Skinny Presents: Wave Racer

In the post-‘Glass Swords’ revolution against the dark and stark in electronic music, it seems there’s a rising network of young producers chasing an aesthetic that trades dense atmosphere for preposterous euphoria. The mood is always up: digitally-enhanced instrumentation; dazzling synth-sequences; layers of fluorescent sound design. Far from the leagues of po-faced preservers of a moody minimalism in dance music, these producers are eye-poppingly awake to new things. Theirs is a glossy circus made up of mad-cap video-game samples, fiercely pitched up voices and intricate fluctuations in rhythm.
 
In the wake of digital maximalists like Rustie, Cashmere Cat and HudMo, there’s one producer who's really silver-surfing this crest: Wave Racer, the young Sydney-based poster-boy to Australia’s ever-growing Future Classic label (home also to Chet Faker, Ta-Ku and Flume). Though he’s obviously standing on the shoulders of giants, his aesthetic is distinctly unique – a neon universe inhabited by shimmering dolphin .gifs and soundtracked by bubbling arpeggios and ecstatic vocoders. Somewhere between the sublime and the ridiculous, the sparkling final product is always – always – fun.

Following a debut double single, a remix collaboration with Ryan Hemsworth, plus a whole string of deliriously poppy remixes along the way, Wave Racer is now rattling through a string of international dates. Our man Skinny caught him for an afternoon in London to talk inspirations, influences and future plans, together with an exclusive mix.