GRiZ

Artists similar to Griz: The Floozies, Exmag, Gramatik

 

 

  @MyNameisGRiZ

 

---

GRiZ – Summer ’97

---

GRiZ – Feelin’ High

---

GRiZ – The Moment Seizes Us

---

 

GRiZ combines jazzy instrumental grooves with vintage vocal samples and seductive saxophone drops to provide a soulful journey into the exploration of musical expression. GRiZ is an American electronic music artist also known as Grant Kwiecinski (born May 31st, 1990) from Detroit, Michigan. GRiZ had learned to play the Alto Saxophone and piano at a young age. At 14 years old, he fell in love with hip-hop instrumentals and electronic dance music.

From funky grooves to jazzy melodies, GRiZ’s inventive style to fuse his own saxophone instrumentals with his love for soulful electro tunes has helped his talent stand out from all the rest. GRiZ’s style creates bass infused hip-hop, electro soul, and future funk sounding productions often accompanied by the live performance and recording of his Alto Saxophone and the use of an array of vinyl samples.

 

The State News reported, “Former MSU student Grant Kwiecinski took control of his future when he decided to postpone his college education and focus on a music career. In his mind, Kwiecinski said, it was now or never.” Kwiecinski said to The State News,

“Things don’t just happen, we make our own destiny.” -GRiZ

GRiZ debuted his first full-length album late summer on Sept 4th ’12 titled “Mad Liberation” that has garnered him major buzz and exposure worldwide, racking up over 40,000+ downloads within it’s first 2 weeks of being released. Although music has become his career, GRiZ has provided listeners with a free download of his most recent album, “Mad Liberation.” While this decision could potentially jeopardize his profit, Kwiecinski said it’s a worthy sacrifice to be able to have his music shared. He said to The State News,

“It’s important for music to be heard and shared,” he said. “It’s spiritual, and I don’t want to put a price on that.” -GRiZ

With the summer being filled with some huge festival performances including some notable shows at Electric Forest, Coachella, Movement (Detroit Electronic Music Festival), and Summer Set. He also joined Gramatik for his Digital Freedom tour, as well as some spread-out small headline dates in the mix. Fall 2012 for GRiZ was pretty eventful, jumping on Big Gigantic and Bassnectar’s tours, then off playing a small run of his own intimate headline shows across the nation so keep an eye out for him in your area!

 

Big Gigantic

Artists similar to Big Gigantic: STS9, Paper Diamond, Opiuo

  @BigGigantic

---

Big Gigantic – Touch the Sky

---

Big Gigantic – Fantastic

---

Big Gigantic – Get On Up

Are you ready to get funked up with Big Gigantic’s groovy-electro sound? Big Gigantic mixes electronic roots with funk, jazz and dubstep influences. Big Gigantic is an instrumental electronic group based out of Boulder, Colorado consisting of Dominic Lalli (saxophone) and Jeremy Salken (drums). Both members have extensive backgrounds in music, and Lalli holds a Master’s Degree from the Manhattan School of Music. Big Gigantic is known for their high energy performances including live saxophone and drums instrumentation. The group’s dynamic visuals at their lightshows are a prominent part of the live Big Gigantic experience.

From playing at small venues around Colorado, to instantaneously headlining shows throughout the country and hitting major festivals, Big Gigantic showcases an amplified array of compositions that combine elements of DJ production and a live band that leaves fans from coast to coast in awe. hey have played at a wide-range of large-scale music festivals, including Bonnaroo, Wakarusa, Ultra Music Festival, All Good Music Festival, Electric Forest Festival, Summer Camp Music Festival, Snowball Music Festival, and Global Dance Festival, and many others. Big Gigantic has opened up for groups like Pretty Lights and Bassnectar.

Big Gigantic is among one of the few groups that releases their music for free downloads on their website. Their most recent album “Nocturnal” is also available for full download on their website as well. In a TheKollection.com interview the group stated:

“We like having our music accessible to everybody, no matter how they get their music – torrents, iTunes, blogs, whatever. We want it there for people.” -Big Gigantic

Lalli has a Masters degree in saxophone jazz performance and has been making music for nearly 15 years. The duo used to live together and would do jazz and funk gigs around town in Colorado. After a little dabbling into music production software on the computer, they started making beats together blending electronic music with live sax and drum instrumentals.


They have been refining their sound into a genuinely unique fusion of saxophone melodies, acoustic drums and bass-heavy electronic music production. Their newest album, Nocturnal was released in January 2012. Their style cannot be classified into a single genre, but an exceptional variety of glitch, dubstep, drum & bass, and jazz that combines to form the essence of a funky groove.

Coyote Kisses

(Artists similar to Coyote Kisses: Big Gigantic, Ronald Jenkees, Flying Lotus)

 

 

  @CoyoteKissesXO

 

---

Coyote Kisses – Ferrari

 

---

Star Wars – Binary Suns (Coyote Kisses Remix)

---

Coyote Kisses – Sunny Day

---

 

Who needs coffee to wake up in the morning when you have the energizing sound of Coyote Kisses to liven you up a bit?! Coyote Kisses mixes funky glitchstep roots with trance, glitch-hop and house influences. They use a variety of synth sounds mixed with epic drops and structured soundscapes to create an astro-funk feel to their music. This adventurous glitchstep group will be pioneering their way onto the main stages of festivals in no time.

 

Coyote Kisses is comprised of two college students, Bryce Bresnan and Joseph Sussingham, both originating from the city of Lakeland, Florida. The duo formed during the summer of 2008 and Coyote Kisses began as an electro-pop project. The project exclusively combined vocals of the two artists with electronic audio hardware, piano and guitar to create a live-performance based band. As the summer came to an end, Coyote Kisses was put on pause, as both members headed off to separate universities to pursue their academic interests (Bryce- New College of Florida, Joe- Washington and Lee University, VA).

From the group’s sporadic communication over the years apart, Coyote Kisses decided to switch gears and start focusing on composing dance music in 2010. Investing in music software technology, the group’s music was reborn into its current astro-funk glitchstep sound. While their earlier compositions genre jump through several different dance categories. Lately, the two have been producing harder and heavier tracks. Utilizing structured rhythmic techniques inspired from several glitch hop and dub step influences, Coyote Kisses has started producing what they see as the reconciliation of the two. While the music itself is difficult to categorize specifically, many have given it an aptly named pseudo-label: “glitch-step”. The group said in a buzzndeezbeats.com interview:

“As for the future, we are both very excited about it. We are both full time students at very demanding universities , so during the school year we can only make music in our spare time. However, we will continue to do what we’ve always done. Set our goals sky high and never look back. -Coyote Kisses

 

The Acid Wolfpack EP was Coyote Kisses first release. It has three tracks on it: “Acid Wolfpack”, “Galactic Love Song”, and a remix of “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye that was released for free on the same day the EP went out under Burn The Fire Records. The EP hit #6 of the Beatport top 100 Releases, while individual tracks got some awards for themselves as well. “Acid Wolfpack” hit #2 in the Dubstep top 100 tracks and then got moved over by Beatport to Glitch-Hop where it hit #1. “Galactic Love Song” broke the top 10 in Nu Disco.

 

Coyote Kisses has big plans for the near future as they have a few shows lined up for the next few months. The group plans for their first tour this summer in 60 different cities. Unfortunately, both members are full time college students at the moment and it is difficult to manage their time. It’s tough enough to get spare time to work on music, let alone multiple weekends to spend out of town while attempting to concentrate on academic interests. Nevertheless, Coyote Kisses never seems to disappoint their fans.

 

Pretty Lights

(Artists similar to Pretty Lights: Paper Diamond, Michael Menert, SuperVision)

  @PrettyLights

---

Pretty Lights – Finally Moving

---

Pretty Lights – Only Yesterday

---

Pretty Lights – The Time Has Come

---

Pretty Lights describes the genre of his music as ‘ElectroHiphopSoul’ and that term couldn’t be any more valid. The soulful essence of Pretty Light’s tunes consist of abstract hip-hop beats that fuse electro qualities with vintage vocal samples, potent hooks and bold synthesizer patterns. The output of Pretty Light’s music features digital sampling that crosses different genres together, forming a brilliant combination of electronic roots with funk, soul and hip-hop influences.


Derek Smith, better known as Pretty Lights, is an electronic music artist and producer from Colorado. Growing up, Smith was involved in a few different music groups ranging from punk to funk. While attending highschool in Colorado, Smith created and produced hip-hop music but always had an interest in electronic based music. He used music production software for a few years until he felt that his music was mastered enough to finally put a project together. Timeless music (music that has the ability to stand the test of time) such as Pink Floyd, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin were all very influential in Smith’s process of creating his own style of music. Smith references the name ‘Pretty Lights’ from a 1966 New Years concert poster with Pink Floyd and The Who that read “Come and watch the pretty lights!” Derek Smith explained in a Spinner.com interview,

“Throughout your life there are moments that inspire you as an artist — and creative people sort of have this eye for the world where they’re always looking for things that are beautiful, cool or inspirational. It’s the little things throughout your day that can turn into a big inspiration creatively.” -Pretty Lights

Unlike most artists, Pretty Lights has ALL of his albums and EPs available for free downloads on his website with the option to donate. Smith has been remarkably productive in creating music for his growing fan base. He has released several albums and EPs across the span of a few years, including the full-length albums: ‘Taking Up Your Precious Time’ (2006), ‘Filling Up the City Skies’ (two fully stuffed CDs worth of material, 2008), ‘Passing by Behind Your Eyes’ (2009), and three EPs: ‘Making Up a Changing Mind’ (2010 EP), ‘Spilling Over Every Side’ (2010 EP), ‘Glowing In the Darkest Night’ (2010 EP).


The album, ‘Filling Up The City Skies’ was downloaded over 30,000 times from the Pretty Lights website in the first 3 months of release, proving that the Pretty Lights sound is not only getting around, it’s spreading like a virus. Smith recently released two albums on his newly formed record label, Pretty Lights Music. The record label offers free downloads for any of Pretty Lights’ albums plus Michal Menert, Paper Diamond and Break Science, all currently on Pretty Lights Music. Gramatik is the latest addition to the Pretty Lights Music record label with his first album, ‘Beatz & Pieces Vol. 1’ (2011), available for download as well.

Pretty Lights puts on a real show when he is performing at concerts and spends thousands of dollars on his LED light shows alone. Pretty Lights has been touring across the United States while taking over music festivals. As a result, he has picked up an exponentially growing fan base in which most of his shows are sold out weeks before the day of the concert.

Below is a new video (released 2 weeks ago) by Pretty Lights for his newest song ‘We Must Go On’.

Resources:

Pretty Lights Interview by Spinner.com

Pretty Lights Music