Minnesota

Artists similar to Minnesota: Bassnectar, Digital Rust, J-Walk

  @MinnesotaBass

---

Minnesota – Push It

---

Minnesota – Push It

---

Minnesota – California Dreamin’

---

Minnesota has gained popularity while pushing the boundaries in both drumstep and glitch production and I am not talking about the state! Minnesota, also known as Christian Bauhofer, is one of the Northern California’s most up and coming DJ/Producers. His progressive sound blends dubstep roots with glitch-hop, trance and house influences. Minnesota is known for dropping heavy bass over carefully constructed tracks that focus on modal harmonies, chordal patterning and rhythmic synth riffs. Bauhofer looks like any other student but when the sun goes down his alter ego turns into DJ Minnesota at night into the morning hours.

In the past two years his producing has taken off, with both originals and remixes gaining great popularity on sites like Soundcloud.com. In Minnesota productions, big influences show through from songwriters Bauhofer looks up to — artists such as Mimosa, Martyparty, and Modeselektor. His first EP “Panda Snatching Tycoon” was released to great acclaim in January 2011 on Tycho Records, featuring three original tracks: “Push It,” “Purple Daze,” and “Twisted.” He has had the opportunity to perform alongside Datsik, Excision, 12th Planet and Lazer Sword. He explains in a press release,

“My goal is to make bass heavy dubstep/glitch hop music that’ll get you dancing, but it is not the same old three note transformer step, I try to focus more on the melodic side of dubstep, and hopefully, make quality songwriting a more relevant factor in the genre.” -Minnesota

Minnesota tracks are heard in dubstep/glitch sets all over the world, including those from DJs Reid Speed, Marty Party, Blackheart, and Rastatronics, to name a few. His latest and greatest remix of “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas & the Papas has been getting tons of play — most notably by dubstep trailblazer Bassnectar a.k.a. Lorin Ashton, on his current U.S. tour.

Minnesota’s career goals came further to fruition when he was signed under Madison House Inc. in November of last year. With the support of Madison House Inc. and Vital Management behind him, Minnesota’s career has certainly been propelled to great heights in a short period of time. In terms of production, Minnesota’s tracks represent major influence from song writers that have gained his admiration. Other artists such as Mimosa, Martyparty, Modeselector, have truly had an impact on his production and success. Yet, it is impossible to undermine the value of some of his personal favorite artists such as Bassnectar and PANTyRAID throwing his tracks down during their sets.

This hidden musical gem will soon be a rising star that will be getting the attention he deserves. Minnesota has put his college life on pause as he is taking a break from UC Santa Cruz this spring to focus strictly on music. With multiple EPs coming out on MalLabel and Simplify records in the next few months, fans will be excited to hear some more of Minnesota’s signature bass-driven sound.

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