5 Artists You Can’t Miss At Decadence NYE Colorado

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. Don’t get us wrong - you’re not doing yourself a disservice by seeking out any artist on Decadence NYE’s 2015 lineup (well, except Jack Ü and Hardwell, maybe), but if you’re a true music fan, you can’t miss the performances that will be delivered by the following artists. ODESZA Seattle-based midtempo/downtempo/really-hard-to-categorize duo ODESZA are no newcomers to the Colorado music scene. During their early 2015 tour alone, for instance, they played three different gigs in the Centennial State and returned to Denver as recently as October. Nonetheless, between their rich aural dreamscapes and their improvisational use of live controllers during their sets, ODESZA stand out as one of the most engaging and respectable acts to surface as a result of the EDM movement. What So Not It seemed like the end of What So Not when one half of the outfit (which most critics speculated to have been the better half, at that) called it quits to pursue his own project full time. If what the duo just released as their last effort together is any indication, though, What So Not still has a bright future ahead as Emoh Instead carries on the group's legacy while Flume works on his solo career. The Gemini EP accomplished everything that What So Not has always been capable of, but without trying to recapture the glory of a bygone era. Seeing as how it’s been less than two weeks since its release, fans can expect to be treated to its genre-bending rhythms during What So Not’s main stage set. Bassnectar If you don’t like Bassnectar, you’re just not that Colorado. Dubstep may have been the awkward teenager phase that the rest of the electronic music world prefers not to talk about nowadays, but for music fans in the mile high, it’s a way of life. Bassnectar’s not strictly a dubstep DJ/producer by any means, but with acts like Pretty Lights and GRiZ blazing the state’s musical trails, its festival goers expect acts with more dimension anyways. Given that Lorin’s been a bass music pioneer since the turn of the century, he more than fits the bill. Hot Since 82 On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, is Denver’s rapidly growing house and techno underground. In what feels like a direct response to the culture of excess surrounding contemporary EDM events, warehouse parties at which DJs cue up nothing but four-four beats provide an arguably more sophisticated alternative to the status quo. British house music DJ/producer Hot Since 82 is certain to resonate well with this growing subset of the electronic music community. Aside from his already impressive credentials, he consistently puts out music which meets the sometimes impossibly high standards of dance music’s intellectual elite. deadmau5 By now, deadmau5 ought to need no introduction. His iconic style bridges the gap between electronic music’s bygone era and the contemporary EDM generation - between the era when progressive house was still progressive, and an age during which it’s basically engineered for festival main stages. But there’s a much more significant reason why he stands out as the single most anticipated artist on Decadence NYE’s lineup: It’s been a number of years since the “Ghosts N Stuff” producer even played a gig in Colorado. According to an anonymous source, following DJ booking controversies that would bubble up into a monopolistic practices lawsuit between two of Denver’s leading nightclub owners, deadmau5 began demanding outrageous amounts of money to play anywhere near the city. Allegedly, the bid put in for last year’s Decadence NYE was for over $1 million. Whether deadmau5 had a change of heart about Colorado or Global Dance moved mountains to pull together the kind of budget necessary to make the booking a reality, Colorado electronic music fans have waited a long time for this performance. Between his geodesic dome stage setup and his constant stockpile of unreleased music, he’ll undoubtedly make the fifth year of Decadence NYE a celebration for the books.