outdoor space The Concourse Project, includes Chris Lake, Kaskade, deadmau5, Boys Noize, Anfisa Letyago, DJ Tennis and Carlita performing as Astra Club, Loco Dice, Mau P and more.
Coco & Breezy
DJ Hanzel
Speaker Honey
TikTok is helping bring Tomorrowland 2023 to the world.
On Wednesday (July 5), the dance mega-festival announced the video-sharing platform as its official content partner for the event, which is taking place over two weekends in Boom, Belgium: July 21-23 and July 28-30.
The partnership will include TikTok LIVE broadcasts of headline performances from the festival’s main stage, along with behind-the-scenes footage and video-on-demand content from artists and other creators. TikTok will stream Tomorrowland content 24 hours a day across both weekends.
Additionally, the partnership encompasses in-app playlists, a search hub and activations designed to make it easier for TikTok users to find content from the festival.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with Tomorrowland, one of the world’s biggest and most iconic festivals,” TikTok business development lead of global music content and partnerships Michael Kümmerle said in a statement. “With its legendary line-up and global audience, Tomorrowland is the perfect festival partner for our flourishing community of #ElectronicMusic lovers who congregate on TikTok. As our relationship with the genre deepens, we’re incredibly excited to help grow the festival further by giving our community 24 live streams and a 360-degree experience of Tomorrowland on TikTok.”
Tomorrowland 2023 is set to host more than 600 artists across 14 stages. Performers include Afrojack, Alesso, Armin van Buuren, Black Coffee, the Chainsmokers, Claptone, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Dom Dolla, Don Diablo, Eric Prydz, Hardwell, John Newman, Martin Garrix, Netsky, Nicky Romero, Oliver Heldens, Paul Kalkbrenner, Purple Disco Machine, Robin Schulz, Sebastian Ingrosso, Shaquille O’Neal as DJ Diesel, Steve Angello, Steve Aoki, Tiësto, Timmy Trumpet, Topic and W&W.
The festival is once again set to host 400,000 fans each weekend.