There were several label takeovers at this year’s EDC Las Vegas, and we were happy to see so many people crowded the Kalliope Art Car to check out a set from one of Monstercat’s most creative artists: LA’s Grant Boutin. Having joined the label as Grant Bowtie back in 2014, his tenure with the imprint shows in his diverse array of releases, with many of his songs featuring the vocals of fellow University of Southern California student Jessi Mason. A couple of years ago, the producer dropped the last name as a milestone in his maturation as an artist, going on to play his first ever set at EDC 2017 and two renditions of Monstercat’s Uncaged tour in Asia. This year, he mounted the art car with zeal in a bright Yoshi shirt for another exhillirating hour under the electric sky.
Grant has amassed over 1 million organic Spotify streams, attracting several fans to his evening set at Kalliope. While he plays a plentiful amount of his own productions, he has become very clever about mixing things up to keep his audience excited. “Lately I’ve just really been enjoying Psytrance drops,” he says. “When someone who has heard of me and comes to see live, they think ‘Future Bass,’ but I like to throw the really unexpected drops and unexpected styles in when I can.” With a year of playing live shows under his belt, he still gives himself the time to tinker with his sets to see what works best to get his growing crowds pumped up at a festival. The new purple patch of Psytrance tracks released as of late serve as a great source of secret weapons in his flash drive for that purpose.
The best weapons come from his own studio, of course. Having the trust of iconic vocalists like Selena Gomez and fellow talented producers like San Holo to remix their music is an easy indication that Grant possesses the musical talent of a seasoned professional. “Lately remixes have been my absolute favorite thing to work on, because with originals I’m always like ‘How do I want to be seen’ or, ‘How do I want to portray myself,’” he says with a laugh. “I put so much pressure on myself before I even make anything. But with remixes it’s like ‘Here’s a vocal’ and I’m gonna mess with all this weird production, and I always make all of them so fast.”
Grant’s consistent quality is what makes his catalog so impressive, and his efficiency boils down to having the right idea about working on music. “I think writing music is always striking a balance between the time you want to spend on sound design and the time you want to spend actually writing a song and organizing the cool sounds that you’ve made,” he says. “Your creative process is so precious and you don’t want to ruin it for any reason. I think if you can spend one or two days or whatever period of time solely dedicated to putting together all of the samples that you think are the coolest things ever that represent you.” Smarter, not harder is the best way to describe his creative process, and you can expect a slew of great productions from his labs because of this.
Check out Grant on Soundcloud and look out for a slew of new releases from his labs soon.
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