There was a time not too long ago when the US dance music scene seemed to be dominated by heavy dubstep beats and melodic future bass anthems, introduced to mainstream charts by acts such as Skrillex, The Chainsmokers, Marshmello, and many others. For some reason, the European dance music scene kept being dominated by house music and techno. Only a few spots in Europe managed to establish a local bass music scene, usually led by some artists who kept pushing hard enough till they found some recognition. Two of those spots were placed in the middle of the Alps in Northern Italy and Austria.
Back in 2010 when Skrillex released his first EP titled ‘My Name Is Skrillex’ an event series called LOVEELECTRO! Festival started to emerge in South Tyrol, Northern Italy. They quickly became well known in parts of Europe as one of the most famous EDM event series at that time and hosted acts like Cyberpunkers, KOANM Sound, and Fukkk Offf. They sold out every single edition in their first years and inspired a bunch of young artists to produce electronic music. One of these artists was Subsurface, who later became residents at the event series and got picked up by the major festival Electric Love Festival in Salzburg, Austria. Together with Austrian natives WestMB they managed to introduce Dubstep music to the more Drum & Bass oriented audience and became known as some of the local pioneers of bass music in those areas. That’s when Dubstep music started to gain some more recognition in Northern Italy and Austria and bass music events started to emerge. With the rise of future bass music in 2017 and releases on Trap City, local artists Subsurface finally managed to bring the genre to the main stages in their hometown area and secured their role as pioneers of bass music in Northern Italy and parts of Austria.
On one hand, we had LOVE ELECTRO! Festival hosting most of their events at Club Max in South Tyrol, bringing out headliners like Flux Pavilion, Modestep, Kayzo, and Virtual Riot to a region with lower population density than parts of Nevada. On the other hand, we had Salzburg area, where clubs like Die Kantine, one of the best known underground clubs of Austria started to bring out acts like Skism, Funtcase, and Doctor P on a regular basis and major festival Electric Love Festival packed their Club Circus stage with acts like Pegboard Nerds, Zomboy, Nitti Gritti, and Snails just to name a few. Time will tell if the bass music scene will survive the COVID-19 pandemic in these areas and bass heads will return to the clubs and festivals for some hard-hitting bass music beats. In the meantime, you can check out two of the bass performances at Electric Love Festival 2019 Salzburg below.
