When one thinks of the Milwaukee music scene, one usually thinks of hard-hitting Hip Hop music. There is a trend to what most artists from this city do, and rising artists usually fall into making this kind of music. I would guess this is partly because the local music publications and music promoters focus on highlighting Hip Hop music, so it makes sense to go that direction if you want to get your music highlighted by those promoters and publications(plus, Hip Hop is just naturally more popular amongst the youth here, and people gravitate towards making music similar to what they like themselves). Many very talented artists go against the grain and don’t follow the trends that most Milwaukee musicians follow that deserve to be recognized. One artist who does not get recognized enough in the city who has been making waves in the Electronic music scene for a while is shxde. He burst onto the scene in the mid-2010s, releasing their first EP Sorrow City in 2017. He stayed very prolific with their output from 2017-2021, releasing a plethora of stand-alone singles, with multiple songs(like ‘Numb,’ for instance) going viral in underground Alternative and Electronic music communities. shxde released their debut album, x, at the end of 2021. This project cemented shxde as one of the more exciting Electronic artists coming up, putting him on the map as one that needs to be paid attention to. Since x came out, shxde has done a lot of collaborations that have pushed their name out there more and more, helping him reach new audiences he has never reached before. This summer, shxde has amped up the frequency of their solo releases again, putting out multiple songs that are doing numbers and garnering more hype around him than ever before. Below I wanted to focus on their two newest singles, ‘Import Tuner’ and ‘Light It Up.’ Please let me know in the comments below how you feel about these tracks, and also comment the names of other up-and-coming artists that I should check out!

‘Import Tuner’ was shxde’s first official single of the year, having come out at the beginning of the summer on  June 9th(he released a slowed and reverb version of their single ‘Numb’ at the beginning of the year in January, but I am not counting that as an actual single). This track seems to lean into a trend that has become very popular in the last couple of years among underground Electronic Music fans, and that is dark, almost ambient music that fuses EDM Trap with melodic House music in a riveting and honestly freaky way. This is the kind of song I would expect to hear on an epic street-racing edit or a compilation of chase scenes from Slasher movies. The melody for this song is very looming and foreboding, being driven by fat, intense synths that have such an inky and ghastly tone. These distorted synths are put on a hard-hitting Trap beat that makes me want to rage the night away and run away from a monster at the same time. ‘Import Tuner’ is an epic, larger-than-life track with a riveting quality that makes me crave more music from shxde. The second single that I wanted to highlight in this piece is ‘Light It Up,’ which came out back on June 16th. This song is a bit lighter and less scary of a sound than ‘Import Tuner.’ There is something about ‘Light It Up’ that makes it feel somber and hopeful at the same time. The melody for this track is also provided by huge, all-encompassing synths that sound like they are coming from every direction. Even though I am sitting on the floor of my bedroom right now, these synths make me feel like I am out in a massive forest by myself on a cloudy day. These synths are put on a not-so-fierce Trap beat that sort of contrasts the extreme feeling of the melody. ‘Light It Up’ has a breathy, sweet vocal performance that also fights against the melancholy feeling of the melody. I really like how the vocals on this song bring the mood of the melody up, as it gives the song texture and life. Through these two singles, it is easy to see that shxde creates an epic soundscape through their music that can create so many visceral feelings in the listener. shxde is a unique artist who stands out in such an interesting way, and I am excited to keep following them to see what they do in the future.