The psychology behind bass face and why intense positive emotion can make us look disgusted when we hear music we love

Ever wondered why a bass-heavy track can make you scrunch your nose, furrow your brows and look almost disgusted even though you are loving what you hear? Known as bass face, the expression often appears during the moments that hit hardest, whether it is a heavy bassline, an unexpected switch or a section that catches you completely off guard. Psychology may offer one explanation through dimorphous expression, which describes how intense positive feelings can sometimes show up through facial expressions more commonly associated with discomfort, aggression or disgust. A 2015 study published in Psychological Science looked at this kind of contradiction, giving us a useful way to understand why enjoying a track so much can come with such a strong facial reaction.

Why Bass Face Can Be a Sign of Intense Enjoyment

When someone pulls a bass face, it is usually a reaction to a drop or another part of a track they are enjoying intensely. It might happen when a bassline suddenly becomes heavier, a long build finally releases, a familiar track switches into an unexpected edit or a producer introduces a sound that immediately catches the listener. Psychology describes a similar response through dimorphous expression, where intense positive emotion can be accompanied by expressions we would normally associate with something very different. In the context of dance music, that helps explain why a scrunched nose, tightened jaw or furrowed brow can appear at the exact moment someone is most impressed by what they are hearing.

Aragón and her colleagues examined this across several experiments and found that people who showed dimorphous expressions in one highly positive situation were more likely to show them in others, suggesting that the response is linked to the strength of the emotion itself and not only to one specific trigger. The study also found preliminary evidence that these expressions may help regulate emotional intensity, which gives the reaction a possible function beyond simply showing enjoyment. Applied to bass face, this means the expression may become stronger when a drop, bassline or switch creates a particularly intense response, especially when surprise and satisfaction happen at the same time. In dance music, that gives the familiar bass face a clearer psychological basis, because the expression is not random but can reflect how strongly the listener is reacting to a specific musical moment.

How Bass Face Became Part of Dance Music Culture

The psychology behind bass face may explain why people make the expression, but dance music has also given it a recognisable place in the culture surrounding heavier sounds. In 2020, NGHTMRE, Subtronics and Boogie T released Nuclear Bass Face, using the phrase as the title of a dubstep collaboration filled with the kind of heavy drops that often bring out the reaction. DJs can be just as expressive as the people watching them, especially when they know a drop is coming, hear an unexpected switch or react to another producer’s track during a set, making bass face something that can happen both behind the decks and among the people listening.

Bass face may be most closely associated with dubstep and bass music, but the reaction can happen well beyond those genres. John Summit recently joked that “somewhere out there a house girly just made her first bass face” while sharing the Subtronics remix of Crystallized, referring to what can happen when someone more familiar with house hears a much heavier version of a track they already know. The remix gives that listener the kind of sudden bass-heavy moment that regularly brings out the expression at dubstep sets, while the joke itself shows how easily bass face has become associated with hearing something unexpectedly heavy or satisfying within dance music.

 

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That connection becomes even clearer at festivals, where the same drops are being played through large sound systems to thousands of people at once. At Lost Lands, a festival centred on dubstep and bass music, artists such as Excision, Subtronics, Sullivan King and Dion Timmer regularly play the kind of heavy drops and switches that bring out bass face from both the DJs and the people watching them. The same reaction can appear at festivals such as Ultra Miami when a bass artist plays a new ID, a B2B takes an unexpected turn or a DJ introduces a much heavier track into the set. Seeing DJs and listeners pull the same face during the same musical moment shows how bass face has become a familiar part of the way people physically respond to bass music, whether they are behind the decks or standing in front of them.

@everythingedm @bredzofficial with the epic bass face! 🦖 #subtronics #dubstep #riddim #edm #edmtiktok #rave #ravetok #electronicmusic #lostlands #musicfestival ♬ original sound – Everything EDM

Breakaway Music Festival unveils phase one of 2027 festival tour with Tampa, Atlanta, Ohio and Minnesota announced

The nation’s leading independent live music and entertainment platform, Breakaway Music Festival Presented by CELSIUS®, today announced the first four festival weekends of its 2027 schedule. As the U.S. touring festival series approaches the conclusion of a record-breaking 2026 season, Breakaway is making its biggest investment yet in each market, raising the bar across talent caliber, production quality, and the overall fan experience.

 

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Breakaway Music Festival Announces First Four 2027 Stops

Next spring, Breakaway Music Festival will kick off in sunny Florida with Breakaway Tampa on April 16-17, ushering in the season before traveling through a series of signature markets across the country through November. Following Tampa, the nationwide tour will continue with Breakaway Atlanta May 14-15, Breakaway Ohio over Memorial Day Weekend on May 28-29, and Breakaway Minnesota June 25-26. Additional cities will be announced later this year.

“Our festivals will always be the foundation of Breakaway, and in 2027 we’re investing more than ever to make each stop on the tour bigger and better than ever before,” said Adam Lynn, Breakaway Co-Founder & CEO. “This is a sneak peek at what’s ahead, with much more to be announced this fall.”

Breakaway Continues To Expand Its Platform

Breakaway continues to expand its platform through several growing business verticals, led by Breakaway Studios, its media arm focused on developing and producing original content and IP, and Breakaway 360, the in-house experiential agency. Together with its concerts division, Breakaway Presents, and its record label and artist development arm, Breakaway Projects, these pillars shape Breakaway’s broader entertainment ecosystem and create new ways for the brand to connect with fans year-round.

Breakaway Music Festival Continues Its 2026 Season

With the 2026 season still underway, Breakaway Music Festival has already welcomed nearly 160,000 attendees across its first seven event weekends, with six festivals still to come, including Breakaway Michigan August 14-15, Breakaway Mass August 21-22, Breakaway Philadelphia September 11-12, and Breakaway Carolina September 25-26, before concluding in Breakaway Utah October 2-3 and Breakaway Houston November 13-14, both first-time stops for the brand.

This year also marked Breakaway Music Festival’s landmark debut in New York City at Under The K Bridge Park earlier this summer. 2026 lineups were anchored by globally renowned electronic music artists including FISHER, John Summit, KETTAMA, Subtronics, Tiësto and more, reinforcing Breakaway’s reputation for delivering world-class talent and unforgettable live experiences to fans nationwide.

Breakaway Music Festival 2027 Tickets

Tickets for Phase One markets will go on sale to the general public on August 19 at 10 AM ET. Fans who sign up for presale access today will have the opportunity to purchase tickets one day early, on August 18 at 10 AM ET.

Register for presale access here: breakawayfestival.com/2027-season

Electrisize Festival closed its seventeenth edition with a record 55,000 festivalgoers, over 150 artists, and eight stages in Erkelenz, Germany.

Electrisize Festival closed out its seventeenth edition this year with a record-breaking 55,000 festivalgoers, more than 150 artists across eight stages, and three full days of madness at Haus Hohenbusch in Erkelenz, Germany. Here’s my Electrisize Festival review of the perfect sunny weather, good music, incredible energy, good vibes, and that rare combination of large festival production with a truly intimate energy.

Getting There

I traveled from Den Haag in the Netherlands using public transit the whole way, one tram and two trains within the Netherlands, then a train from Venlo to Mönchengladbach, where someone picked us up and drove us to the hotel, about fifteen minutes from the festival grounds. Easy trip, and if you know me and have read previous articles, you know that’s not always the case.

That ease was no accident. Electrisize puts everything you need, from shuttle times to travel routes to the full timetable, right on their app and website, which made the whole trip feel effortless from start to finish. It’s a small thing, but it says a lot about how organized this festival is behind the scenes.

We stayed at Hotel Burg Wegberg, a castle that also happens to be a wedding venue. There was a wedding taking place while we were there, and the contrast between festival gear and wedding guests in the same hallway made for some funny moments. Breakfast was great, and the whole place had that old world charm you don’t expect to find fifteen minutes from a festival this size.

We didn’t camp ourselves (as an elder raver those days are behind me), but we walked through the Electricity Campsite and it was impressive. There was a stage right on site, a full grocery store stocked with everything including meat for the grill, and people had some serious camping setups, home away from homes. The energy over there was just as good as on the festival grounds.

Stages and Festival Layout

Electrisize now runs eight stages, and the range on offer is part of what makes it stand out. This year’s edition marked ten years of Hardsize, the hardstyle stage, and fifteen years of Tapuya, the techno stage, both getting special anniversary treatment.

The Mainstage was a set of towering spires in white, purple and orange that looked almost like a futuristic skyline, with fog and pyro shooting out between them throughout the day. Even in full daylight, with a blue sky behind it and thousands of people packed in front, the production still managed to feel massive and immersive at the same time. It’s the kind of stage design you stop and just stare at for a minute before remembering you’re supposed to be dancing.

My favorite stage of the weekend was Tapuya. The lineup was packed with artists I hadn’t heard before and loved every one of them, and Stage Producer Jan Weber introduced a new industrial concept this year that completely changed how the crowd experienced the DJ booth. The setup wrapped around the booth with different levels, so you could be right up close to some of the hardest techno on the lineup without needing VIP access at all. As Weber put it, “You don’t need VIP access to be right in the middle of the action.” And yes, there was a swimming pool backstage, something I have never seen at a festival before.

 

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Beyond the stages, the whole site was built for chilling out between sets. Hammocks and chill areas were scattered throughout the grounds, and the pop ups added a fun, unexpected layer, including a pull up challenge from XL Nutrition that humbled me. I could not even reach the bar.

 

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The Hardsize Stage brought out heavyweight names like Brennan Heart, Sickmode, Ran-D and Coone for the ten year anniversary, and by Sunday it was packed shoulder to shoulder between the old shipping containers. Coone summed up the energy afterward: “Wow, it was absolutely packed. I think they should turn the Mainstage into the Hardsize Stage next year. It was that busy. Every time I come to Electrisize Festival, I ask myself, can we make it even better than last year? And yes, it gets better every single year.”

Ten years of Hardsize was treated as the milestone it deserved to be. Throughout the weekend, MC Livid hosted the stage, one of my favorite MCs in the scene, and having him guide the crowd not only  through th weekend but through a special ten years of hard dance history set made it feel like a truly special moment. The History of Hardsize – A Year Story was a special set consisting of Crest B2B Dropixx B2B Resensed bringing us all the classics we know and love got their moment, and it was the kind of retrospective that only really lands when the person leading it has been part of the scene the whole way through.

New this year was the Valley of Sound Stage, born out of a fresh partnership with the Austrian festival of the same name. It brought a small, intimate feel to the grounds, representing a festival that normally takes place up in the mountains, and it was a nice change of pace from the bigger stages. The Source, a new Experience Area tucked into the festival’s green surroundings, hosted workshops ranging from DIY pearl bracelets to Root and Bloom sessions, and every single slot was fully booked.

 

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One stage I did not expect at a mostly electronic festival was Thunder, a dark, indoor stage designed to look like a house, where live rock and metal bands performed all weekend. It’s not something you see every day at a festival like this, and it added a whole different texture to the lineup.

Camp Asbach was another favorite, a bar and stage in one, built out of an actual camper van, playing tech house and deep house in a cozy, low key setting that felt totally different from the bigger stages.

 

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For anyone chasing a change of pace, the Turbo Beach Club leaned into party hits, German classics and singalongs, the kind of stage where you go to let loose to songs everyone knows.

 

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The festival design overall was full of small, thoughtful details, the kind of thing you only notice once you start really looking around. We also took a ride on the ferris wheel and got to see the Mainstage from way up high, which gave a whole new perspective on just how big this festival really is. On top of that, there were fun pop ups scattered throughout the grounds, including an inflatable dart board and karaoke.

Music

The lineup moved across house, drum and bass, hardstyle, uptempo, house music and more, and there was something for everyone.

Showtek’s set was a standout, mixing the classics like Freaks on E and FTS with a lot of new music, and the energy never let up. We all went crazy to Sandstorm and L’Amour Toujours. When I sat down with them afterward, they told me they only had an hour and felt they could have easily played ninety minutes, especially once the crowd found its groove about thirty minutes in. They also spoke about what makes the Electrisize crowd different from other festivals on this scale: “I think the location is insanely awesome. There’s like an energy here that is really unique, and I feel like with the mixed type of DJs that are here, they can enjoy any type of sound. I think it’s great because right now it’s really hard to get all your favorite artists in one place. And if you look at the lineup here, it’s incredible.”

Brennan Heart’s set was another highlight. He played Nobody Said It Was Easy, and for once I actually made it through without crying, which never happens. He also played Wake Up, one of my favorite Brennan Heart tracks, and the whole crowd sang along to Time to Say Goodbye.

One of my favorite parts of the whole weekend was discovering new artists I had never heard before. I fell in love with Ben Techy and Kotorri, and Sonciz b2b Thyrze was also awesome and completely new to me. Finding artists like that is exactly what makes a diverse lineup worth it.

Food and Drinks

The food and drink options were plentiful, and everything ran on a token system, with four tokens costing 19 euro, so one token worked out to about 4.75 euro. Here’s a sample of what was on offer, though there were multiple food areas spread across the grounds with plenty more to choose from:

• Pizza (Margherita, Salami or Caprese) — 2 tokens
• Butter chicken — 3 tokens
• Spring rolls — 1.5 tokens
• Korean chicken tenders — 2.5 tokens
• Doner kebab — 2.5 tokens
• Currywurst — 2.5 tokens
• Pulled chicken sandwich — 2.5 tokens
• Fries with mayonnaise — 1.5 tokens

My personal festival favorite, as always, was the fries with mayonnaise, worth every token. Drinks ranged from beer at 1 token to cocktails at 2.5 tokens. My favorite drink of the weekend was the 24ice strawberry daiquiri ice slushie.

Atmosphere and Organization

What sets Electrisize apart isn’t just the headliners, it’s the way the festival is built around the guest experience first. I spoke with one of the founders Michael Frentzen about how the event started back in 2009 as a small open air party for 150 people, and how it has grown, organically, into 55,000. Despite that growth, he told me it still feels familiar. “It’s family, but it’s also a word that could be negative because you can’t choose your family, it’s a family I choose,” he said, describing what Electrisize means to him. “It’s not only with the team and the crew, it’s also with the audience. If I go to the festival ground, I almost know everybody.”

That family feeling showed up behind the scenes too. Frentzen told the story of the Saturday night fireworks Ceremony, which was delayed by a few minutes, not because of a technical issue, but because several members of the Electrisize team hadn’t made it off the Mainstage before the fireworks safety zone was closed. “I thought, where is everyone? I looked at my phone and saw the WhatsApp message, we can’t leave the stage anymore, the fireworks safety zone is in place. So I immediately called and said, stop. There’s not going to be a Ceremony tonight if the crew can’t watch the show together. The fireworks were already armed and everything, but that was never an option for me. Not without the team.”

Co-founder Raphael Meyersieck echoed that same sentiment, calling this year “the most beautiful, best and at the same time still the most family oriented Electrisize we’ve ever had.” Even as a first timer who has been to a lot of German festivals, I felt that vibe from the moment we arrived, everyone was so nice, I felt very welcome.

Fireworks and End Shows

Every night at 22:00, Electrisize put on an epic firework display, and it was one of the best parts of the entire weekend. Fireworks, laser beams and pyro all going at once, timed perfectly to the music. Friday’s opening show hit me harder than I expected, lasers shooting through the air, fire going up into the sky, and Don’t You Worry Child by Swedish House Mafia playing as the whole thing kicked off. Even though I couldn’t understand the German being spoken over the show, I got chills.

Each night, the fireworks went off in every direction, a wild amount of them, layered with a mix of different music during the ceremony. Everything was perfectly synchronized with the lasers and fireworks, and it was clear just how much planning went into pulling that off every single night.

Overall Impression

Electrisize proves that a festival can scale to 55,000 people without losing what made it special in the first place. It has all the production value of a major festival, eight stages worth of genre diversity, big name headliners, and still, somehow, that intimate, close knit energy that Michael Frentzen and Raphael Meyersieck built the whole thing on back in 2009. Moments like Time to Say Goodbye with the whole crowd singing along are exactly why you keep coming back to festivals like this. Plans for the eighteenth edition are already underway, running August six to eight, 2027, back at Haus Hohenbusch. This was my first time at Electrisize, and it definitely won’t be my last.