A mutual interest and passion so driving that it brought together two Western Washington University students who were studying totally different subjects. The love for the music: that’s what it’s all about and hasn’t it always been? Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight started collaborating in their senior year, in 2012 and it just clicked. Their chemistry was unerring and the pair worked prolifically, which ended up carving out an unusually overwhelming sound with glitched out vocals, soaring, instinctive melody and ear-gripping drums. This rich pair-up brought an astonishing entity to reality, which we know as ODESZA. The Electronica/Indie Dance duo’s work is hard to confine in a single genre. In a meager amount of time, ODESZA has earned a stupendous amount of fan following and admiration in the scene which determines the character of the duo’s music and their nature towards their work.
Mills, individually known as Catacombkid, and Knight, as BeachesBeaches, quickly released ODESZA‘s debut LP, Summer’s Gone, on September 5 in the very same year of 2012. Their work stood out (and it still does) from the run off the mill, charts topping tracks. The album connected with the listeners emotionally and two songs from Summer’s Gone – “How Did I Get Here” and “iPlayYouListen” – instantly leaped to #1 on the Hype Machine Popular Chart. ODESZA began to make evangelical fans and started playing live shows!
After two iconic milestones for ODESZA: having performed their first show in Nov 2012 and hitting 1 million Soundcloud plays, in 2013 they released My Friends Never Die EP, with three of the five tracks topping Hype Machine. It was hard to stop now for ODESZA and hence started relentless touring, including dates with numerous festival performances including Sasquatch Music Festival and Lightning In A Bottle. Thrown in at the deep end, ODESZA leveled up with a live setup to match their recordings instead of just playing recorded music.
The duo started playing to larger and larger crowds when Pretty Lights asked them to be the support act on his Analog Future Tour in the fall of 2013 and to remix “One Day They’ll Know,” which also gained enormous support from the audience. Later that year, ODESZA selected their favorite producers for a follow-up remix EP, My Friends Never Die Remixes, and launched the energetic, ongoing mixtape and eventual party series NO.SLEEP.
In the February of 2014, ODESZA released their first single “Sun Models” featuring Madelyn Grant, from their forthcoming second album. Without breaking the streak, it too hit #1 on Hype Machine. In March 2014, the duo’s remix of Pretty Lights’ “Lost And Found” was released on the movie soundtracks for DIVERGENT, and it also carried on the tradition by hitting #1 on Hype Machine.
While Mills and Knight headed back into the studio, putting the finishes touches to their forthcoming second album, a sold-out North American tour was waiting for them in Spring 2014, culminating in a performance at Coachella. The duo’s remix of ZHU’s hit “Faded” was released afterward, to give the ever-growing legion of fans something to hold on till the album comes out. And to no surprise, the remix entered straight in the league of their #1s on the Hype Machine, making the count in double figures.
In the summer of 2014, the duo visited Australia to play a series of live dates and then headed to North America for the festivals like Electric Forest, Coachella, HARD Summer Music Festival, Lollapalooza, to name a few. In the September of 2014, the duo released their highly anticipated sophomore album, In Return, which not only delivered on the promise of their previous work but also leveled up as a start-to-finish stunner of pop-infused, electronic masterpiece, scattered with irresistible hooks and compelling atmosphere, featuring the vocals from Zyra, Py, Shy Girls and Madelyn Grant. They also developed a new live performance to ensure that the shows do the justice to the album.
The album release was followed by sold-out performances in their North American tour, playing bigger and bigger places and crowds. One of the many great aspects about ODESZA is the pace they have jumped to where they are today, a tangible proof to just how refreshing and exciting their music is. ODESZA has also been commissioned to make remixes for Hayden James, Sia, Charli XCX, RAC, Angus & Julia Stone, Slow Magic, Ki:Theory and many more to come.
The duo has already capitalized on the success of their NO.SLEEP mix and party series by launching Foreign Family Collective, a new record label for musicians and visual artists equally curated by ODESZA themselves. The debut release on the Foreign Family Collective was the huge R&B/electronic pop banger, “Fiend,” from Troy Samuela & Monsoonsiren. Many more releases from the cutting edge producers and graphic artists to follow, creating the infinite possibilities for the young talent.
Other than My Friends Never Die Remixes, to add to the list of the remix albums, the duo also has released the Say My Name Remixes and All We Need Remixes in 2014 and 2015 respectively. For the remix album of Say My Name Remixes, the duo held a remix competition and released the top 7 of the entries.
Poised to become one of electronic music’s biggest breakout stories of 2014/2015, ODESZA looks promising to become one of the music’s biggest names in years to come. After having released both of the studio albums and the first EP in the month of September, the duo is now set to release the Deluxe Edition of their sophomore album, In Return, also in month of this September, on the 18th. Considering the love of the duo for the month of September, (Which might just be a coincidence, too.) for this September, we give you ODESZA, as the Artist Of The Month!
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