Lorin Gabriel Ashton, better known under his stage name Bassnectar (born February 16, 1978),[2] is an American DJ and electronic music producer.[3][4] With a career spanning several decades, Bassnectar has gained recognition for his innovative sound design and energetic live performances. His music and performances typically combine elements of dubstep, drum and bass, and various other electronic subgenres, often characterized by heavy basslines and intricate, layered production. Bassnectar has released numerous albums and singles, and his impact on the electronic music scene has been significant, contributing to the popularization of bass-heavy dance music in the United States.[5]
Career
Early years
When Ashton was 16 years old, he played in a death metal band named Pale Existence, which contributed to his heavy style of music.[5] In 1995, he attended his first rave and was immediately drawn to this new type of music, attending as many shows as possible, promoting shows, and eventually learning to DJ after studying electronic music production.[6]
Ashton began djing parties in the Bay Area and drew fanfare at Burning Man by playing multiple sets a night.[5] Around this time, several mixtapes were released under the moniker "Lorin", including Gardens, Dreamtempo Mixtape, and Freakbeats for the Beatfreaks.[9]
Making an appearance at the 2002 Health and Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa, California, it is believed Ashton performed for the first time using a laptop and controller in lieu of standard djing equipment.[10] It was also around this time that Ashton began formalizing his stage name, sometimes still booking under “Lorin Bassnectar”, before dropping “Lorin” altogether. His second album Motions of Mutation from 2003 and its 2004 successor Diverse Systems of Throb both garnered support from the Bay Area electronic music community, and through frequent sightings at various parties and festivals, his notoriety continued to grow. Ashton played one such event, Shambhala music festival, in 2001–2002 before formally returning to the grounds as Bassnectar in 2003 and kicking off a string of annual performances at the festival that would continue for 11 years straight.[11]
In 2005, Ashton signed with Madison House, a booking agency predominantly known at the time for its work with jam bands.[12] This move helped to elevate Bassnectar's stature at a key time as audiences became more receptive towards electronic music. Continued releases in the following years (albums Mesmerizing the Ultra, Underground Communication, Cozza Frenzy, along with the EP Timestretch) added to Bassnectar's popularity and influence in the ever-growing electronic scene in the United States.
2011–2014: Touring era and mainstream breakthrough
In 2011, Divergent Spectrum became the first album to chart on the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums, spending 35 weeks on the chart and peaking at 2nd position,[13] marking a turning point for the Bassnectar project from a commercial standpoint.
Following the success of Divergent Spectrum, Ashton released his 7th studio album, Vava Voom, on April 10, 2012. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart and remained on the chart for 15 weeks. The success of "Vava Voom" was complemented by a sold-out North American tour. It was during this period that Bassnectar was at the height of his touring era, exceeding 200,000 ticket sales in both 2011 and 2012[14] and playing over 150 shows a year[5] in venues across the United States.
Through the end of 2013 and early 2014, touring dates tapered off to allow space to produce his 8th studio album. Ashton approached the effort by first composing each song's building blocks electronically, then deconstructing them into guitar, piano, and vocal arrangements that could then be sent to various producers and artists for workshopping. The feedback collected from these workshopping efforts informed the finalized version of each track.[15][16] The resulting album, Noise vs. Beauty, was released June 24, 2014 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, remaining on the chart for 16 weeks. The album received generally favorable reviews, with Rolling Stone giving the album a 3/5 rating and noting the release was Ashton's "most mature".[17]
In 2010, the first of these events, named "BassCenter", was held at the 1stBANK Center in Broomfield, Colorado.[18] As popularity and demand grew, various curated events were added over time, including "Basslights" (a collaborative event between Bassnectar and Pretty Lights), Halloween and Day of the Dead themed events (sometimes referred to as "Freakstyle"), New Year's Eve celebrations ("NYE360"), and others, such as "Freestyle Sessions", "Spring Gathering", and "Deja Voom". His latest curated event was to be held in March 2020 at the Barcelo Maya Resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico, but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020–Present: Hiatus and return
In January 2023, following years of silence from Ashton stemming from sexual assault allegations, perpetual discussion from his fans, and rumors regarding a possible return, a new mix, titled Music for Optimists, was discovered on the Bassnectar Mixcloud profile.[19] Fans also received an email inviting them to a new website, "UnlocktheOtherSide.com", which would act as a “centralized hub” for the community going forward.[20] Later that year, a two-night concert was announced as a "members-only" show to be held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 6–7, marking the first public event put on by Ashton since playing at Okeechobee in 2020.[21] One month after the Las Vegas announcement, another two-night concert was announced and scheduled for October 27–28 at the Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina; however, immediate and intense backlash stemming from the abuse allegations and the ongoing civil suit resulted in the show's cancellation the same day of its announcement.[22][23] On December 30–31, Bassnectar returned to playing New Year's parties, as he had held since 2011[24][25] and continued to do through 2019, when he played a two-night show at the Palladium Times Square.[26]
The Palladium show was followed up by an announcement a few weeks later for a new curated event, titled "Boombox ATL", which was to be held April 26–27, 2024 at the Gateway Center Arena. Subject to similar public outcry as other recent show announcements, this show was subsequently cancelled.[27][28] Following this cancellation, the team attempted to relocate the show to The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas for the same dates, but on February 16, this show too was postponed, officially citing "health issues."[29]
Controversies
Max Hattler copyright infringement
In 2011, visuals created by Max Hattler, a German visual artist and experimental filmmaker, caught the attention of Ashton and his team. Before the end of the year, they began to repurpose select works for use in live performances, particularly Hattler's "1923 aka Heaven" which accompanied the track "Plugged In" by Rollz, and "Sync", which accompanied an unreleased Bassnectar song named "Frog Song".[30]
While Hattler was contacted by the Bassnectar team in 2013 to commission new visuals for the tour, a contract never materialized. For six years, the Bassnectar team continued to use the visuals, until in 2016 when Hattler learned of his visual's use without permission or compensation. After voicing his displeasure on his Facebook artist profile, Ashton attempted to apologize and mitigate the issue, explaining their use was above-board, citing sampling culture in electronic music and exposure benefit Hattler would enjoy stemming from the visual's use in live performances. Hattler refuted these claims, citing the business nature of the Bassnectar enterprise and the ongoing unauthorized use over a significant period of time.[31]
On July 3, 2020, Ashton announced that he was "stepping back" from music, amid allegations of sex trafficking, child pornography, and sexual abuse of minors.[36] He denied the allegations as being "untrue", albeit admitting that "some of my past actions have caused pain, and I am deeply sorry."[37] Following this announcement, past collaborators and artists in the electronic music community spoke out against Ashton and led fans to draw comparisons to other artists in the electronic music industry who had been accused of sexual abuse, including Datsik, Graves, and Space Jesus.[38]
Mimi Page, who provided vocals for a few Bassnectar tracks, including "Butterfly" and "Breathless", tweeted that she was "devastated" and sends "love and healing to the fans in this community who's [sic] hearts are also breaking."[39] DJ and producer Dylan Lane, known professionally as ill.Gates, who produced music with and had previously defended Ashton, ultimately reversed his stance and concluded: "I'm feeling sad. I feel used, I feel betrayed, I feel like my musical history is stained by this."[40] In response, Ashton removed nearly all their collaborations from streaming services. Others, such as PEEKABOO and Apashe, donated proceeds from the tracks they produced with Bassnectar and offered support to victims of sexual abuse.[41]
As of March 2024, the lawsuit is still ongoing.
Legacy
Bassnectar in 2008, using an M-Audio Trigger Finger to control tracks playing from Ableton Live
Live performances
Known for his mesmerizing live shows, concerts are characterized by high volume sound systems, immersive lighting and visual fx, and an "amorphous" blend of genres and musical elements, both electronic and non-electronic.[42] Reflecting on moments from his career, fellow dubstep artist Skream had this to say after watching Ashton perform at the Shambhala music festival in 2008:
“I played before Bassnectar in the Fractal Forest, I think it was, and it was insane,” he says. “I’d never seen anything like it. People were losing their absolute minds.”
One key ingredient in making these performances so captivating was Ashton's adoption of "controllerism", an alternative approach to live mixing compared to more traditional setups that used CDJs.[44] Originally making use of a pair of M-Audio Trigger Finger mini pad controllers, these connected to two laptops that each ran Ableton Live's Session View, which enabled the selection and cueing of tracks to be mixed together. Both instances of Ableton Live, which were synchronized as a safeguard against technical issues and to allow flexibility in the live performance, utilized custom "performance templates" designed by ill.Gates to more easily interact with the software and manipulate tracks in a creative way.[45] After the original Trigger Finger was discontinued sometime around 2010, Ashton commissioned 60 Works, a Minneapolis based boutique MIDI controller company, to create a new controller customized for his approach to live shows.[46]
In addition to the innovative mixing approach, another key element of Bassnectar's live show experience was an ever-increasing emphasis on high quality sound, making use of various sound systems over the years, including Anya,[47]d&b audiotechnik,[48]L-Acoustics,[49]Meyer Sound Laboratories,[50] and PK Audio.[51] Even as early as 2012, relatively early in the tour's infancy, several hundred-thousand watts of loudspeakers were regularly at the disposal of Ashton's audio engineering team. Over time, this number grew even larger, with hundreds of speakers regularly being deployed for curated events.[52] The reaction wasn't always positive, however, as demonstrated in 2016 when Bassnectar drew complaints from neighbors while performing at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado. While the city confirmed the show was within the permitted loudness levels, one nearby resident remarked during a city council meeting, "I thought it was an earthquake. I looked and realized it was bass."[53]
Bassnectar playing a "360" New Years show in 2019 in Louisville, KY
By 2012, the production crew had grown to dozens of people manning arrays of computers to orchestrate each performance.[54] As part of the "Immersive Music Tour" in the fall of 2013, the "Ultimate Nerd Server (U.N.S.)", a custom Ableton plug-in designed by [namethemachine] for the production, made its debut.[55] This plug-in allowed Ashton and his production team to more easily cue and manipulate video clips as audio tracks were being played, keeping the two elements highly synchronized in both tempo and feel, as any audio-effect manipulation while performing would affect the video as well.[56] Complimenting these video backdrops were expansive lighting and laser arrays, sometimes eclipsing over 100 individual elements.[57] While audio and video clips were always kept in-sync via the U.N.S, lighting was approached more improvisationally, with lighting designers making choices on the fly to accompany the music.[58]
Activism and community engagement
Ashton's personal views have been constantly intertwined with his Bassnectar persona, with public statements,[59] interviews,[60][61]samples in released music,[62] and even portions of his live performances[63] focused on the state of politics and human rights in the United States with a strong liberal slant. Words and sound-bytes from the likes of Martin Luther King Jr.,[42]Noam Chomsky, Fred Hampton, and Mumia Abu Jamal have been frequently recalled in various mediums used by Ashton, and in the earlier days of the project, long diatribes on stage airing grievances were not uncommon.
In 2016, Ashton was diagnosed with skin cancer under his left eye, for which he underwent surgery to remove. The operation was successful.[75]
Ashton has been a vocally anti-Trump, even offering to play a free show following the former President's impeachment in 2019.[76] The show did not materialize.
