Blog - EDM

The butterfly effect is perhaps the most poetic concept in chaos theory: the idea that one small change, even seemingly insignificant, can profoundly shape the future.

In the 1960s, mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz coined the term, which stems from how a tornado’s exact time of formation and path can be influenced by minor disturbances, such as a distant butterfly flapping its wings weeks earlier. If James Hype was the oncoming storm, a pair of DJ decks—a 15th birthday gift from his parents—were the butterfly.

“Where would I be if I didn’t get the decks I wanted?” Hype asked rhetorically in an interview with EDM.com. “All of my mates used to skate. I wasn’t very good, but I wasn’t bad.

“I made skateboarding videos. I got a digital video camera for $100, a really low-level one. I loved the skate videos because they had really cool music. Sometimes drum & bass or hip-hop. Cutting the video with the music was the most exciting thing for me.”

The decks weren’t a subtle nod from Hype’s parents to abandon academia for music. This wasn’t a viral Fisher-Price baby DJ deck moment. More likely, they were a thoughtful gift from supportive parents.

Hype was clever, studying at a high school that required testing for entry. Everyone in his graduating class left their small town for university—except for him.

“I wasn’t excited by academic stuff. It felt like a waste of time,” Hype said. “Music was the one thing I had, so I dove headfirst into that. I’d go to the nightclubs in Liverpool when I wasn’t playing just to be in the scene. Eventually, I made friends in the scene, and the music took over everything.”

It took time for Hype’s parents to comprehend his decision. He worked primarily as a DJ for a decade before taking off as a producer. He committed full-bore to music production in 2017, releasing numerous remixes and his first official single.

It wasn’t the path planned for him, but it was a living.

“My mom didn’t think it was a real job,” Hype said. “She definitely thought, ‘Oh, maybe he’ll do this for a year and find a proper job one day.’ I got to a point where I was making alright money and moved way from home.”

Communicating crowded dancefloors to people who weren’t there is tough. Translating a booming Internet presence to parents raised without computers is nearly impossible. Hype’s 2017 single “More Than Friends, ”which received one Platinum and two Gold certifications, was common ground for understanding.

“They didn’t understand what I did, but they knew I was surviving,” Hype said. “It wasn’t until 2017 that I made my first successful record and got a gold disk that goes on the wall, and it went on the wall in my mom and dad’s house, that they understood.”

This career retrospective came at a serendipitous time. Hype was one week removed from performing at BBC Radio 1’s “Big Weekend” in Liverpool when he sat down with us. The opportunity was a milestone achievement for Hype, one he never expected despite his wealth of accomplishments. It transported him to simpler times.

“When I was a teenager, I used to skip school, take the bus over to Liverpool,” Hype recalled. “It was so cool. They had record shops and all these inspirational things that we didn’t have in the town I grew up in. Liverpool was always magic to me. Liverpool is the source of so much of my musical inspiration. All the clubs in Liverpool used to play house music.”

Hype seemed lost in the memories, as if he were revisiting them for the first time. A young James Edward Lee Marsland, on the 25-minute drive between Merseyside and Liverpool, was turning the radio dial between 97 and 99 FM.

“That’s the station I listened to growing up, driving my first car,” Hype reflected. “I knew all the presenters. I was obsessed with Radio 1…

“Seeing ‘BBC Radio 1, Big Weekend’ at the top of the stage and then me below. I thought, ‘Wow. I never thought I’d do that.”

Hype cherishes the experience, but he doesn’t have much time to savor it. The Liverpool performance was early in a wild six-day sprint: EDC Las Vegas, London, Ibiza, Manchester, Liverpool, London (again), Philadelphia, Atlantic City, the Hamptons, Miami, Cleveland, Puerto Rico, and home.

His work rate had him down to the wire preparing for his 16-week SYNC residency in Ibiza, which he’s currently on, with additional shows planned for other cities. The new show blends Hype’s music with real-time visuals synchronized to his button cues. He promises not only a unique experience, but one championing his passion for non-pre-recorded sets, one of the electronic music community's most contentious flashpoints.

“I was watching a YouTube video about these guys who designed physical game shows. They’d make the stands with the buzzer and stuff,” Hype explained. “I thought, ‘What if we used this technology and me hitting the buttons into something everyone in the room can see?’”

Hype has become one of the most prominent voices advocating for live physical DJing, perfect flaws and all. He believes the booming online popularity of electronic music has helped combat the bloat of pre-recorded sets.

“I think the golden era of pre-record might be behind us,” Hype said. “If you go back to 2018, when there were loads of big EDM shows but there wasn’t so much online."

“I think everyone is conscious now of not doing anything crazy because the cameras will see us and it’ll end up on the Internet.”

Hype’s accomplishments read like movie end credits. But success doesn’t spark joy at a one-to-one ratio. That’s a hypothesis that Hype has reinforced over time.

“There have been a few periods in my life where I’ve achieved the thing I always wanted. I got there and I realized I was already over it. I wanted the next thing,” Hype said. “Sometimes, I’ll achieve something today that I wanted four years ago. I get it today and think, ‘Meh.’”

Hype’s diminishing emotional returns validate a classic sentiment: appreciating the simple things. He echoed a feeling recently shared by fellow producer Elderbrook, campaigning for journey over destination.

“We constantly chase things we want because we feel like when we get them, we’re going to feel fulfilled and happy,” Hype said. “If you’re counting on that, you might get to the thing you want and realize it won’t fulfill you."

“You have to find the happiness and fulfillment in what you’re doing every day," he adds. "You need to find happiness and fulfillment in going to the studio and making 10 records that are shit. That’s the grind you have to go through every single day to get to the one that’ll enter the charts or whatever.”

Hype’s career is the culmination of countless little moments: the first turn of an EQ knob, a short drive to Liverpool or the tedium of producing his tenth record that day. It’s good that he finds joy in the little things—after all, small flutters set his storm in motion.

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Hardwell has announced a special performance at Tomorrowland 2025, where he'll close the festival's Great Library stage with a throwback set celebrating the 10th anniversary of his influential debut album, United We Are.

The iconic Dutch DJ and producer is set to headline The Great Library on Friday, July 18th. The performance promises to transport festival-goers back to the peak of big room house music's golden era, when Hardwell's anthemic productions dominated dancefloors worldwide.

Released back in January 2015, United We Are marked a pivotal moment in the career of Hardwell, who had already established himself as a festival headliner but had yet to showcase his artistic vision across a full-length project. The album featured collaborations with vocalists like Jason Derulo, Mr. Probz, Amba Shepherd and the late Fatman Scoop, blending stadium-sized drops with melodies that ultimately proved ageless.

The Great Library is the perfect canvas for this rare throwback set. The stage is beloved by Tomorrowland's fanbase, thanks to its towering bookshelves, flickering lanterns and steampunk accents.

Tomorrowland 2025 will take place over two weekends: July 18-20 and July 25-27. This year's lineup features Martin Garrix, Swedish House Mafia, Eric Prydz, Charlotte de Witte, John Summit, Sara Landry and many more.

You can revisit Hardwell's United We Are album below.

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Above & Beyond have reunited with longtime collaborator Justine Suissa for "Bigger Than All Of Us," the title track from their first studio album in seven years.

The track itself blooms as Suissa’s vocals float atop shimmering synths, gentle shaker rhythms and echoes of reverberant percussion that ripple out like distant bells.

Explaining its production, Above & Beyond's Jono Grant said: "It’s a very simple track in terms of its instrumentation, but it’s got quite a lot in it in terms of the arrangement. It’s got a middle eight section, which is quite common in more classic song structures, and usually doesn’t appear in clubbier tunes."

When the iconic dance music trio set about collecting the stories that would define this next chapter, the song’s essence proved impossible to ignore. That became increasingly clear after reuniting with Suissa, with whom they released "Almost Home" back in 2021.

"She tends to write pretty fast, and her words come together pretty quickly,” Grant said of Suissa." Those words speak to the power of unity, a theme that has consistently underscored the group’s most beloved work.

You can listen to "Bigger Than All Of Us" below and find the new single on streaming services here. Above & Beyond's album of the same name is scheduled to release July 18th, 2025, via their own Anjunabeats label.

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Nitepunk is back with a new EP, the aptly-titled Lawless, a high-voltage dispatch from the rave's front lines.

Opening with "No Manners,” slinking basslines grind through metallic trap rhythms with confrontational precision, delivering the kind of unfiltered energy that recalls the Georgian-born producer's early underground roots while sounding sharper than ever. The same surgical approach carries into “fresh to death" (with dami), a sugar-rushed breakbeat anthem that modernizes 90s rave aesthetics. 

Meanwhile, on “What I Need," Nitepunk swaps brute force for sparkling clarity, weaving soul-drenched samples into track awash in synths without sacrificing the EP's propulsive nature. It’s a rare moment of brightness before the project detonates in its closer, “SPILL,” a collaborative blowtorch with SOH SOH. 

The volcanic energy of Nitepunk, who in 2023 was named by EDM.com as one of the year's best music producers, is increasingly being felt on a global scale. Earlier this year, Skrillex opened his explosive Ultra Music Festival headline set with an unreleased Nitepunk collaboration, an unmistakable signal that the red-hot producer is standing squarely in the spotlight. He also performed as direct support in San Francisco for the legendary electronic music group The Prodigy.

You can listen to Lawless below and find the new release on streaming platforms here.

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The electronic music community is constantly evolving with new sounds inspired by the scene of yesteryear. EDM.com's weekly Fresh Picks series discovers new music and unearths influential tracks that help define the underground dance scene.

You can find the below tracks on EDM.com's Fresh Picks Playlist. Follow to stay up-to-date and submit tracks for consideration here.

Electronic dance music fans are more likely to wear hearing protection at live events than fans of other genres, according to a new study published in The Laryngoscope, the leading medical journal for advances in the diagnosis and treatment of head and neck disorders.

Conducted by researchers at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, the study found that 70% of EDM attendees used hearing protection compared to 59% of other concertgoers. EDM fans are also nearly twice as likely to use high-fidelity earplugs, which preserve sound quality while reducing volume.

The study, however, signals an inflection point for rave culture. It claims that electronic music fans attend more live events for longer durations, reporting greater post-event tinnitus and trouble hearing others due to prolonged exposure.

Tinnitus, a chronic condition for which there is currently no cure, is the perception of sounds—like ringing, buzzing or hissing—in the ears or head without an external source. It's rampant among electronic music producers, including superstars like Martin Garrix, Thomas Bangalter of Dank Punk, and Alesso, the lattermost of whom recently suffered so much that he had to cancel performances en masse for the first time in 14 years of touring.

According to the study, EDM events regularly feature sound levels reaching 136 decibels, well above OSHA's 85-decibel threshold where hearing damage begins. To that end, attendees were more concerned about hearing damage and believed more strongly in the effectiveness of protection, while fans of other genres viewed hearing protection "as unnecessary or harmful to music quality."

The research also highlights the effectiveness of hearing protection at live shows. With the exception of ear ringing, symptoms after use were "significantly lower" among attendees of EDM events. The study also suggests that EDM fans often learned about hearing protection through social media and peer recommendations, suggesting the community's interconnected nature helps spread safety practices.

You can read the full study, titled "Safe Sound: Highlighting Electronic Dance Music Attendees' Unique Hearing Protection Practices," here.

With his masterful new album, Daydreams, Effin shreds his flashbacks, warps them and threads them back together with a palette of faded melodies and sawtoothed basslines.

Rather than offering a safe retreat into vintage aesthetics, the album uses memory as a conduit for Effin's wholly singular sound.

"Going all in on a concept such as daydreaming forced me to completely immerse myself in the theme, a challenge that ended up redefining the Effin sound and imagery for this era," he explained in a press release. "Just like a dream, it pulls you in and throws your imagination for a thrill ride.”

From the opening seconds of its titular track, a collaboration with NGHTMRE, he sets the tone with deceptive sweetness. Airy vocals and gauzy pads swirl until a jarring lyric ("my daydreams, it's more like nightmares") tears the arrangement wide open.

"Dreams Come True" doesn’t blink either, pulsing with the confidence of an artist who’s crawled through self-doubt and come out with something solid in-hand. “Bringing Me Down” sharpens this contrast further, its delicate intro lurching into a bassline that snarls without losing musicality.

While most of the album is a solo expedition, “Ups and Downs" finds Effin linking up with EDM.com Class of 2025 artist Tape B, with whom he bends retro radio fuzz and tinctures of saxophones into a woozy trip through tasteful doses of each producer's unmistakable sound design.

What makes Daydreams so effective isn’t genre subversion for its own sake, but a tight grip on mood and texture across all 12 tracks. There’s no sense of a random ID dump here. Even at its most experimental, the album never loses sight of its through-line, a kind of sun-dappled yearning that glows around the edges of every beat.

You can listen to Daydreams below.

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In an EDM genre often content with shallow euphoria, Martin Garrix and Citadelle dare to ask what comes after the high wears off in their new single, "Peace of Mind."

Garrix, the Dutch EDM superstar who doesn't seem to age, has always been a master at producing walk-on-air anthems that soundtrack the highlight reels of his fans' lives. But his latest is both massive and introspective, thanks in part to the Parisian electronic music duo Citadelle, with whom he collaborated to release "Alive" back in 2020.

Out now via Garrix's STMPD RCRDS, the "Peace of Mind" comes loaded with cinematic sound design and lovesick lyricism that explores our tendency as humans to chase the same moments in spite of their ephemerality. The stunning house track proposes that we chase highs not to escape reality, but to remember what reality felt like before we learned to numb it.

"I feel like we've been here before, and we keep on coming back for more," the vocals plead. "Set the tone in overdrive, now we dream with open eyes."

You can watch the official music video for "Peace of Mind" below and find the new single on streaming platforms here.

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I still vividly remember when I heard the song that would forever guide my journey into the world of electronic dance music.

It was sometime in the winter of 2010 when I was driving home from work, listening to BPM on SiriusXM Radio. As I drove down familiar streets back to my apartment, an unfamiliar yet uplifting track started, and the melody we all would learn to cherish kicked in. I was instantly hooked.

As you may have guessed, the track was Avicii "Levels." I didn’t know it at the time, but it ultimately kickstarted my deep love for progressive house music.

The genre at that time dominated the mainstage, with visionaries like Avicii, Alesso, Swedish House Mafia and Martin Garrix pushing its boundaries through soaring sounds that made us feel, made us connect—that made us, us. However, many would argue that brand of uplifting progressive house took a backseat to other sub-genres since its golden era of the early- to mid-2010s.

The question remains: Where did it go?

The stateside EDM boom after 2010 saw sub-genres developing and spreading like wildfire as listeners' tastes evolved, helping propel rave culture into the mainstream. But the book of progressive began to gather dust on the shelf for roughly a decade as genres like bass house, trap and future bass swelled.

But as things typically do in life, history finds a way of repeating itself. These days, it may feel like progressive house is "back," but it never left—and it's starting to recapture the same festival glory.

Look no further than Audien and his "Progressive House Never Died" series, which is beginning to evolve into a full-fledged movement. The renowned producer, who is gearing up to release his first album in six years, has consistently preserved and flown the flag of progressive house as one of its key modern voices.

"Progressive house was my first love," Audien tells EDM.com. "It’s the genre that made me fall in love with dance music in the first place."

c/o Prodigy Artists

"There's just a level of emotion in progressive house that’s hard to find elsewhere," Audien continues. "The melodies, the build, the release—it’s music that actually feels something. I think a lot of people still crave that connection, even if they don’t always know how to put it into words. That’s why I’ve stuck with it all these years. It’s timeless."

Many other influential electronic artists are following Audien's lead. After a massive performance at the inaugural EDC Thailand festival in January, The Chainsmokers said they're "quadrupling down on progressive house" and channeling the euphoric roots of their early sound.

The same goes for the legendary Swedish House Mafia, whose recent single, "Wait So Long," is fueling rumors of a new album harkening back to their vintage progressive house sound.

There's no question progressive house has come off the bookshelf. The dust has been brushed off and the masses are all reading again. But why the resurgence?

One core reason, of course, is nostalgia. Many of today's young stars grew up listening to progressive house legends, and just like us, the genre transports them right back to the early days of their journey.

Now so more than ever, the EDM community thrives on kinship, and progressive house represents a dream we all share: to connect over a shared love of the music that first inspired us.

For Audien, it's important to pay homage to that golden era while pushing the genre forward in unexpected, future-facing ways.

"For me it's about staying rooted in what made those early records special—emotional chords, strong songwriting, real storytelling—while giving it a modern lens," he explains. "I’m constantly experimenting with new sounds, working with different vocalists, and trying things that feel fresh. There’s definitely a fine line between nostalgia and evolution, but that’s what keeps it exciting. I want to honor the past without getting stuck in it."

PEEKABOO has joined forces with UK grime vet Scrufizzer for a new single, "One More Time."

Out now via Major Recordings, Warner's flagship electronic dance music imprint, the snarling dubstep track is vintage PEEKABOO. His filthy, frenetic bass sounds likes it's chewing asphalt as Scrufizzer's spitfire delivery cuts through with genuine menace.

All crooked basslines and breakneck syllables, "One More Time" is another showcase of PEEKABOO's genre-bending prowess after his brilliant debut album, Eyes Wide Open, which dropped back in November 2023.

It seems the bass music star is intent on cutting his teeth in the UK grime space after the success of "BADDERS," a fan-favorite collaboration featuring iconic grime MC Flowdan and co-production from Skrillex; and the Ganja White Night-assisted "No Room," which features famed South East London rapper P Money.

You can listen to "One More Time" below and find the new release on streaming platforms here.

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