He’s worked for many of “the greats,” from Tipper and The Rolling Stones to Pretty Lights, The String Cheese Incident, and Skrillex’s From First To Last. He’s worked with established artists such as EPROM, CloZee, Shlump, Boogie T, and so many more. He’s even made time to work alongside rising stars in the bass music sector, including Jade Cicada and sfam. So without further ado, here’s our Top Visual Artists in the EDM Industry.Ĭollaboration in the name of creation is the energy that defines Glass Crane’s artistic output. Narrowing down the list was no walk in the park, which is why we couldn’t even limit the list to ten artists. The entire CE team devoted countless hours of editorial attention and conversation, along with intensive research, ethical concerns, and a democratic voting process, to create our meticulous selection method. This is a tribute to the animators and the illustrators, the engineers and the technical gurus, the vision movers and sight activators, the imagination shakers and the illuminating tastemakers-all of whom bring music to the visual dimension.
That’s why Conscious Electronic is bringing our readership the second feature-length piece in a two-part series honoring the industry creatives behind-the-booth. Last week saw the team’s Top Ten picks for lighting designers in dance music. Now comes the time to pay respects to the visual artists who are causing ripples and making waves across the industry. So where does the source of live music’s power lay? Does it resonate from sound frequencies alone? Does it reside in the visible wavelength of the light spectrum? Or does it emanate from the moving animations projected from complex computer algorithms? Perhaps all of the above, because they are all conscious processes of creation. Most of all, music is highly technical at its core. It’s limitless, psychosomatic, and beautifully inexplicable. Once audience members begin reaching towards their transcendence from the constraints of time and space, music encourages us to activate the seventh, eighth, and ninth senses, and perhaps move beyond them. Once concert-goers buy into their own redemption from the mind, music invites us to move into the sixth sense as we explore entirely new planes of existence.
As a fully-embodied enterprise that stimulates all five human sense, the creative process on-stage incites emotion, taps into thoughts, and knocks on the door of one’s own consciousness. It goes way beyond what we hear with our ears. Live music is so much more than what one is experiencing aurally. Even less times do mainstream fans stop to appreciate how critical these visual artists are to fostering the powerful, universal moment of connection that happens in live music. Rarely, though, do music fans pause to reflect on the creatives who propelled the musician into this optic center in the first place. All too often, DJs and producers are afforded rock-and-roller status, lavish lifestyles of the rich and the famous, and a mass-scale influence that extends far beyond the decks. This privileged positioning carries into off-stage life as well. Quite literally, they sit centerstage, perched on high as a zenith over the audience, and beneath the brightest spotlight. In the commercially-dense era of so-called “EDM,” musical artists enjoy life at the focal point of the world’s attention.