Lindsay Lowend courtesy of Sound Night Club

The label is called Symbols and Thursday night’s lineup was insane.
 
Artists included Vindata, Lindsay Lowend, Sweater Beats, and Kastle, the mastermind and founder behind Symbols Recordings.

Any true music connoisseur, particulary in the EDM genre, is elated to come across a sound that pleasures their taste while expanding their musical libraries.  Hundreds of libraries were either expanded or revisited when Symbols Recordings played their show at Sound Night Club, in Hollywood.

The stage overlooked a crowd that was packed in tight and was the epicenter of a monstrosity of an earthquake of bass.

The set of the venue almost felt like you were at some type of grungy caged in DJ battle that you heard about from a friend of a friend on the streets of Brooklyn, with a classy club like touch. Still the basement feel of the venue overpowered the club feel, which allowed the audience to experience a cozy vibe with the music.

“I love LA and so much of the fam is here” said New York producer Sweater Beats while sharing his love for the good vibes from the show, who in the future hopes to be “making music, playing shows and hopefully making a tune with Rihanna.”

Sweater Beats set defintaely killed his set but just moments before he took the stage, DC producer Lindsay Lowend laid it down DC style. 

The 20-year-old producer who discovered his passion for EDM through video games has a wide assortment of tastes in his music. The set he played at Sound exhibited characteristics of modern disco, drop tempo, house and hip-hop, accompanied with loads of bass. 

Along with his fellow producers at Symbols, Lowned has played with Ryan Hemsworth and is gearing up to do a European tour with Giraffage.

Lowend took a couple a minutes after his set to talk with me about his experience as young producer.  Check out the interview below.

How did you feel when Kastle hit you up to be apart of Symbols?

Really awesome. I mean I’ve heard his name for much longer than I’ve been producing. Eventually he reached out to me, I did this remix of Usher’s “Climax” and he just hit me up via gmail and said, I’ve been playing this out like all the time, I love it. Do you have any unreleased stuff? I was like holy sh*t yea.

So. I sent him a few things and that became my debut EP which came out on his label Symbols which is what tonight is all about. He’s like a really smart cool guy and he’s got his sh*t together ya know.

Who are your influences in music?

I would say my biggest influences are actually outside of dance music. I really like video game music. That’s kind of what got me into making music to begin with. I started making video game music. Like '80s games. Like the classic Nintendo sounds. There were a couple of guys this guys Max and Stephen two composers who write video game music and it’s just incredible. They really inspired me harmonically more than anything else, so I would say my harmonic language in my music was inspired by them.

Are you planning on staying in DC do you want to move to LA, New York?

I’ll be honest I went to San Francisco and it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. No wonder it’s like the most expensive place aside from Hawaii. I’m a big weather person… like nice weather. The vibes on the east coast are changing because of the internet. The entire nation is becoming more like minded.

For example, I went to Halifax and those cats in Halifax had the same attitudes as the cats in San Francisco. It was like they were from the same group of friends but they were on completely different ends of the nation.  Everybody loves their life in San Francisco, their not as stressed out as people on the east coast.  They love their life, and when you love your life, your more compelled to do good for others. It’s just a more unified city.

What did you differently than the hundreds of other of producers trying to make it in the industry?

Well I got kind of lucky, my brother who is also my best friend started playing Dance Dance Revolution competively. He showed it to me and that was really my first time hearing electronic music., a lot of the music in that game is trance, drum and bass, techno, and I was like this is cool. I was a big metal head, I was into like Van Halen, Ozzy Ozborne, I played guitar. By getting into DDR I  found this DDR simulator that you can install on your computer. It’s a fan run program so there was a lot of eclectic taste on there. I discovered people like Square Pusher Aflex twin and a lot of electronic music. It got to the point where I was like hold up, let me in on the action.

I started in the studio playing around with EDM then I got bored of it and start writing classical music. I went to ASU and majored in composition, for classical guitar. But then I started to hate that. And it was really the right place at the right time for me. Cause right when I was getting deep into classical music, Skrillex blew up and dance music became exciting to me again. So I was like ok I’m going to go back to dance music and then the rest is history.

What is there for you in the future?

I’m actually doing a tour in Europe with Giraffage and local talent; it’s 21 days long with one day off. It’s going to be insane. My 21st birthday is April 26th, the last day of the tour and its in Amsterdam. It’s completely coincidental; I’m super stoked for that.

Reach Staff Reporter Faith Jessie here. Follow Faith on Twitter.