Flume (2022)

One Liner: EDM guy

Wikipedia Genre: Electronic, future bass, experimental, hyperpop, trap, hip hop, pop, electropop
Home: Sydney, Australia

Poster Position: 1
Both Weekends.  Saturday.

Thoughts:  Another big EDM guy for the top of the poster.  For some reason, I thought this was going to be jam band music.  Not so much.  This is electronic music, not the new EDM sound, but the more traditional dance electronic music that was the proper electro sound before the BASS-DROP-BROS-4-EVA movement came into vogue.  As you can tell from that last sentence, I know squat-all about electronic music and the actual name for this type of music. Spotify tells me he was "inspired by house and U.K. garage."  Mmmkay.  This is one dude, named Harley Edward Sterten, who seems to use a lot of guest singers to so their thing over the top of his computer sounds. Reminds me a little of Disclosure, except I think they do it better.

A flume is a man-made channel for transporting material using water.  Like, a big elevated channel of water that a logging operation can use to push logs down the flume.  Or, like I just saw recently, they can be used in gold mining to sluice water from a stream over through screens to capture the valuable metals.

Strange thing to understand too, as like the Diplo guy, most of his songs are collaborations with other folks.  Like his third most popular track is one with Chet Faker (at ACL last year, and really good!), who ostensibly will not be at the festival to sing his vocals, meaning that either that song doesn't get played, the vocals are just recorded, or it is an instrumental?  Just odd to have such a difference between your recorded tunes and what you are able to do in person.  (I know, probably not that odd, but I'm just not an EDM guy).

His most popular track has someone named Kai doing the singing over a glitchy, spastic beat filled with gaps and odd measures.  630 million streams for "Never Be Like You," from 2016's Skin.

Meh.  Sounds like any other woozy EDM track with a replaceable singer.  Could be any dude with a laptop and any lady with a strong voice.  I don't hear anything special in it.  Meanwhile, to show you what I know, it was up for a Grammy and the entire album won the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic album in 2017.

Funny anecdote in his Wikipedia bio is that he started making electronic music after getting a basic DJ and mixing program CD for Windows in a box of cereal.  He used that disc to learn the ropes and get started down this musical path.  And because that story is so wholesome, here is the opposite end of that spectrum: "A viral Instagram video shared by Streten's then-girlfriend actress Paige Elkington on 2 September 2019 with the caption 'Sorry Mom' showed Streten performing anilingus on her during a performance at Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada. Although quickly removed from the platform, the post was circulated widely on social media and shared by a range of news outlets. Despite the many reactions from the video and how it was negatively portrayed in tabloids, the publicity had a positive influence on his career. In an interview about the incident hosted by Elkington, he said "I got the opposite of being canceled." "  So there you go.

His first release was an eponymous 2012 album.  The top track from that one is called "Holdin On," with 137.4 million streams.  

Hahaha.  That started playing, and some synapse in my brain fired up saying wait, I've heard that song before, right?  It's because this dude has already been to ACL.  He was on the second line of the poster back in 2016.  And the two songs that I provided up above were the exact same two songs that I provided back in 2016 when I reviewed him.  That is funny.

Funky shit in that song.  MUCH better than the one with Kai up above.  And now, watching that video, I kinda like the guy even more.  He looks like a damn kid, pimples and all, but is having a bad ass time, rocking big crowds and making it happen.  Pretty awesome.  And that song is dope too.  None of his other tracks on that album are as good as that one, in my opinion, but he does have a remix album (listed as the second disc to a deluxe edition on Spotify) with a bunch of American rappers doing cool stuff over his tunes.  I'm a sucker for Ghostface and Killer Mike, so those two are pretty sweet, and the "Warm Thoughts" version, with someone named GrandeMarshall and Goldie Glo is cool.  However, the plain remixes on this deluxe disc, without new rappers spicing things up, are super boring.

After 2016's Skin, he's released a bunch of remixes of those songs, and then a mixtape called Hi This is Flume (glitchy and kind of annoying?) before his most recent album, 2022's Palaces.  The top track from Palaces is "Say Nothing" featuring a person named MAY-A, with 23.4 million streams.

Oh, well he's sure had a glow up since that Holdin On video!  But that track is even more generic than the "Never Be Like You" song.  Not doing anything for me at all here.  (but you should read the YouTube comments - there are folks out there who freaking LOOOOOVE this guy.)  This album is really out there - many of the songs are super glitchy and crazy sounding - nothing like that generic stuff up there.

I'm good - hope everyone goes to see him and leaves the other headliners for me!