Pictureplane

An underground electronic music movement is brewing in the central time zone and Travis Egedy—or Pictureplane—is at its center. The 24-year-old producer comes from Sante Fe, N.M., but he recently transplanted to Denver, where lives in a warehouse called Rhinoceropolis. It doubles as a music venue and is the new-rave epicenter of the Rocky Top city. Egedy's cut-paste DJ style melds early ’90s smiley-face rave with a DIY noise aesthetic, creating a happy hardcore that bleaches ears and accelerates dance shoes. 

Egedy made his debut in the independent music press after remixing the track Lost Time for DIY-noise-engineers HEALTH (who he has also toured with) for their 2008 album, HEALTH//DISCO, which featured remixes of their songs by 11 different artists. On his 2008 album, Turquiose Trail, Egedy continued such explorations. High registering vocals on the title track balance with Bollywood beats on tracks like "Crystal Skull Caravan," creating an almost piercing sonic touch. That was the touchstone for Egedy's follow-up album, Dark Rift. On tracks like "Flashion (You Designed My Mind)," he found his sound—peppy vocals layered over deep house beats.  

Indeed, Dark Rift, his first disc to have wide distibution thanks to the label Lovepump United,  warps the DIY noise collages into dance-heavy club hits. The album mixes old-school jungle and aftro-beats with a teenage punk angst. Pictureplane's new-rave sound has a lot in common with the Trouble-N-Bass crew out of Brooklyn led by Drop the Lime, The Captain and AC Slater. Both reference the deep house and jungle movements of the early ’90s with dark and dense beats, all while adding a softer R&B touch to the mix. 

Appropriately, Pictureplane often sounds like a late-night warehouse party mixtape gone right—raw and dirty house music that is made to dance to until the sun comes up. —Jedidiah Gant