5 Underground Acts You Should Check Out At Electric Zoo

Electric Zoo commences this weekend on the famed dirtbowl called Randall’s Island in New York City. If you were willing to shell out the massive amounts of money required to go to this 3-day long dance party, then good for you. Obviously you’re going to check out all the headliners, but I thought I would enlighten you with a few artists you probably haven’t heard of yet. Be sure to check out these lesser known acts.

Feed Me

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrpFNLE4l5g[/youtube]

You’ll find Feed Me playing at 4 PM on Friday at the Red Bull Riverside Stage. A weird time for such a high energy type of music, but Electric Zoo has the tendency to organize things by popularity rather than relevance. But if you enjoy straight pounding drums and basslines that make you feel like your head is unzipping, then definitely don’t miss this guy, who happens to be drum and bass royalty in the UK when he plays under the name Spor. Did I mention that he’s the first artist on Deadmau5’s Mau5trap label?

Sub Focus

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdJgwf-_HGY[/youtube]

Hey guess what? Here’s another Brit…you’ll find a lot of them at Electric Zoo, because they happen to be at the forefront of the new electronic movement, championing musical genres like drum and bass and dubstep. Sub Focus, real name Nick Douwma, is huge in the UK, and even headlined Glastonbury last year. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get as much attention in America, so he gets stuck with a 1 PM set time on Saturday at the main stage. Rage it hard in the afternoon.

12th Planet

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFgntZ3oQi8[/youtube]

John Dadzie, better known by his musical alias 12th Planet, is a dubstep producer and DJ based out of Los Angeles. Originally making his name as a drum-n-bass producer using the moniker Infiltrata, John changed his sound and his name to bring the up and coming sound of dubstep to the world. But don’t mistake this as cookie-cutter womp-womp-womp dubstep that you hear blaring across the radio waves – 12th Planet features a dopey, minimalistic sound that few others can match up to – and he lucked out with an amazing 7:30 PM slot on Saturday at the Red Bull Riverside Stage.

MiMOSA

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXNwpAFIBQg[/youtube]

Hailing from SF’s Bay Area, MiM0SA began producing at the age of 17. Blessed with an abundance of talent and an ear for sonic experimentation, he’s developed a reputation as one of the West Coast’s top exports. While the majority of his career thus far consisted of pumping out downtempo dubstep, he’s recently started stepping into other genres, and is a great fit for his 1 PM Sunday slot at the Hilltop Arena, right before this next act…

Big Gigantic

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ZmzTDu09U[/youtube]

These are two guys I know very well. Dom Lalli and Jeremy Salken are a DJ/Drummer duo out of Colorado – but don’t just be quick to throw them in with mainstream duos like the late DJ AM and Travis Barker or Pretty Lights (for a short period of time before Derek Vincent Smith and Adam Deitch had a falling out), these guys are on a whole different level. Dom DJ’s AND plays the sax, and together with Jeremy they have some of the most explosive energy in the EDM scene today. They can rock out anytime of day, so their 2 PM slot on Sunday at the Hilltop Arena won’t really affect them. You best be there, or regret it for the rest of your life.