Written By: Devin Carillo

Drew Ressler
Drew Ressler
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Hard Summer 2016 made history last month.

 

Finally, mainstream artists such as Ice Cube, Designer and even The Weekend, who showed up for a surprise performance with Kehlani and Belly, were added to a festival who has primarily in the past hosted a mostly dance music lineup. Though it is quite clear after Hard Summer 2016, you could say the electronic music scene has finally made it to the forefront of the music industry, emerging itself into all different variations of popular music today.

 

Day one blessed us with some of our favorite sets coming from Dirtybird player, Justin Martin and the all-grown up French prodigy, Madeon.

 

It was a packed house at the Pink Tent for Justin Martin’s dirty tech-house set. Not only was it a Dirtybird kind of day but the basslines were just as hot. SF-based beat master, Justin Martin brought out his buddy Ardalan for an old school reboot of Mr. Spock. The vibes were incomparable too when the J-man closed his set with his hit remix of Stay by Henry Krinkle.

 

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Next up, the French prodigy Madeon lit up the Harder Stage with exclusive reboots of classics such as, Cut the Kid, and The City. But, it wasn’t until he dropped his remix of Martin Solveig’s The Night Out that it felt like EDC 2011 all over again – though in a bigger and better way.

 

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As heavy hitters Major Lazer, Dillon Francis and Boys Noize graced the larger stages, underdogs Amine Edge & Dance stole the show with an epic hour and fifteen minute set of non-stop house beats at the Pink Tent.

 

Best known for their gangster house remixes of Drake and Kreayshawn over the years, the duo is leading the scene with their unique multi-genre sound. Their single “Real Girls Fall, Fake Girls Talk” featuring old-school Chicago house producer DJ Sneak is a fresh start to their newly released FREE ALBUM titled, “Past Before Future.” That’s right their album is free for download on Soundcloud – scope it out:

 

 

So in light of the new EP (due out for it's official release tomorrow), we caught up with the Amine Edge & Dance crew at Hard Summer for an exclusive Elektro interview:

 

Elektro: So your sound is pretty unique, right? If you could label yourselves as a single genre what would you say?

 

 I would pretentiously say we are unique and unpredictable. You never know what is going to happen when you ask for an Amine Edge & Dance track… so it’s hard to explain into one genre.

 

Elektro: How does that translate into your sets?

 

We are eclectic, we have a lot of influences…

 

It depends on the mood, it depends on the crowd, it depends on where we are playing… this set was energetic. They (Hard Summer) didn’t want to chill, they wanted to rave.

 

Elektro: Being that you’re from France, does the old-school French disco-house scene influence your vibe?

 

We respect this kind of music. We like it but, we are different, we don’t do that kind of music. We do our own thing.

 

Elektro: So you’ve played some pretty big shows and festival over the years, what was your favorite spot?

 

EDC Vegas was amazing last year. We played in front of like 50,000 people last August. It was sick. I was scared actually. I was drinking a bottle of Vodka before because I was stressed.

 

We played after this EDM group, Krewella. You know Krewella? We played after them and we play house music, which is different, so we started off with some Young Thug (Paradise), you know some hip-hop to break everything and then we kept going with some house music and it was cool.

 

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Elektro: You know, this EDM scene is growing so big in the US. How have you adapted over the years as this scene is growing?

 

It’s not music. We just don’t like it. We never play this EDM thing. It’s a mystery to me. I don’t even understand how come people like it.

 

Elektro: So your album is being released for free right? Why did you decide to release a free album?

 

Music must be free now.

 

People deserve it. They support us all over the world and we like to give back to the people who support us. We try to be nice.

 

Elektro: So you’re hitting a pretty big tour in the US coming up, what dates are you most excited for?

 

Today. Hard Summer is a big day.

 

I also want to talk about two days ago we played at a small city in Texas, El Paso. It’s a small city and no one talks about it, but to me it was the number one crowd in the US because the have good taste in music. You can play some really underground stuff and they’re going to dig it.

 

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