“I think it's one of the best feelings, euphoria,” says Sara Landry. “Well, I like that kind of feeling.”
One might have already assumed as much before meeting Landry, whose soulful, physical, soulful live sets have made her one of the hottest names in dance music right now.
Today it appears in Zoom bathed in the faint glow of an off-camera light source. Other interviews she has done have mentioned her being given a green glow. this afternoon, it's magenta. Either way, the effect lends to the sorceress and so-called “highlight of hard technique” persona that the American-born, Dutch producer has developed, although the veil is somewhat pierced when a delivery man rings her doorbell. in Amsterdam.
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“I have to step over my pilates machine that's stuffed with clothes because I'm trying to clean out the closet,” Landry says, laughing as she turns back to the camera after grabbing a package containing new clothes for a scene. “It's been a long summer.”
A long 14 months, still. While Landry has been on the scene for a decade with singles and EPs dating back to 2018, she came into her own in August 2023 when she was frankly hypnotized her Boiler Room set it created, he says, “a wave of momentum.” This wave has become tidal as it bounces across continents playing bigger and bigger shows.
With all of this, Landry makes “hard techno” – a genre that has largely existed in the underground and festival side scenes since it developed in Northern Europe in the early '90s – a dark-horse entry into the mainstream market. live dance music. Landry debuted at EDC Las Vegas in June, and in July became the first hard techno artist to play the Tomorrowland mainstage in the festival's nearly 20-year history. She's sold out every concert she's played in the US this year, closed the Portola festival in San Francisco last month, released her debut album Wild Eyes Spiritual Driveby in early October and last week announced a series of headline shows, titled Eternalism, that will take place across Europe in early 2025. A press release calls these shows not just a tour, but “a spiritual gathering, a testament to of the power of collective actions.”
That may be true, and Landry has certainly developed a strong brand around her techno-witch sensibilities. The success he has found, he says, is a function of “settling into this comfortable knowledge of what my vibe is,” with that vibe essentially being a hybrid of hard technique and the meditation/sound bath realm of spirituality wrapped in black color. bodycon and heavy eyeliner. That identity, while compelling, alone wouldn't be enough to sustain it, but Landry has the music to both back it up and make it feel less like a knock-on and more like a natural extension of interests and of her art.
Born in the Bay Area and raised in Austin, Texas, Landry dabbled in clubbing and dance music while a student at NYU, where she earned degrees in economics, psychology, and advertising—fields that undoubtedly apply to her success as a DJ. After college, she worked as a data analyst in Austin while teaching Ableton classes, throwing parties around town, and live streaming through the pandemic. After meeting agents Bailey Greenwood and Annie Chung backstage at a festival, she signed with WME for North American representation in 2022, her growing presence coinciding with an increased appetite for dark, gritty, apocalyptic yet chic music on her stage of North America. (See also: Tale of Us' Afterlife brand success and Anyma's upcoming Sphere residency.)
The general consensus among many, including Landry, is that in these troubled times, people want analog hard music and a place, he says, for “high-energy, high-octane experiences” where they can forget about wars, elections, climate change. and other varieties of destruction and just touch their reptilian brain for a few hours. Of course, dance music has existed as an escape since its inception, with mainstream EDM offering that same space and freedom to the masses not by acknowledging the bad things in the world, but by putting out anthems that led to a moment of pretending it wasn't there. . Now, the scene is in a place where heavy sounds are embraced because reality is no longer so easy to ignore.
But also, TikTok. Beyond the existential angst, social media created the metaphorical pump for Landry and other young artists making heavy styles of music. “Specifically with hard tech, social media has been a huge factor in making it more accessible for people to discover new sounds and find their community,” Greenwood and Chung said in a joint statement, continuing that after the pandemic ” people were hungry for news. energy and seeing clips of these events going around made them want to come out and participate.”
Agents agree that dance music is having a major moment in the US, “but this time we're seeing different genres that have historically been considered 'underground.' push yourself to the forefront of the scene and come together in new, inventive ways,” a phenomenon they say has created space for new artists like Landry while also giving a platform to veterans who have been making this kind of music for a long time.
Being American has also helped Landry, as she can tour the market more than international acts with similar sounds who don't get to tour here as often. “Her team saw the value of investing in smaller markets and really set the stage across the country,” Greenwood and Chung say. “Our first runs in the country were really deep dives that brought the sound to often-overlooked corners of the US, long before that sound exploded here.” Indeed, in June Landry was the first hard techno artist to headline The Caverns in Pelham, TN, with two sold-out shows. (Landry is backed by CAA in Europe.)
While she considers herself part of the “second wave of electronic music that's really breaking through and entering the mainstream,” (a category that could also include new stars like John SUmmit, Dom Dolla and Mau P in) Landry has not predict her music to rank as the mainstream dance crossover of the 2010s. “My goal was never really radio,” she says.
Actually Spiritual Driveby not really top 40 material. Its 12 tracks combine hard techno foundations (heavy kickdrum, rumble, sidechain, BPMS ranging between 140 and 160) with trance-like chants, spoken-word lyrics about devotion and giddy rhymes about sex. Released on her own Hekate Records (which is named after the Greek goddess of the underworld and also releases music by up-and-coming acts), the album features collaborators such as Mike Dean, who worked on the title track that closed the album. Its catalog has 50.9 million official worldwide on-demand streams, according to Luminate.
“I've taken elements of whatever genre I want and just put it in a hard techno framework,” Landry says of her approach, “where the drums and the arrangement and the grooves are rooted in that, especially the kick drum . but then I do whatever I want on top of that.”
“Whatever I want” might include adding elements of psytrance, chanting and small injections of pop. Working on samples of music from artists like MIA and Nickelback “scratches a little part of my brain,” Landry says. Not everyone is a fan, with a certain number of techno purists following the style, a generally predictable development that follows in the tradition of many veteran dance directors who hate new pop-leaning styles and generally commercialize underground sounds and scenes. (See: basically the entire era of EDM.)
“I find myself wanting to do things that are a little bit more commercial than a lot of people, especially people who have been in the techno scene for over 20 years, might think techno can be,” Landry says. “A lot of this stuff is very simple, but I think it's just fun. I feel like parties are supposed to be fun.”
But he also recognizes that people are naturally protective of underground spaces and resistant to hordes of techno cosplay newcomers who might threaten it.
“Especially when you get into the underground scene, I think a lot of people love the music, but there's also this social value structure,” he says. “People say, 'I'm cool to know and I like that, and I want to stay here and be cool with my pretty little clique and my identity that I've made for myself where I'm way cooler than everybody else. the others”. People want to guard the gate, because they want to protect the space that feels cool and underground to know. But with the invention of social media, everyone has access to everything all the time, which is a blessing and a curse.”
“I understand why people are upset,” he continues, “because I imagine it's a bit like a loss of identity. If everyone thinks that this thing that I think is cool that I based a large part of my personality on, then am I a unique person? Do I have unique experiences? I can understand how that inspires stressful thoughts that cause people to lash out.”
While he will defend the people Given the attack in the crossfire of the dance culture war, he doesn't really have much time to deal with it either. She's touring extensively in the US, South America, Asia, Australia and Europe through the end of the year, with shows at Eternalism starting at the end of January in Amsterdam. Her team plans to bring this production around the world. “We're really only seeing the beginning of where it can go,” Greenwood and Chung say.
Meanwhile, here at Zoom in the magenta glow, Landry proves that euphoria can be more subtle than the wall-shaking percussion of any sold-out venue.
“It feels like the end of the first cycle,” she says of where things are for her today. “The first cycle of your career is working really hard to get to a point where you say, 'Oh, I made it. I have done everything I set out to do so far.' The place I always hoped I could find? I'm in this place.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/sara-landry-hard-techno-spiritual-driveby-1235810498/
