As the first night of Decadence NYE in Denver, Colorado drew to a close, the last of the partygoers that remained in the Colorado Convention Center filled the dance floor in front of the City Hall stage during Gramatik's set. Their patience paid off, as the Slovenian bass music mainstay rewarded them with a never-before-heard track near the end of his set.
It just wouldn't feel like the end of 2015 if we weren't able to squeeze out one more piece of bad news for EDM conglomerate SFX Entertainment. After a year which saw disastrous stock value dives, high-profile lawsuits, major event cancellations and the flat-out endangerment of thousands of festival goers, it's been revealed that the second company of the same name founded by Robert Sillerman's partnerships with Spotify and TMWRK will not extend into 2016.
Every now and then a couple of artists tease a collaboration that makes the world of electronic music stand at attention for the weight carried by their names alone. Recently, progressive house heartthrob Kaskade revealed that he's got a collaboration with none other than bass music pioneer Diplo in the works.
We've made an important observation about the electronic music talent pool: It's incredibly male dominated. Now, we need to arrive at another conclusion - that efforts meant to support this cause such as DJane Mag's Top 100 Female DJs list do more harm than good.
As we've mentioned before, electronic music in 2015 was defined by the younger generation's eagerness to embrace more classic styles, even if only for the sake of defining their own identity as part of this musical movement. Claude VonStroke's Dirtybird Records imprint has been instrumental in this trend, and their The New Year Special EP stands as firm evidence.
In case the year end electronic music releases haven't quite satisfied your thirst for the avant garde, Hudson Mohawke has ventured off the beaten path for his final release of 2015. As part of music collective LuckyMe's seventh annual Advent Calendar music compilation, he's released a retro-focused track titled "Escape."
For electronic music fans in the Southwestern United States, no New Year’s Eve event compares to Decadence NYE in Denver, Colorado. In case the cutting-edge production values and otherworldly installations aren’t enough to make it the kind of affair that you and your friends would remember for a lifetime, though, this year’s edition arguably features a stronger lineup than any of the previous installations. Where in years past, artists like Pretty Lights, Krewella, Claude VonStroke and Wolfgang Gartner drew sizeable enough crowds to the grandiose expanse of the Colorado Convention Center, the fifth edition will showcase artists of a caliber that Denver’s discerning music fan base has deserved from a New Year’s Eve massive for much longer - and this time at a different venue, City Hall.
As another year chock full of electronic music releases comes to a close, the EDM blogosphere once again tries to speculate which tracks will be most remembered from the past 12 months. As a whole, dance music in 2015 has been characterized by a return to more classic styles, and this trend strongly reflects in the releases of individual artists.
Berliner Claptone has certainly been on the come up lately as far as house music DJ/producers are concerned, and it looks like he decided to close out 2015 on a high note. The rising talent released a mashup of Electric Light Orchestra's '70s classic, "Evil Woman," and his own production, "In The Dark" that's sure to resonate well with his fan base.
Porter Robinson's production chops are nothing to laugh at, and every so often he makes sure to remind his fans that that's the case. The downtempo/future bass superstar recently tested out an edit of Rustie's "Big Catzz" that sent his audience into an uproar.
